Legio X Gemina

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Legio X was a legion of the Roman army. Because Caesar once gave horses to the X. Legion and used them as cavalry , as he did not trust the allied Gallic cavalrymen , they were also called Legio X Equestris (“Tenth Mounted Legion”). Augustus renamed the Legion Legio X Gemina ("Tenth Twin Legion "). The symbol of the Legion was a bull.

Legion history

Caesar's campaigns during the Gallic War

Gallic War

The Legio X was first introduced in 58 BC. Mentioned when the Roman province Gallia Narbonensis was threatened by the Helvetii . At first Gaius Iulius Caesar could only fall back on this single legion, which was stationed near Geneva. In the Gallic War , the Legio X Equestris played an important role in Caesar's military success; he himself referred to it as his preferred legion.

She was in the battle of Alsace against Ariovistus (58 BC), the battle of the Sambre against the Nerviians (57 BC), the Roman invasion of Britain (55 BC) and the battle of Gergovia (52 BC) involved.

Caesar describes how the Aquilifer of the Legio X Equestris first jumped off board when landing in Britain and thus brought the reluctant legionaries to advance on the enemy.

Civil war

At the beginning of the civil war , the Legion fought in 49 BC. In Hispania in the battle of Ilerda against Pompey . On July 10, 48 BC She took part in the battle of Dyrrhachium . On August 9, 48 BC The Legion fought in the decisive battle of Pharsalus and took part in Caesar's campaign to Africa in 47/46 where they took part in the battle of Thapsus . After their use in the Battle of Munda on March 17, 45 BC. The Legion was dissolved. The veterans were settled at Colonia Narbo Martius ( Narbonne ) in the province of Gallia Narbonensis .

After Caesar's murder, the Legion was re-established in the winter of 44/43 BC. BC by Lepidus and assigned to the army of Mark Antony . She fought for the triumvirs Augustus , Lepidus and Mark Antony in 42 BC. In the battle of Philippi against the Caesar murderers. After the victory, their veterans were resettled in Cremona . It then followed 36–34 BC. BC Mark Antony on his campaign against the Parthians in Armenia. After Antony's fleet lost the naval battle at Actium (31 BC) against Octavian, his legions gave up the fight. The Legio X is said to have laid down their weapons only reluctantly. Octavian took them into his army and assigned their veterans to Patras land. Since your soldiers behaved later against Octavian unduly, the Legion became loud Suetonius first dishonorably discharged (Aug. 24). In the process, she also lost the Equestris title . Later soldiers from other legions were brought in to replenish it and the Legio X was given the nickname Gemina ('double').

Julian-Claudian dynasty

Course of the Cantabrian War

The newly formed Legio X Gemina was stationed in Hispania Tarraconensis , where Augustus was preparing a campaign against the Cantabrians . She took from 29 BC Until 19 BC In the Cantabrian War . The legions VI Victrix and X Gemina were initially stationed together in a camp of unknown names in Asturias . Evidence of their presence has been found in Astorga ( Asturica Augusta ) , in northwestern Spain. Even further south, near Gallaecia ( Callaecia ), traces of this legion were found, which presumably monitored the local population there. Later the VI Victrix was probably relocated to ( León ) while the X Gemina was stationed in the camp of Petavonium (Rosinos de Vidriales). The Petavonium camp only offered space for half the legion, so it is assumed that vexillations were also in cities, mines and other forts. Around this time the Legion was given the honorary title Victrix .

In 25 BC Veterans of the legions V Alaudae and X Gemina were settled by Publius Carisius in the newly founded Spanish city of Emerita Augusta ( Mérida ). Veterans of the IIII Macedonica , VI Victrix and the X Gemina were after coin finds around 15 BC. BC among the first settlers in the Colonia Caesaraugusta ( Saragossa ). At that time, the legions were used for extensive road and bridge construction work on the Via Augusta .

Around the year 63 the Legio X Gemina was moved to the Pannonian city of Carnuntum to replace the Legio XV Apollinaris there. Galba (68-69) moved the newly excavated Legio VII Galbiana to Carnuntum and the Legio X Gemina briefly returned to Hispania .

Flavian dynasty

In the so-called Four Emperor's Year , the Legion supported Vitellius , but played no special role in the battles that followed. During the Batavian Uprising in 70, Vespasian sent the X Gemina with the army of Petilius Cerialis to the province of Germania inferior . In an attack by the Batavians on a logging squad outside the fort, their camp prefect, five centurions and some soldiers were killed. In the autumn of 70 the legion moved into the Arenacium winter camp in what is now the Kleve district on the Lower Rhine, where it fended off some attacks by the Teutons.

