Legio XXII Deiotariana

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The Legio XXII Deiotariana (also Legio XXII Deioteriana , occasionally Legio XXII Cyrenaica ) was a legion of the Roman army that existed from approx. 47 BC. Until probably around 135 AD existed. The Legion's emblem has not survived.

Legion history

The Legio XXII Deiotariana was set up in Galatia.

Origin and Republic

The name of the Legion is derived from Deiotarus , the king of the Celtic tribe of the Tolistobogier , who was settled in Asia Minor and an ally of the Roman Empire . 63 BC He was made king of all Celts in Asia Minor (mostly called Galatians ) by the Roman general Pompey . With Roman support and based on the Roman model, Deiotarus raised a strong army , which according to a report in 48 BC. Christ consisted of 12,000 infantrymen and 2,000 cavalrymen . Cicero writes that the army was divided into thirty cohorts , which according to the Roman system of that time would correspond to three legions.

After a heavy Roman defeat against Pharnakes II of Pontus , the surviving soldiers were combined in a single legion, which u. a. was used under Gaius Iulius Caesar for the allied Rome in the battle of Zela (47 BC).

In the civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian , the Legion initially fought on the side of Antony , presumably under Lucius Pinarius Scarpus .

Julian-Claudian dynasty

At the latest in the year 25 BC. With the incorporation of Galatia into the Roman Empire, this legion became part of the Roman military and received the official name Legio XXII Deiotariana . Presumably Augustus moved the Legion as early as 25 BC. After Aegyptus, where they have been since 8 BC. Was also proven in inscriptions at Alexandria .

Possibly the Legion participated at least partially in the campaign against the Yemeni kingdoms (26-25 BC). This campaign quickly stalled, however, and the Nubians seized the opportunity and attacked the Roman Empire. When Egypt itself was in danger, the Romans threw back all forces and marched up the Nile to the Nubian capital Napata . After this action, things remained quiet along the Nubian front for a long time, and the legionaries were able to concentrate more on inner-Roman conflicts. In the following years the soldiers were not only sent to fight, but also used as labor; so they worked z. B. in the granite quarries of Mons Claudianus . Other legionaries were sent to the deep south of the province, where they carved their names into the stone of the so-called " Colossi of Memnon ".

From the years 7 to 9 AD, at the latest since the year 35, she shared her legionary camp in Nicopolis in Lower Egypt with the Legio III Cyrenaica . Both legions were subject to the praefectus exercitus qui est in Aegypto . A vexillation of both legions built a road from Koptos to the Red Sea in the Julio-Claudian period . In 38 anti-Semitic riots broke out in Alexandria, which required the use of the legions. A vexillation was moved to the Rhine for Caligula's Germanic campaign in 39.

In 63 some parts of the Legion were sent into a campaign under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo against the Parthians . In the Judean War (66-70 AD) the XXII Deiotariana and III Cyrenaica were used against the Judean population of Alexandria, where there was tension between the various ethnic and religious groups. The Delta district , in which the Jews lived, was conquered, looted and sacked despite fierce resistance. There are said to have been 50,000 dead before the praefectus Alexandreae et Aegypti Tiberius Iulius Alexander recalled the troops.

Flavian dynasty

Tiberius Iulius Alexander , the Praefectus Aegypti , proclaimed Vespasian emperor on July 1, 69 in the year of the Four Emperors. The Legio XXII Deiotariana , like all legions in the Orient and on the Danube border , faced Vespasian, who was thus able to dispose of the bulk of the army and emerged victorious from the civil war. In the year 70 an approximately 2000 strong vexillation of the legions Legio XXII Deiotariana and III Cyrenaica under the leadership of Gaius Aeternius Fronto was sent to Judaea to suppress the uprising .

Adoptive emperor

In 115 the diaspora uprising broke out in Egypt and the neighboring Cyrene , but the Legio XXII Deiotariana and the parts of the Legio III Cyrenaica that remained in Egypt were too weak to put an end to the rebellion quickly. A vexillation of the Legions Legio XXII Deiotariana and Legio III Cyrenaica was dispatched to the neighboring province of Cyrenaica to raise troops there. Quintus Marcius Turbo brought in reinforcements at the end of 116 and stifled the uprising in late summer 117 with his tough crackdown.

