The republican 2nd Legion fought for Pompey in Spain early in the Civil War, surrendered to Caesar in 49 BC, then defected back to the senatorial side and fought for Pompey’s sons until the defeat at Munda in 45 BC, after which it would have again been folded into Caesar’s army. By AD 30, it was part of Augustus’ standing army and marching into northern Spain to take part in the Cantabrian Wars. For its service in this conflict the legion gained the “Augusta” honorific from Augustus.
By AD 9 the legion was on the Rhine, and five years later, commanded by Publius Vitellius, uncle of future emperor Aulus Vitellius, it was playing a leading role in Germanicus Caesar’s German campaigns. In AD 17, with Germanicus’ recall from the Rhine, the legion was transferred to Argentoratum, today’s Strasbourg.
In AD 43, it was one of four legions that took part in Claudius’ invasion of Britain. Under the command of the future emperor Vespasian, then a praetor, the 2nd Augusta drove along the south coast of England in a blisteringly efficient drive that overran all opposition, fighting thirty battles, storming twenty Celtic towns, and occupying the Isle of Wight.
The 2nd Augusta halted its advance at Isca Dumnoniorum, capital of the Dunmoni tribe, today’s Exeter. There, it built a 42-acre (17-hectare) permanent camp which became its base for several decades. The legion was there in AD 60 at the time of the Boudiccan Revolt, when its camp-prefect famously ignored orders to march the legion to the support of the province’s governor, Suetonius Paulinus; the legion’s disgraced camp-prefect later committed suicide.
In AD 67, elements of the legion transferred to Glevum, today’s Gloucester. Eight years later, the entire legion moved to Isca, modern Caerleon, in Wales, at which time the Exeter base was entirely abandoned. Between AD 122 and 136, 2nd Augusta vexillations participated in the construction of Hadrian’s Wall across northern Britain.
By AD 290, the 2nd Augusta had systematically dismantled its base at Isca in Wales and transferred to Carpow in Scotland, where it was needed to deal with the invading Picts and Scots. By around AD 390, the legion was located at Richborough in Kent. But the unit had been greatly reduced; its base at Richborough was only a tenth of the size it had occupied at Isca, and this unit—renowned for its exploits under Augustus, Germanicus and Vespasian—ended its days reduced to a small frontier guard unit under the command of the Count of the Saxon Shore.
2ND ITALICA LEGION
LEGIO II ITALICA
2nd Italian Legion
EMBLEM:
She-wolf and twins.
BIRTH SIGN:
Capricorn.
FOUNDATION:
In Italy, by Marcus Aurelius, c. AD 165.
RECRUITMENT AREA:
Originally Italy.
POSTINGS:
Aquileia, Locica, Albing, Lauriacum.
BATTLE HONORS:
Relief of Aquileia, AD 169.
Marcus Aurelius’ German Wars, AD 165–175.
FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL, NOT GLORY
Raised by Marcus Aurelius in Italy for his wars against the Germans, it would spend its career fighting on the Danube.
As indicated by its Capricorn birth sign and numismatic evidence, the 2nd Italica Legion was founded in Italy by Marcus Aurelius during the winter of AD 164–165, when German tribes were storming across the Danube into Pannonia, Dalmatia and even into northern Italy. The legion’s emblem, the she-wolf and twins, reflects the fact that it was born at the same time and in the same place as its brother unit the 3rd Italica.
The 2nd Italica was first based at Aquileia in northeastern Italy, where it was to be joined by the 3rd Italica in resisting a German siege. In the subsequent years of hectic battles against German tribes from north of the Danube, the 2nd Italica was regularly on the move. It was at Locica in Dalmatia, near today’s Celje in Slovenia, until AD 172, before being moved to Albing in the province of Noricum. By AD 205, in the reign of Septimius Severus, it had relocated within Noricum to Lauriacum, modern-day Lorch in Austria, having left its base at Albing unfinished.
There at Lauriacum the 2nd Italica stayed for the next century, forever fighting barbarian invasion. By the time of the Notitia Dignitatum, sporting a four-spoked wheel as its emblem, the 2nd Italica had become one of thirty-two comitatense legions. Under the overall command of the Duke of Pannonia and Noricum Ripensis, it had been split into three sub-units, each commanded by a prefect. Soon it would be overwhelmed by the Goths, the Sarmatians and the Huns.