From 71 to 104 the legion was stationed on the Hunnerberg , on which the Legio II Adiutrix had renewed the Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum ( Nijmegen ) camp, which had been destroyed in the Batavian uprising , in order to monitor the Batavian territory and prevent new revolts. The Legion's "front section" covered around 2000 km² between the Rhine and the Meuse. The stationing was accompanied by an economic upswing in the region. The Legion ran a pottery in nearby De Holdeurn. The Legion also operated brickworks on the other side of the Rhine ( Tegularia transrhenana ). The Legion's construction activities extended from Xanten down the Rhine to numerous forts and beneficiary stations , but also to civil buildings such as civitas suburbs of the Batavians and Canninefats . Vexillations were used in the quarries on the Moselle, in Voorburg, Neuss, Gellep and Xanten.

In 89, Lucius Antonius Saturninus , the governor of Germania superior , revolted against Domitian . The Lower Germanic legions ( I Minervia , VI Victrix, X Gemina, XXII Primigenia ) marched to Mogontiacum (Mainz) and put down the Saturnine uprising. In gratitude, Domitian gave the legions the title of Pia Fidelis Domitiana ("dutiful and loyal to Domitian"). After Domitian's death and his " damnatio memoriae " in 96 AD, the name addition Domitiana was deleted.

Map of Vindobona around 250 AD
Sole-shaped brick stamp of LEG (io) XG (emina) P (ia) F (idelis) from the Ala Nova fort

Adoptive Emperor and Antonine Dynasty

Trajan (98–117) had the Rhine border expanded. The Legio X Gemina strengthened several forts, such as B. in Dormagen and in Lugdunum Batavorum ((Brittenburg)) near Leiden , and built a dike on the Rhine. In 104 the X Gemina was assigned to Aquincum (Budapest) in Pannonia. Vexillations of VI Victrix , I Minervia and X Gemina took part in Trajan's second Dacian war (105/106). After the war, probably around 114, the legion was relocated to Vindobona ( Vienna ), where it stayed for the next 300 years until the 5th century. Brick stamps show construction activities of vexillations in Noricum ( Fort Wallsee , Fort Favianis ) and Upper Pannonia ( Fort Aequinoctium , Fort Ala Nova and Fort Klosterneuburg ).

Titus Caesernius Quinctianus was a legate of the Legio X Gemina from 133 to 136 , which at that time bore the title pia fidelis (dutiful and faithful). During the suppression of the Bar Kochba uprising (132-136) and in the Parthian War of Lucius Verus (162), Vexillations got to know the god Iupiter Dolichenus and brought his cult to the Danube. Under Antoninus Pius (138–161) a vexillation was moved to Mauretania . Between 166 and 182 the Legion was used in the Marcomann Wars against the Quadi .

Severan dynasty and soldier emperors

When Septimius Severus , the governor of Pannonia superior , was proclaimed emperor, he was reluctantly supported by the legion. The Legion took part in the fighting against the usurper Pescennius Niger (193–194). Septimius disbanded the Praetorian Guard and put a new formation, consisting mainly of legionnaires of the Pannonian legions, in their place.

In the course of the 3rd century, the ruling emperors granted the legion the right to use an honorary name several times:

In the conflict with Postumus (260-269), the counter-emperor of the Imperium Galliarum , the Legion supported Gallienus (260-268) and was rewarded with the title Pia VI Fidelis VI (six times dutiful and loyal) and honored by minting coins.

Painted shield of the Comitian Legio Decima Gemina in the early 5th century.

Late antiquity

Emperor Valentinian I (364–375) drove the massive expansion measures begun by his predecessors on the Pannonian Danube Limes and the Limes Sarmatiae and - contrary to current treaties - had fortifications built on the settlement area of ​​the Quaden and the neighboring Sarmatian Jazyans . The largest of these fortifications was to be the Göd-Bócsaújtelep fort, begun by a division of the Legio X Gemina under the Dux Frigeridus . With his dismissal due to a court intrigue, work on the fortress was stopped and only resumed under the new Dux Marcellianus in the spring or early summer of 374. At the same time, the Legion's building vexillations were also used on the Burgus Dunakeszi, which is located on Jazygian territory, and on the Burgus Bölcske . After violent protests, the Quadenkönig was invited to negotiations but was murdered from behind during a banquet in Marcellianus residence. Thereupon Quaden and Jazygen broke through the Limes and devastated Pannonia. The fortress construction had to be finally stopped. In June 374 Valentinian had to appear in person on the theater of war in order to overthrow the enemy again, which he soon succeeded in doing.

