Legio XVI Flavia company

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Emperor Vespasian

The Legio XVI Flavia company was a legion of the Roman army that lasted from around AD 70 until the 5th century.

Legion history

The Legion was established by Emperor Vespasian in AD 70 . Her name can be seen as a kind of mockery: Vespasian recruited the soldiers of the new unit for the most part from the ranks of the Legio XVI Gallica , which had been disbanded due to its role in the Batavian uprising - Flavia Firma means something like "The Reliable Flavian".

The heraldic animal of the Flavia company was the Pegasus . In older research, a lion was often assumed to be the emblem.

Immediately after its founding, Vespasian moved the legion to the Middle East , which can be seen as a punishment for the legionnaires, who mostly came from Gaul . Still, that was a relatively mild punishment compared to other possible consequences. Around 75 AD, vexillations of the Legio XVI Flavia Company, Legio IIII Scythica , Legio III Gallica and Legio VI Ferrata were used to build canals and bridges near Antioch . At that time, had the Legion in Satala in the northeastern Cappadocia their garrison . Almost nothing is known about this time; Tradition only begins again with Trajan's campaigns against the Parthians (114–117), in which the Flavia company was involved. The deployment of 17 legions or vexillations near Satala represented a huge armed force. Then the expeditionary army moved to Armenia , Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf.

Trajan's successor Hadrian (117-138) replaced the XVI in Satala with the Legio XV Apollinaris and moved it 117 to Samosata on the Euphrates . The situation there was calm, so that the Legion was deployed in addition to monitoring the roads for civilian work (e.g. tunnel construction) and was able to send a vexillation to suppress the Bar Kochba uprising (132-135).

Already under Antoninus Pius (138-161) the relocation of vexillations of the XVI Flavia Fidelis to Seleukia Pieria in Syria threatened by the Parthians . In 161 a legion of Parthians was wiped out. In the Parthian War of Lucius Verus (162–166) that followed, the Flavia company was used again on a larger scale for the first time in half a century. Large parts of Mesopotamia were conquered during this campaign. Later, the Legion probably took part in the campaigns of Septimius Severus (194 and 197-198) and Caracalla (216/217), in which, among other things, the Parthian capital Ctesiphon was conquered. During the Severan dynasty , the Legion seems to have proven itself particularly well, as it bore the honorable surnames Severiana and Pia Fidelis.

Severan Bridge over the Cendere Çayi

From around 200 onwards, the strategic location required a redistribution of the Roman legions in the Middle East: the area around the upper Euphrates was no longer a threatened border area. The legions stationed there, the First and Third Parthian Legions, were moved further east. From then on, the Flavia company served as a stage troop and was very active in construction; so is z. For example, a bridge over the Chanibas River (Cendere Çayi) built by soldiers of the Sixteenth under the command of Legate Lucius Marius Perpetuus is still in operation today. A vexillation of legionnaires from the XVI Flaviae company and the Legio IIII Scythica was stationed in Dura Europos around 210 under the joint command of the Centurion Antonius Valentinus , where they repaired a Mithras shrine.

In the 3rd century the Legion was moved from Samosata to Sura . Possibly the relocation already took place under Septimius Severus (193-211) or only after the destruction of Samosata by Shapur I in 260.

It is considered certain that the Flavia company took part in the Sassanid Wars that were waged from 230 onwards. In the course of these battles, Roman rule over Mesopotamia collapsed. The low point was reached when Emperor Valerian was captured by the Sassanians in 260. In 267 the independent kingdom of Palmyra was founded, which managed to stabilize the situation in Mesopotamia to some extent. In 272 Aurelian regained imperial control over Palmyra and benefited from its successes in the region. Diocletian continued the fight against the Sassanids and reached a peace treaty in 298. There is no way that all of these events could have passed the Flavia Company by. To date, however, the historians have not been able to determine any more details.

In the early 5th century the Legio sextadecima Flavia company was still stationed in Sura and was under the command of the Dux Syriae et Eufratensis Syriae . Then the traces of this legion are lost.

literature

  • Emil Ritterling : Legio (XVI Flavia). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 2, Stuttgart 1925, Sp. 1765-1768.
  • Axel Gebhardt: Imperial politics and provincial development. Studies on the relationship between emperors, armies and cities in Syria in the pre-Severian period (= Klio . Supplements. New series, volume 4). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-05-003680-X (also dissertation, University of Kiel 1998).
  • Peter Edwell: Between Rome and Persia. The middle Euphrates, Mesopotamia and Palmyra under Roman control. Routledge, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-42478-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oliver Stoll : Roman Army and Society. Collected articles 1991–1999 (= Mavors. Volume 13). Steiner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-515-07817-7 , pp. 66f .; Marion Meyer : The personification of the city of Antiocheia. A new image for a new deity. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, p. 246.
  2. ↑ For example at Yann Le Bohec : The Roman army of Augustus to Constantine the Great. Steiner, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-515-06300-5 , p. 287.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Jona Lendering: Legio XVI Flavia company . In: Livius.org (English).
  4. ↑ AE 1983, 927 ; Oliver Stoll: Roman Army and Society. Stuttgart 2001, p. 237f .; see. Axel Gebhardt: Imperial politics and provincial development. Berlin 2002, p. 42.
  5. ^ Peter Edwell: Between Rome and Persia. London 2008, p. 18.
  6. ↑ CIL 10, 1202 .
  7. ↑ Julian Bennett : Trajan. Optimus princeps. Routledge, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-415-16524-2 , pp. 195f.
  8. ^ Peter Edwell: Between Rome and Persia. London 2008, p. 22; Paul Erdkamp (Ed.): A companion to the Roman army. Blackwell, Malden 2007, ISBN 978-1-4051-2153-8 , p. 250.
  9. ^ ET Salmon: History of the Roman World from 30 BC to AD 138 , Routledge, London 1968, p. 307.
  10. ↑ CIL 19, 2457 .
  11. ^ AE 1903, 252 .
  12. ^ AE 1937, 244
  13. ↑ a b AE 1940, 220 .
  14. ↑ CIL 3, 6740 ; Friedrich Karl Dörner : The throne of the gods on the Nemrud Dağ. 2nd Edition. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1987, ISBN 3-7857-0277-9 .
  15. ^ Peter Edwell: Between Rome and Persia. London 2008, pp. 234f.
  16. ^ Paul Erdkamp (ed.): A companion to the Roman army. Malden 2007, p. 253.
  17. ^ Notitia dignitatum partibus orientis 33.