2ND PARTHICA LEGION
LEGIO II PARTHICA
2nd Parthian Legion
EMBLEM:
Centaur.
BIRTH SIGN:
Capricorn (probably).
FOUNDATION:
By Septimus Severus, AD 197.
RECRUITMENT AREA:
Originally, Macedonia and Thrace.
POSTINGS:
Parthia, Alba, Apamea, Parthia, Alba, Bezabde, Mesopotamia.
BATTLE HONORS:
Servers’ Parthian campaign, AD 197–201.
Carcalla’s Parthian campaign, AD 215–218.
Battle of Nisibis, AD 217.
SEVERUS’ GUARDIANS, MAXIMINUS’ ASSASSINS
Raised for Severus’ Parthian campaigns, the first imperial legion based permanently in Italy, it would be banished to the East by Constantine the Great, where it would hold 100,000 Persians at bay for seventy-three days at Amida in its last great battle.
Rome’s legions suffered extensive casualties in Marcus Aurelius’ wars against the Germans along the Danube and against the Parthians in the East. So Septimius Severus raised three new legions for his invasion of Parthia in AD 195. Their recruiting grounds were in Macedonia and Thrace, and all took the centaur as their emblem.
Severus’ Parthian campaigns, although they resulted in the storming of the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon, achieved little. Severus returned to Rome after sightseeing in Egypt, leaving the 1st Parthica and 3rd Parthica legions to garrison Mesopotamia. He took the 2nd Parthica back to Italy with him. Severus had replaced the previous Praetorian Guard with men from the legions, after the previous Praetorians had murdered Pertinax and Julianus, his predecessors. But still he did not feel secure at the capital without a force, ready to hand, on which he could depend. Insurance, if you will. The 2nd Parthica Legion, having performed loyally and bravely for Severus against the Parthians, was chosen for this role.
The 2nd Parthica became the first imperial legion to be permanently based in Italy. Severus located it at Alba Longa, just 12 miles south of Rome, less than three hours’ march away if he needed them urgently. The base of the 2nd Parthica Legion at Alba was built by the legion on the Via Appia, beside a large villa that had been erected by Domitian late in the first century.
The Rotonda, a circular nymphaeum that was part of Domitian’s villa, was converted into a bathhouse for the officers of the legion, and incorporated into the legion complex. While most of the legion base has all but disappeared, the bathhouse building has survived to the present day as the church of St. Maria della Rotonda.
A larger baths complex, the Baths of Cellomaio, was built for the legion’s rank and file by Severus’ son and successor Caracalla. It stood just across the road from the camp’s main gate. For the entertainment of legionaries, locals and visiting members of the imperial court, an amphitheater capable of seating 16,000 spectators was built into a rocky hillside just to the north of the base.
The commander of the 2nd Parthica in AD 217 was Aelius Decius Triccianus, who ran the legion with a firm hand. Triccianus had started his military career as a common soldier with a legion in Pannonia, where his duties had included acting as sentry at the door of the provincial governor. By AD 218, the emperor Macrinus had appointed Triccianus governor of Pannonia, enabling him to return to the palace that he had once guarded, this time as its gubernatorial occupant. [Dio, LXXX, 5]
Either the entire legion or elements from it were soon sent back to the East. Gravestones of men of the 2nd Parthica Legion and their family members found at A
pamea show that cohorts of the legion used that city as their winter quarters over an extended period. One such gravestone was erected by 2nd Parthica centurion Probius Sanctus for his “incomparable” 28-year-old wife. [AE 1993, 1597]
Shipped to Syria for Caracalla’s eastern campaign, cohorts of the legion took part in the Battle of Nisibis against the Persians in AD 217. These 2nd Parthica troops remained in Apamea following Caracalla’s murder; it was there that his successor Macrinus found them in the summer of AD 218. The legionaries, and their family members, returned to the Alban Mount.
In AD 238, the 2nd Parthica was in Pannonia. Having campaigned with the emperor Maximinus against the Germans and Sarmatians, the legion was preparing to go against the Goths. When news reached Pannonia that the Senate had dethroned Maximinus and recognized Gordian I, governor of Africa, and his son Gordian II as coemperors, after leading citizens of Africa had declared that pair emperors, Maximinus led his legions, including the 2nd Parthica, into Italy to reassert his control. Meanwhile, in Africa, the resident 3rd Augusta Legion, which remained loyal to Maximinus, killed Gordian II and forced Gordian I to commit suicide. In response, the Senate proclaimed two senators as coemperors in opposition to Maximinus: Pupienus Maximus and Balbinus. After Maximinus arrived outside Aquileia, which opposed him, he began a siege of that city.
