The Lost Roman Legion | Possible Explanations

For regular videos on ancient cultures and forgotten civilizations, please subscribe. The Legio IX Hispana, or the "The Ninth" for short, was a significant military unit of the Imperial Roman army that existed from the 1st century BCE until an unknown time and place in the 2nd century CE. What exactly happened to the legion is not known, and because of the mystery surrounding its ultimate end, the legion has been the subject of countless novels, books, movies and general speculation. Today, we are going to take a closer look at the history of the Ninth and find out why the clues that have been left to us are just not enough. Ah, the lost Roman legion. It’s not necessarily the most interesting legion in Roman history, but its disappearance from the historical record has captured people’s imaginations, and maybe you are watching this video, because it has captured yours. So what do we know about this legion? The middle history of the Legio IX Hispana is fairly well documented, with less known about its beginning and end. Historical records suggest the presence of a ninth legion during the siege of Asculum during the Social War in 90 BCE, which would make it the earliest reference, but what its connection is to the later Ninth is not known. At the time when Julius Caesar assumed governorship of Cisalpine Gaul in 58 BCE, there is a Ninth Legion mentioned under his command. It is said to be among the four legions already stationed in the region, and it possibly was based in Aquileia to deter Illyrian threats. Caesar later expanded his forces, and along with the others, the 9th played a crucial role in his campaigns against the Helvetii at the beginning of the Gallic wars. During Caesar's tenure, this Ninth Legion participated in pivotal battles such as Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus in 48 BCE, as well as the African campaign of 46 BCE. But then Caesar disbanded those legions. That’s the story of the Caesarian Ninth Legion. Following Caesar's demise in 44 BCE, old legions were reassembled, including the Ninth, but we don’t know whether these reconstituted legions lasted through the Battle of Philippi in 42. Subsequently, Octavian, later known as Augustus, used the Ninth Legion to quell the rebellion led by Sextus Pompeius in Sicily. By this time for sure, we are referring to the Ninth Legion that is the subject of this discussion. Following their victory over Sextus, they were dispatched to the province of Macedonia. Remaining loyal to Octavian, the Ninth Legion fought alongside him in the decisive war of 31 BCE against Mark Antony. Then the Ninth Legion was deployed to Hispania to engage in the extensive campaign against the Cantabrians from 25 to 19 BCE. It was during this time that the legion earned the epithet "Hispana," signifying its campaigns in Hispania. After its service in Hispania, the Ninth Legion likely participated in campaigns against Germanic tribes along the Rhine borderlands. However, following the Roman retreat from the eastern Rhine region following the disastrous Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, the Ninth Legion was relocated to Pannonia. We now jump ahead to the year 43. At that time, it is highly probable that the Ninth Legion participated in the Roman invasion of Britain, commanded by Emperor Claudius and General Aulus Plautius, and they quickly became part of the provincial garrison. By the year 50, the Ninth was one of the two legions that emerged victorious against the forces of Caratacus at Caer Caradoc. During this period, around the same year, they established a fort known as Lindum Colonia, modern-day Lincoln. Under the leadership of Caesius Nasica, they quelled the initial revolt led by Venutius, the king of the Brigantes tribe, between 52 and 57. The Ninth Legion suffered a significant setback during the Boudica rebellion in 61, at the Battle of Camulodunum under Quintus Petillius Cerialis. Most of the infantry perished in an ill-fated attempt to relieve the besieged city of Camulodunum (Colchester), with only the cavalry managing to escape. Subsequently, the legion received reinforcements from the Germania provinces. By the early 70s, the Ninth Legion had relocated from Lincoln to their new bases at York and Malton. Roman bricks and tiles bearing the stamp "LEG IX HISP" have been discovered at these sites, indicating their presence. When Cerialis returned as the governor of Britain, he once again assumed command of the Ninth, leading them to a successful campaign against the Brigantes in 71 and 72 and consolidating Roman control over north-central Britain. During this period, they constructed a new fortress at York (Eboracum), as evidenced by tile-stamps recovered from the site. The Ninth also played a crucial role in Agricola's invasion of Caledonia (modern Scotland) in 82 and 83. Tacitus recounts a harrowing night attack by the Caledonians, during which the Ninth narrowly escaped destruction and ultimately emerged victorious in the Battle of Mons Graupius. The last documented activity of the Ninth Legion in Britain is their involvement in construction work at the legionary fortress at Eboracum (York) in 108. A stone tablet, now housed in the Yorkshire Museum, commemorates the construction of a gateway by the Emperor Trajan with the assistance of the Ninth Legion Hispana. It reads: The Emperor Caesar Nerva Trajan Augustus, son of the deified Nerva, Conqueror of Germany, Conqueror of Dacia, pontifex maximus, in his twelfth year of tribunician power, six times acclaimed imperator, five times consul, father of his country, built this gate by the agency of the