According to the last datable evidence, the Legion was still stationed in Egypt in 119. It may have been disbanded because of its failure to put down the 121/122 uprising in Alexandria.

Other historians also consider a relocation to Palestine in 123 possible. At that time Hadrian was in the region to respond to the Parthian threat. The chronicler Sextus Iulius Africanus wrote about 100 years later in his Chronographiae that a Roman "phalanx" was murdered by the Pharisees with poisoned wine. A reference to the Legio XXII Deiotariana is however mostly doubted.

According to another theory, the Legio XXII Deiotariana was reinforced or replaced by the Legio II Traiana fortis in their garrison near Alexandria before 127 . There is uncertainty as to whether the XXII. already at 126 or until the beginning of the Bar Kochba revolt (132-136) to Palestine moved and was wiped out there. The dissolution of the Legion due to an offense can also be considered.

In 145 at the latest, when a list of all legions was drawn up, it no longer existed.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. CIL 13, 6598 .
  2. a b Stephen Mitchell: Anatolia. Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor. Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1995, ISBN 978-019815029-9 , p. 136.
  3. a b Lawrence JF Keppie: Legions and veteran Roman army papers 1971-2000 ( Mavors Roman Army Researches. Volume 12), Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 978-3-515-07744-6 , pp 25-26.
  4. Israel Shatzman: The armies of the Hasmonaeans and Herod: from Hellenistic to Roman frameworks , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 1991, ISBN 978-3-16-145617-6 , pp 202-203.
  5. ^ A b c Lawrence JF Keppie: Legions and veterans: Roman army papers 1971-2000 ( Mavors. Roman Army Researches Volume 12), Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 978-3-515-07744-6 , pp. 225–232.
  6. Lawrence JF Keppie: Legions and veterans: Roman army papers 1971-2000 ( Mavors. Roman Army Researches Volume 12), Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 978-3-515-07744-6 , p. 80.
  7. a b c Jonah Lendering: Legio XXII Deiotariana . In: Livius.org (English)
  8. ^ Emil Ritterling : Legio (III Cyrenaica). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 2, Stuttgart 1925, Sp. 1506-1517 ..
  9. ^ Anthony Birley (ed.), Ronald Syme : Anatolica. Studies in Strabo , Oxford University Press, Oxford 1995, ISBN 9780198149439 , p. 244.
  10. Sam Wilkinson: Caligula , Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0415357683 , p. 42.
  11. Flavius ​​Josephus : Bell. Iud. 2, 18, 8 Text at Wikisource (German)
  12. ^ Sigrid Mratschek-Halfmann : Divites et praepotentes. Wealth and social position in the literature of the principled age , Steiner, Stuttgart 1993 ( Historia Einzelschriften , Bd. 70) ISBN 3-515-05973-3
  13. Barbara Levick : Vespasian (Roman Imperial Biographies) , Routledge, London and New York 1999, ISBN 0-415-16618-7 , p. 116.
  14. ^ A b Steven T. Katz: The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period , Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 9780521772488 , pp. 95-98
  15. ^ E. Mary Smallwood: The Jews under Roman rule. From Pompey to Diocletian. A study in political relations 2nd ed., Brill, Leiden 2001, ISBN 978-0391041554 , p. 403.
  16. Johannes Kramer: Vulgar Latin everyday documents on papyri, ostracas, tablets and inscriptions (archive for papyrus research and related areas. Supplements), de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3110202247 , p. 90.
  17. Peter Schäfer : The Bar Kokhba Uprising. Studies on the second Jewish war against Rome , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1981, ISBN 978-3-16-144122-6 , pp. 12-14.
  18. ^ Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, Dominic Rathbone (eds.): The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 11: The High Empire, AD 70-192 . University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-26335-2 , p. 674.