The 2nd Parthica Legion had lost faith in their emperor, and its troops were fearful for their loved ones at Alba, in senatorial territory. During a break in the fighting outside Aquileia, men from the 2nd Parthica combined with Praetorian guardsmen to murder Maximinus and his son Maximus, then killed the prefect of the Praetorian Guard and the emperor’s closest advisers. Soon, the Praetorian Guard murdered both Pupienus and Balbinus, and Gordian I’s teenage grandson Gordian III came to throne. The 2nd Parthica returned to Alba, honored by the new emperor.
The 2nd Parthica also remained loyal to the coemperor Maxentius, Constantine the Great’s brother-in-law. When, in AD 312, Constantine marched into Italy with 40,000 men to dethrone Maxentius, the 2nd Parthica formed up for Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge just north of Rome, where Maxentius was defeated in the battle and drowned in the Tiber. Constantine, victorious, abolished both the Praetorian Guard and the Singularian Horse household cavalry, because they had fought for Maxentius, but he did not abolish the 2nd Parthica Legion; instead he shipped the unit to the farthest reaches of the empire. From that time forward, the 2nd Parthica was based in Mesopotamia, facing the Persian threat. Constantine gave the legion’s base at Alba to the Christian Church, together with the civilian vicus that had grown outside it. Many displaced family members would have trailed after the legion to their new base.
The legion later transferred to the hill town of Bezabde (today’s Cizre in Turkey), beside the Tigris, still in Mesopotamia. According to the historian Ammianus, who was familiar with the unit, the 2nd Parthica Legion was destroyed in AD 360 when King Shapur led a siege of Bezabde which overran the city. The 2nd Flavia and 2nd Armeniaca legions were wiped out in the same battle. The majority of the men of the 2nd Parthica Legion were taken prisoner and became slaves of the Persians.
According to the Notitia Dignitatum, both the 1st Parthica and 2nd Parthica legions were garrisoned in Mesopotamia under the Duke of Mesopotamia, with the 2nd Parthica based at Cefae in the late fourth century. But not only had both legions apparently been destroyed by that time, but Mesopotamia had not been a Roman province for many years, having been surrendered to the Parthians by the emperor Jovian in AD 363.
2ND TRAIANA LEGION
LEGIO II TRAIANA
Trajan’s 2nd Legion
EMBLEM:
Hercules’ hammer and lightning bolt.
BIRTH SIGN:
Aries.
FOUNDATION:
By Trajan, c. 105 AD
RECRUITMENT AREA:
Originally, probably German provinces.
POSTINGS:
Laodicea, Nicopolis.
BATTLE HONORS:
Trajan’s Parthian campaign, AD 111–114.
Defense of Alexandria, AD 172–173.
A LIFE IN EGYPT
Raised by Trajan, taking his name, this legion fought under him against the Parthians and took their capital.
In the preparations for his second invasion of Dacia, Trajan gave orders for two new legions to be levied. One would support the Dacian operation, the other sent to the East in preparation for Trajan’s planned Parthian incursion.
The 2nd Traiana Legion, named after Trajan, was one of those two legions; the other was the 30th Ulpia. There is no record of why Trajan gave it the number 2, but it is likely that it was raised in the recruiting grounds of an existing 2nd Legion, which were probably then in the Rhine provinces—Hercules, patron deity of the legion, was, in the Germanic form of Donar, a revered war god among Germans.
Shipped to Syria, the 2nd Traiana was located at the port city of Laodicea in AD 105. From there it moved south to Egypt, making its base at Nicopolis, not far from Alexandria. There the legion remained, possibly contributing a vexillation to operations in Judea during the Second Jewish Revolt of AD 132–135.
In AD 172, Bucoli herdsmen from the Nile Delta rose in revolt under the leadership of an Egyptian priest named Isodorus. After defeating an auxiliary force sent to deal with them, the Bucoli laid siege to Alexandria, which would have been defended by the 2nd Traiana Legion. The siege was only lifted in the new year, and the revolt put down, when Avidius Cassius, governor of Syria, came marching down from Syria with a relief force.