Ninth Legion Hispana. This is a military building inscription, dating from a time when Roman turf-and-timber forts were being remade as stone. The find-spot was close to the original location of the south-east gate of the fort at Eboracum. Maybe also from this period is the tombstone of Lucius Duccius Rufinus, the standard bearer for the Ninth Legion. Following this period, there are no further mentions of the Ninth in Britain's historical records. They were succeeded in York by Legio VI Victrix (the Sixth), which arrived with Emperor Hadrian in 122, and no inscriptions referencing the Ninth have been discovered along Hadrian's Wall. Additionally, the absence of the Ninth Legion from the list of Roman legions on the Collonetta Maffei pillar in Rome, dated to 168, further emphasizes their disappearance from historical records. The fate of the Ninth Legion has sparked extensive research and plenty of conjecture. One theory that prevailed for a long time, and which inspired a considerable amount of fictional literature on the subject, suggests that the legion met its demise in northern Britain shortly after 108. This theory posits that they may have been annihilated during a conflict with northern tribes rebelling against Roman authority. There is some possible evidence of the presence of the Ninth Legion in the Carlisle area of Britain during the early years of Hadrian’s reign. He began ruling in 117. Stamped tiles of the Ninth Legion were being produced at Scalesceugh, approximately 5 km south of Carlisle. Interestingly they were stamped with an alternate Roman numeral nine - yes, the nine was sometimes written that way. This would seem to extend the Ninth’s existence past the year 108. The inclusion of Britannia, the divine representation of the Roman province, on some of Hadrian’s coins has been interpreted as evidence of warfare in Britain, particularly during the years 117-119. Modern historical accounts for a long time almost universally recognized a British war in 119, even though direct evidence supporting this claim is lacking, and the circumstantial evidence is fragile. But to this day, although it is no longer the majority opinion, some scholars continue to assume that Hadrian’s coinage indicates a victorious campaign in Britain in 119. But even if there were such a war, there are reasons for doubting that the Ninth would have been destroyed or disbanded in that year. The careers of certain officers suggest that the Ninth Legion continued its service not only beyond the year 108, but also beyond 119. One such officer, Lucius Aemilius Karus, who had served as a tribune in the Ninth Legion, was governing the praetorian province of Arabia in 142, indicating he was in his mid- to late-thirties at the time—a typical age for such a position. A recently discovered diploma further confirms the timing of his governorship. If he were in the Ninth, he surely couldn’t have been before 120. Governors of Arabia typically advanced to the consulship within a few years, and we seem to have evidence that Lucius Aemilius Karus was a consul afterward, because we have a record of a consul in 144 named "Lucius Aemilius." The interesting part of this is that Pontius Laelianus from the Sixth Legion also served as consul in the same year (there were always 2 consuls), and we think that he served in the Sixth after 120. If these guys were the same age, it would mean that Karus's service in the Ninth Legion likely also occurred after 120. Facts surrounding another senatorial tribune, Lucius Novius Crispinus Martialis Saturninus, also adds to the discussion. He became consul of Rome in 150 after commanding at some point perviously the Third Augusta and overseeing Numidia in Africa, where the Ninth Legion was stationed. Born around 105, Crispinus was slightly younger than Aemilius Karus and Pontius Laelianus. This suggests that Crispinus could not have served with the Ninth Legion before 123, ruling out its destruction in a British war of 119. Lucius Aninius Sextius Florentinus, known to have transitioned from being the legate of the Ninth to holding the proconsulship of Gallia Narbonensis and later the governorship of Arabia, for a while had uncertain dating for his appointments. But in the 1960s, a papyrus was discovered that revealed that his governorship occurred around the year 127. Based on this timing and other records, he would have commanded the legion no more than five years earlier. The careers of these officers lend support to the existence of the Ninth Legion into the 120s. But another military tribune in Legio IX Hispana, stationed in Roman Britain, was identified as Quintus Numisius Iunior. His consulship in February 161 is rather late. It's inconceivable that his illustrious career could have commenced as far back as 119, as this would mean he achieved consulship at the age of sixty! Therefore, it's more likely that his service in the Ninth occurred around 140-145. That’s 20 years later than the other examples. Then we have the evidence from the Netherlands. During an excavation in 1959 at the Hunerberg fortress in Nijmegen, a roofing tile was found bearing the ownership stamp of the Ninth Legion. This finding wasn't isolated; earlier excavations at the legionary pottery and tile-works in De Holdeurn, located near the fortress, uncovered a stamped rim of a mortarium, a type of ceramic bowl used for grinding food. The stamp on this bowl read LGVIIIIHIS, indicating l(e)g(io) VIIII His(pana), the Ninth Legion. Up until the time of the tile stamp found bearing the stamp of the Ninth, tile-stamps in the Nijmegen area primarily belonged to the Tenth Gemina Legion, which had rebuilt the