Legions of Rome

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  Many British nobles were equipped with captured Roman arms. And they had their chariots—small, light, open-ended, with wheels just 3 feet (30 centimeters) across, and drawn by a pair of nimble ponies. The design of the British chariot had not changed since Caesar encountered 4,000 of them during his 55 BC campaign. The number fielded by Boudicca’s rebels is unknown, but they are unlikely to have been numerous, for there had been little time to build them and train chariot horses.

  Boudicca herself appeared in a chariot, with her long, red-brown hair flowing. [Dio, LXII, 2] “With her daughters before her” in the chariot, Boudicca galloped from one tribe to another to deliver pre-battle speeches. [Tac., XIV, 35] Boudicca urged the warriors to die rather than live under Roman rule. She reminded them how they had punished the 9th Hispana Legion, and assured them that the rest of the Roman troops on the island were cowering in their camps and planning to flee. “Let us show them that they are hares and foxes, trying to rule over dogs and wolves!” [Dio, LXII, 5]

  Against such massive odds of perhaps twenty-three to one, most Roman troops were only thinking of survival. Gnaeus Julius Agricola, a 19-year-old junior tribune on governor Paulinus’ staff this day, would later tell son-in-law Tacitus that “they had to fight for their lives before they could think of victory” in this battle. [Tac., Agr., 5] Yet the Roman commander was confident of success. He too addressed his troops, riding to each of the three divisions. Paulinus’ speeches had a common core: “Close up the ranks, and having discharged your javelins, then with shields and swords continue the work of bloodshed and destruction.” [Tac., A, XIV, 36]

  And then the British chariots were lumbering forward. Celtic warriors advanced at the walk behind them, roaring out their battle cries. The Roman formations stood their ground, waiting. The chariots gathered speed. As they charged the Roman wedges, their passengers let fly with a volley of spears, which Roman shields parried. The legionaries then let fly with their first flight of javelins, then another. As Roman missiles found targets, wounded chariot horses went down, spewing out passengers. Surviving vehicles swung away and made way for the British infantry.

  “At first, the legion kept its position,” Tacitus wrote of the 14th Gemina. [Tac., XIV, 37] Then, Roman trumpets sounded “Charge.” With a roar, the men of the 14th “rushed out in a wedge formation,” and the two tight-knit wedges either side of them did the same. The two enemy forces crashed together. With shields pumping in and out and swords jabbing over the top, the Roman wedges were like machines. On the flanks, the Roman cavalry also became engaged, using their javelins as lances. [Ibid.]

  Romans and Britons “contended for a long time,” said Dio, “both parties being animated by the same zeal and daring. But finally, late in the day, the Romans prevailed.” [Dio, LXII, 12] Britons, trying to retreat, created a crush that met the semicircle of their own wagons, which penned them in. Tens of thousands of Britons were trapped, and fell victim to legionary blades as the Roman force pressed all the way to the wagon line. The immense slaughter during this battle was to include British women at the wagon line; it was estimated that 80,000 British warriors and civilians died. Even baggage animals perished in the maelstrom. Total Roman casualties were an estimated 400 dead, and a similar number wounded. [Tac., A, XIV, 37]

  Ironically, the most deadly battle ever to take place in Britain was never given a name; perhaps it might be called the Battle of Watling Street. Boudicca escaped from the battlefield, but within a few days she too was dead, taking poison, according to Tacitus. [Ibid.] “The Britons mourned her deeply,” said Dio. [Dio, LXII, 12] When camp-prefect Postumus of the 2nd Augusta Legion at Exeter came to hear of the battle and the signal Roman victory, he fell on his sword rather than face arrest for disobeying orders, which would have resulted in court martial and an inevitable death sentence.

  The Palatium rushed reinforcements to Britain to make up for losses suffered during the revolt, among them eight cohorts of auxiliaries and 1,000 cavalry. Uniquely, 2,000 legionaries were also detached from a legion on the Rhine to fill the places of the men of the 9th Hispana lost under Cerialis. [Tac., A, XIV, 38] Everything points to these legionaries being recent recruits to the 21st Rapax Legion at Vindonissa. Later events show that the Rapax was well under strength eight years later, missing at least four cohorts, indicating that it never received replacements for the men sent to the 9th Hispana.