Presumably, the 2nd Traiana sided with Queen Zenobia of Palmyra in AD 269 when she seized Egypt, for there is no record of it fighting her. Early in the fifth century the 2nd Traiana was one of six legions based in Egypt, according to the Notitia Dignitatum, answerable to the Duke of Thebes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire it would have been absorbed into the army of the Byzantine emperors.
3RD AUGUSTA LEGION
LEGIO III AUGUSTA
Augustus’ 3rd Legion
EMBLEM:
Lion, on first-century numismatic evidence. (Pegasus also suggested, but not proven.)
BIRTH SIGN:
Capricorn.
ORIGIN OF TITLE:
Granted by Augustus, c. 19 BC.
FOUNDATION:
Probably raised by Octavian.
RECRUITMENT AREA:
Originally, Cisalpine Gaul. Later, North Africa.
POSTINGS:
Africa, Ammaedra, Tebessa, Lambaesis.
BATTLE HONORS:
Tacfarinas’ Revolt, AD 17–23.
Battle of Carthage, AD 238.
DISBANDED:
AD 238. Reformed, AD 253.
NOTABLE COMMANDER:
Marcus Aurelius Probus, future emperor (AD 276–282).
GUARDIANS OF NORTH AFRICA
From putting down the long-lasting Tacfarinas’ Revolt in Tunisia for Tiberius to paying the price for loyalty to Maximinus, for hundreds of years it was Rome’s only legion in North Africa.
The 3rd Legion that arrived in the province of Africa in 30 BC may have descended from Pompey the Great’s 3rd Legion. It served Octavian during the war against Antony and Cleopatra.
Sometime between 27 BC, when Octavian took the title of Augustus, and his death in AD 14, the 3rd Legion was granted the title “Augusta” by the emperor. After a campaign against desert tribes in 19 BC, the governor of Africa, Cornelius Balbus, was awarded a Triumph by the Senate. It has been suggested, with some merit, that this was when and why the 3rd Augusta Legion was given its title. [Kepp., MRA, 5] It was perhaps not coincidental that 19 BC was the year of the final termination of the Cantabrian Wars in Spain, during which four legions all received the title of Augusta. It was also in 19 BC that one of those legions had its Augusta title removed, for cowardice.
The 3rd Augusta Legion’s finest hour came with its termination of the AD 17–23 Tacfarinas’ Revolt in Africa. In AD 75, the legion was transferred by Vespasian to Tebessa, known today
as Timgad, where the men of the legion then built a handsome town astride the road to their old base at Lambaesis, laid out in military grid pattern. The legion would continue to labor on the city’s major building projects for another half century.
In AD 238, leading citizens in the province of Africa rebelled against the emperor Maximinus, declaring the province’s governor Gordian I and his son Gordian II coemperors in opposition to Maximinus. But the resident 3rd Augusta remained loyal to Maximinus and defeated the usurpers’ army of raw levies in a one-sided battle outside Carthage, when Gordian II was among the many killed. On learning of his son’s death, Gordian I committed suicide.
But the Senate, which despised Maximinus, declared two of their members, Pupienus Maximus and Balbinus, coemperors. Maximinus, in Pannonia and about to go to war with the Goths, turned his army around and marched into Italy. But as he was besieging Aquileia, which was held by forces loyal to the Senate, his own troops murdered him in his camp.
With Maximinus dead, the Praetorian Guard murdered Pupienus and Balbinus, allowing Gordian I’s 13-year-old grandson to become the next emperor, Gordian III. Because the 3rd Augusta Legion had remained loyal to their emperor, Maximinus, and had been responsible for the deaths of his grandfather and uncle, Gordian III ordered the 3rd Augusta Legion abolished. Its troops were dispersed around other units.
Fifteen years later, in AD 253, a year when there were three emperors, the 3rd Augusta Legion was reformed, apparently by Valerian, with Sattonius Jucundus as its chief centurion, Sattonius having previously served with the legion prior to its disbanding. [ILS, 2296]
With Africa in a peaceable state, vexillations from the 3rd Augusta frequently served in Europe in the decades that followed. One such detachment was stationed in Macedonia and saw action against the Goths. [AE 1934, 193] The legion was eventually withdrawn from Africa. Numbered among the comitatense legions under the command of the Master of Foot, its men recruited in Gaul, the legion was part of the army sent by Stilicho in AD 395 to put down Africa’s rebel governor, Gildo.
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