fortress in stone. However, due to Trajan’s Dacian Wars, the Tenth Legion left the Hunerberg fortress, first for Davia, and then for other locations such as Aquincum and Vindobona in what is now Hungary and Austria respectively. Another very common tile-stamp at the fort is, VEX BRIT, meaning vex(illatio) Brit(annica) (“detachment from Britain”), and this seems to be from the period right after the Tenth Legion The Dutch archaeologist, Jules Bogaers, did not think that this detachment was the Ninth, because the Ninth stamped tiles with their own name. So he proposed that this detachment came for a while and then returned to Britain, after which the Ninth Legion took residence at the fortress and continued ceramic production at the Holdeurn tilery. But it is also possible that it happened the other way around: the Ninth came first, and then later the detachment. The exact timing of these events remains uncertain, but they are believed to have occurred broadly in the early second century. There are, however, those who hold to the original view, and their argument is that the whole Ninth legion was never in the Netherlands, that it was only ever a detachment, and that all this was prior to 119. Further evidence supporting the presence of the Ninth Legion on the mainland was found in Lower Germany on an altar to Apollo set up by Lucius Licinius Macer, primus pilus (“chief centurion”) of the Ninth Legion, near the ancient spa Aquae Granni (Aachen, Germany), who was promoted to the prefect of the camp. Some have supposed that he was commanding only a vexillation (detachment). However, it seems unlikely that the chief centurion would have received such a promotion while not being with the entire legion. But it is possible. An interesting observation was made regarding the stamped tiles: those discovered in York were consistently marked with the usual Roman numeral nine IX, while those from Scalesceugh and Nijmegen were marked VIIII. This led Bogaers to consider the possibility that the Ninth Legion brought its distinct Scalesceugh tile-stamps to the Holdeurn tilery near Nijmegen to continue production there. In addition to the tile-stamps and the mortarium fragment, another intriguing find was an inscribed pendant from a horse harness. This pendant was discovered about 10 km west of the Nijmegen camp, near a Roman villa site. Its inscription, with IX, indicated that its owner had learned the ‘York’ version of the legion’s name rather than the ‘Carlisle’ version, adding another layer of complexity to the understanding of the legion’s movements and presence in different regions. Anyway, since around the 1970s, alternate versions of what happened to the Ninth Legion have been proposed. If they did move back to the mainland at some point early in Hadrian’s reign, and if they existed into the 120s at least, then maybe they were called to help Hadrian in the Second Jewish-Roman War, also known as the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, in 132. It was reported that during this war, the Romans suffered significant losses. In this scenario, the Ninth Legion might have been sent to Judea to reinforce the local legions but faced heavy defeat at the hands of Jewish forces, leading to the disbandment of the unit. However, another legion, the XXII Deiotariana, typically stationed in Egypt, is documented in Judea during this period, and its dateable records also cease around the year 120. So it is generally thought this legion was destroyed in that war. It was, after all, nearby. Is it possible that two legions got destroyed? If that were the case, it would be one of the most significant Roman military disasters since the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where three legions were lost. And yet the records say nothing of this. Some have even suggested the Ninth fought in the Roman-Parthian War in the 160s. According to the Roman-period historian Cassius Dio, a Parthian army led by General Chosroes surrounded and annihilated an unspecified Roman legion in Armenia. This event led to the suicide of its commander, Marcus Sedatius Severianus, who was also the governor of Cappadocia at the time. Now we know that, during this period, there were two legions permanently stationed in Cappadocia: the XII Fulminata and the XV Apollinaris. Both of these legions are documented as operational well beyond the time of the war, ruling them out as the legion that was destroyed by the Parthians. But the theory suggesting that the Ninth Legion was the destroyed legion in this war faces a challenge due to the lack of evidence placing the Ninth Legion in the East between 130 and 160. So the ultimate fate of the Ninth Legion is still very much an open question. I will say, though, that the idea that the Ninth met its demise in Britain has persisted in popular imagination for a long time, and it has been difficult for many to let go of. British scholars continue to argue for it. So, for example, while it looks like the Ninth Legion continued to exist until at least the year 140, evidenced by the tribunate of Numisius Iunior, some have raised doubts about the lineage of the consul who served in 161, suggesting he might have been the son of a tribune from the Ninth Legion. This ongoing debate is likely to continue. Whether the legion ended its run in Britain, fought during Hadrian’s Jewish War, or in Armenia in 161, or in a different location altogether remains uncertain. Scholars can only hope that further discoveries of inscriptions and other archaeological evidence will bring clarity to this historical mystery. Thank you for watching. 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