  Governor Paulinus, stung by the uprising and the destruction that had resulted, kept his troops in the field and “under canvas” right through the winter of AD 60–61 as he strove to capture those rebels who had escaped, determined to damp out the last fires of rebellion across southern England. [Ibid.] Julius Classicanus, the official sent by the Palatium to replace the cowardly procurator Catus, reported to Rome that the troubles in Britain would continue while the vengeful Paulinus remained in charge. In late AD 61, Paulinus was recalled to Rome, with Petronius Turpilianus replacing him as propraetor of Britain.

  Despite the recall, Nero awarded the coveted Triumphal Decorations to Paulinus for his British victory, and six years later Paulinus was given a second consulship by the emperor. The 14th Gemina Legion was also recognized. Tacitus would later report: “The 14th having particularly distinguished itself by quelling the revolt in Britain, Nero had added to their reputation of by selecting them as his ‘most effective’ troops.” [Tac., H, II, 11] There would never again be an uprising by British tribes in southern Britain.

  AD 62–63

  XXI. CORBULO’S SECOND ARMENIAN CAMPAIGN

  Snatching victory from disaster’s door

  In AD 62, Armenia again erupted in conflict, as Parthia reasserted its claim to the country by invading it. The Parthian invasion force was led by Moneses, King Vologases of Parthia’s best general. The Parthians surrounded the new Armenian capital, Tigranocerta, where the king installed by Rome, Tigranes, was fiercely defended by his Roman bodyguard. When word of the invasion reached Corbulo in Syria, he sent two legions under Verulanus Severus marching up into Armenia at full speed to relieve the Roman defenders.

  As the two legions approached, the Parthians suspended their siege and withdrew from Armenia. The Roman garrison also withdrew from Tigranocerta and joined the two legions in camp across the border in Cappadocia for the winter. Corbulo now sent to Rome for reinforcements and a senior general to take charge of the defense of Armenia. In response, the Palatium sent out the boastful Gaius Caesennius Paetus, a consul in AD 60, together with the 4th Scythica Legion from Macedonia and the 5th Macedonica Legion from Moesia, the latter having recently replenished its ranks with a new enlistment of recruits in Moesia. Paetus chose to leave the 5th Macedonica in Pontus after it landed from the fleet that had brought it across the Black Sea. Over-confident, Paetus felt sure he would only need two legions in Armenia, and summoned a legion from the Syrian station, the 12th Fulminata, to join the newly arrived 4th Scythica.

  In the meantime, the Parthians had sent envoys to Rome, but, unable to reach an agreement with Nero, King Vologases recommenced hostilities, aiming now not only to occupy Armenia but to invade Syria as well. To defend Syria, Corbulo had the 6th Ferrata, 10th Fretensis and cohorts of the 3rd Gallica Legion dig in along the bank of the Euphrates river, Syria’s natural border with Parthia. Paetus, meanwhile, declaring that he would achieve total victory, crossed the Euphrates with the 4th Scythica and 12th Fulminata legions and entered Armenia. From the beginning, the omens were not good: the horse carrying Paetus’ personal consular emblems across the bridge spanning the Euphrates took fright and bolted to the rear.

  The inept Paetus subsequently camped at Rhandeia in northwestern Armenia for the winter, even allowing a number of his men to take leave. From Rhandeia, Paetus wrote a letter to Nero “as if the war was finished, in pompous language, but barren of facts.” There at Rhandeia, the Parthian army surrounded the Roman camp and subjected it to a grueling siege. As the weeks passed, Paetus’ increasingly hungry and poorly led troops lost the will for offensive action. Now
Paetus wrote to Corbulo, begging him to come rescue him. [Tac., A, XV, 8]

  Corbulo, after repulsing the Parthian attack at the Euphrates, methodically put together a relief column, including an ala, or wing, of camels carrying grain. Even as Corbulo was marching to Armenia, Paetus was agreeing to humiliating terms with the Parthians for a Roman withdrawal. After leaving all their baggage and piles of Roman dead at Rhandeia, and building a bridge for the Parthians, Paetus retreated from Armenia with his two shambling legions. When Paetus met Corbulo coming the other way, he was all for joining forces and marching back into Armenia, but the disciplined Corbulo replied that he had “no such instructions” from the emperor, and both Roman forces withdrew. Once news of this reverse reached Rome, “people were utterly disgusted with Paetus,” said Tacitus. Paetus was recalled to the capital, but Nero pardoned him “with a jest.” [Tac., A, XV, 17; 25]

  Corbulo, after bolstering his forces with the 5th Macedonica and 15th Apollinaris legions, conducted negotiations with the Parthian king Vologases from a position of strength. In the end, it was agreed that Corbulo would withdrew his troops from Parthian soil east of the Euphrates and the Parthians would withdraw from Armenia. Just as importantly, the peace treaty negotiated by Corbulo and Vologases stipulated that Vologases’ brother Tiridates would resume the throne of Armenia, but would become an ally of Rome and swear allegiance to Nero.

  Within several years, as part of this treaty, Tiridates would go to Rome to bow down to Nero personally. Meanwhile, Corbulo, one of Rome’s best generals, would be forced to commit suicide after his son-in-law Vinianus Annius, who commanded the 5th Macedonica Legion in the last stages of the Armenian operations, foolishly implicated him in a plot against Nero.

  AD 66

  XXII. FIRST JEWISH REVOLT

  Death in Judea

  The coals of revolt had been glowing hot in Judea ever since Gessius Florus had been made procurator of the sub-province in AD 64. Florus’ rapacity and brutality would soon fan the revolt into all-devouring flame.

  On June 3, AD 66, Florus arrived at Jerusalem from the provincial capital, Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, with two legionary cohorts—almost certainly from the 3rd Gallica Legion—to punish the Jews for recent rioting. After allowing one cohort to loot the city precinct of Betheza, or New City, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Jews, a vast mob cut Florus off at the Antonia Fortress. By agreement with the Jews, Florus slipped out of Jerusalem in the dead of night, leaving just a single legionary cohort in the city.

  Complaints from Jewish leaders about Florus’ heavy-handedness brought no response from his superior Cestius Gallus, propraetor of Syria, so they sent to King Agrippa of Chalcis, asking for help before things got out of hand and local resentment turned into rebellion. Agrippa, a pro-Roman Jew, sent 2,000 troopers from his bodyguard to Jerusalem to dampen the unrest. But by the time they arrived, Eleazar, captain of the Temple Guard, had taken possession of the lower city with thousands of his men and was besieging the lone cohort of the 3rd Gallica stationed at the Antonia Fortress and Herod’s Palace. Other rebels were trying to break through the huge Temple doors. From throughout the city, Jews flocked to join the uprising.

  Some of Agrippa’s cavalrymen were let into the temple by pro-Roman priests, while others joined the Roman defenders of Herod’s Palace in the west of the city. The Temple, Antonia Fortress and palace were soon isolated. For eight days, battle raged, before attackers managed to trick their way into the Temple and take it over. Most of Agrippa’s troops there escaped and fought their way to the legionaries at Herod’s Palace. The rebels then concentrated their assault on the massive but lightly defended Antonia Fortress. Two days later, the 250 men of the 3rd Gallica defending the Antonia were overwhelmed by tens of thousands of besiegers and wiped out.

  Meanwhile, Jews of the fanatical Zealot faction had hurried to attack other Roman garrisons. Roman troops were stationed at Masada beside the salt lake called the Dead Sea, south of Jerusalem. With these troops unaware of the uprising, the partisans were able to trick their way into the fortress and massacre them. In taking Masada, the rebels gained access to an arsenal for 10,000 men and extensive food stocks stored there since the time of Herod the Great. Most of the conquerors of Masada then hurried back to Jerusalem, where their leader, Menahem, demanded and received the leadership of all partisan forces. Menahem then led a resumed offensive against the 3rd Gallica legionaries holding out at Herod’s Palace.

  After King Agrippa’s troops made an agreement with the partisans and withdrew, the men of the 3rd Gallica were on their own. Soon, with his men out of food, water and ammunition, the senior Roman centurion, Metilius, offered to capitulate if his life and the lives of his legionaries could be saved. The rebels agreed, on condition that the Romans left the palace and disarmed. To seal the agreement, both sides exchanged oaths. Shortly after, the surviving Roman soldiers, probably around 200 of them, emerged from the palace and laid down their weapons. Partisan leader Eleazar then gave a signal, and his men fell on the unarmed Romans and slaughtered them. One Roman was spared, centurion Metilius, who begged for his life and swore to convert to Judaism and submit to circumcision.

  Men of the 3rd Gallica garrisoning the fortress at Cypros near Jericho were also caught off guard and exterminated by the partisans. But the 3rd Gallica cohort stationed at the fortress of Machaerus, to the east of the Dead Sea, was prepared for the Jews who surrounded their outpost. The partisans therefore agreed to let these legionaries depart in peace if they surrendered the fortress. Fully armed still, this cohort managed to reach Caesarea intact. By August, most of Judea had been lost, with 1,500 men of the 3rd Gallica Legion killed.

  A Roman counter-offensive was inevitable. After three months’ preparation, Syria’s governor, Cestius Gallus, departed from Antioch to terminate the revolt. According to Josephus, Gallus marched south with the 12th Fulminata Legion and four cohorts from each of “the others,” meaning the other legions stationed in Syria: the 4th Scythica at Zeugma, the 6th Ferrata at Raphanaea and the 10th Fretensis at Cyrrhus. On reaching Caesarea, Gallus would also have added four surviving cohorts of the 3rd Gallica to his force, which also included six auxiliary cohorts and four cavalry wings. King Agrippa of Chalcis joined him with 3,000 foot and 1,000 cavalry. King Antiochus of Commagene sent him 2,000 cavalry, 3,000 foot soldiers and 3,000 archers, and Sohemus, king of Emesa, brought 4,000 men, a mixture of cavalry and foot archers. [Jos., JW, 2, 18, 9]

  After securing Galilee and destroying the Jewish city of Jotapata, Gallus’ army climbed up into the Judean Hills and reached Jerusalem in November AD 66. But after a half-hearted, five-day assault on the city, Gallus unaccountably pulled out his force. On the Beth-Horon road, retreating to the coast, his troops were constantly harassed by the partisans. In this embattled retreat, with fighting going on for days and with 400 Roman volunteers sacrificing their lives at a Beth-Horon village to give the army time to escape, the eagle of the 12th Fulminata Legion was lost to the partisans. Gallus’ failed mission cost 5,680 men. He himself died shortly after. And the Jews still controlled much of Judea.

  AD 67–69

  XXIII. VESPASIAN TAKES COMMAND

  Rolling back revolt

  In December AD 66, Nero, who was then in Greece, appointed Titus Flavius Vespasianus to lead a new counter-offensive against the Jewish rebels. The 57-year-old Vespasian, renowned as commander of the 2nd Augusta Legion during the invasion of Britain twenty-four years earlier, left the imperial party in Greece and hurried away to put together a task force. At the same time, he sent his eldest son Titus, then a tribune, to Egypt to bring him troops stationed there. At Ptolemais in southern Syria, Vespasian assembled 60,000 men. Ignoring most of the troops involved in Gallus’ morale-sapping venture, Vespasian based his force around the 5th Macedonica and 15th Apollinaris legions from Egypt, the Syrian-based 10th Fretensis Legion and the 3rd Gallica’s remaining cohorts. The same kings who had supported Gallus’ failed expedition also contributed to V
espasian’s army, with Malchus, king of Arabia, also supplying 2,000 cavalry and infantry. [Jos., JW, 3, 4, 2]

  It took until June AD 67 before Vespasian’s army had completed preparations and was marching into Galilee, where the Jewish defenders were led by 30-year-old priest Josephus, the later historian who would write the story of the Jewish Revolt. After the walled town of Gabara swiftly fell, the Roman force swung south and marched on Jotapata. After a grueling forty-seven-day siege, it too fell, and Josephus, one of 1,200 survivors, surrendered to Vespasian and changed sides. A total of 40,000 Jews had died in the Jotapata siege. [Ibid., 3, 7, 36]

  When Jewish forces regrouped in Galilee in August, Vespasian, who had sent his legions into winter camp, led them out again to do battle. The city of Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, swiftly surrendered, and Vespasian’s son Titus led a cavalry force which took Tarichaeae on the southern shore. Vespasian then marched on Gamala, a Jewish city in dry inhospitable territory near Al-Karak in present-day Jordan. With the town built into a hillside, its buildings sat almost on top of each other up the slope. Three massive Roman battering rams went to work on the walls of Gamala, and after weeks of effort all three broke through at the same time.

  The legions stormed through the breaches, but in the narrow hill-town streets partisans charged back down the slope and halted the advance in its tracks. As legionaries attempted to clamber over rooftops, houses collapsed under them, and Romans were buried in the rubble. Several nights later, Titus led a party which crept over the town wall and opened the way for a full-scale assault, and Gamala was taken. It now being December AD 67, the legions were again sent into winter camp.

  In the spring of AD 68, the Palatium transferred the surviving men of the 3rd Gallica Legion out of Vespasian’s army. These Syrian 3rd Gallica legionaries had been at the forefront of Vespasian’s offensive as they strove to wreak revenge on the Jews for the deaths of their comrades at the revolt’s outset. As the mauled 3rd Gallica went marching away to a new station in the province of Moesia in Europe, the remainder of Vespasian’s army resumed the offensive against the Jews.