The Legion is mentioned for the last time in the early 5th century, in the Notitia Dignitatum (western part). It was now part of the Limitanei (border troops), divided between Vindobona (Vienna) and the Arrabona fort ( Győr ) and belonged to the army of the Dux Pannoniae Primae et Norici Ripensis . Then their tracks are lost. One of their vexillations, the Decima gemina , was in the field army ( Comitatenses ) of the Magister militum per Orientem at that time .

literature

Web links

Commons : Legio X Gemina  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerold Walser : Bellum Helveticum: Studies at the beginning of the Caesarian conquest of Gaul , (Historia Einzelschriften 118), Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07248-9 , p. 56.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Jona Lendering: Legio X Gemina . In: Livius.org (English)
  3. ^ Gaius Iulius Caesar : De bello Gallico. IV, 25
  4. ↑ a b Jona Lendering: Legio X Gemina . In: Livius.org (English); see: Lesley Adkins: Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome, Sonlight Christian, 2004, ISBN 0-8160-5026-0 , p. 60.
  5. ↑ Pollard / Berry 2016, p. 187
  6. ↑ a b Géza Alföldy : Spain . In: Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, Andrew Lintott (Eds.): The Augustan Empire, 43 BC – AD 69 ( The Cambridge Ancient History , 2nd Edition, Volume 10), Cambridge University Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0- 521-26430-3 , pp. 453–454, Pollard / Berry, 2016, p. 187.
  7. ↑ Leonard A. Curchin: Roman Spain: Conquest and Assimilation , Routledge, London, 1991, ISBN 0-415-06451-1 , p 73rd
  8. ^ AE 1953, 268 , AE 1928, 163 , AE 1904, 160 , AE 1976, 289 , Pollard / Berry, 2016, p. 187.
  9. ↑ Cassius Dio 53, 26, 1; The veteran settlements are dealt with in great detail in: Sabine Panzram: Stadtbild und Elite: Tarraco, Corduba and Augusta Emerita between Republic and Late Antiquity (Historia, individual writings 161), Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08039-2 , p. 233 and 267; Review at sehepunkte and review (PDF; 92 kB) by Joachim Gruber .
  10. ↑ Tacitus , Historien 5.20, Pollard / Berry, 2016, p. 187.
  11. ^ Jan Kees Haalebos: The economic importance of the Nijmegen legion camp and its canabae ; In: Thomas Grünewald (Ed.): Germania inferior. Settlement, society and economy on the border of the Roman-Germanic world (series: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde - supplementary volumes 28), de Gruyter, 2000, ISBN 978-3-11-016969-0 , pp. 464–479.
  12. ↑ CIL 13, 7717
  13. ^ AE 1957, 135
  14. ↑ Monika Hörig, Elmar Schwertheim : Corpus Cultus Iovis Dolicheni: CCID , Brill, Leiden 1987, ISBN 90-04-07665-4 , p. 178; see: CIL 3, 3999
  15. ^ András Mócsy : Pannonia and Upper Moesia. A history of the middle Danube provinces of the Roman empire , Routledge, 1974, ISBN 0-7100-7714-9 , p. 200.
  16. ↑ Hild 00418, Lupa 11406
  17. ↑ CIL 3, 3907 , CIL 3, 4030 , CIL 3, 4659 , AIJ 00273
  18. ↑ CIL 3, 3899
  19. ↑ CIL 11, 6368 , InscrAqu-02, 02767
  20. ↑ CIL 3, 4558 ; The reading of the heavily weathered inscription is uncertain; see: Christian Körner: Philippus Arabs. A soldier emperor in the tradition of the Antonine-Severan principate. (Studies on ancient literature and history 61). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-11-017205-4 . P. 294.
  21. ^ Yann Le Bohec: The imperial Roman army , Routledge, 2000, ISBN 978-0-415-22295-2 , p. 191.
  22. ↑ Zsolt Mráv : Archaeological research 2000–2001 in the area of ​​the late Roman fortress of Göd-Bócsaújtelep (preliminary report) 2002. In: Communicationes archeologicae Hungariae 2003. Népművelési Propaganda Iroda. Budapest 2003. pp. 83-114; here: p. 105.
  23. ↑ Zsolt Mráv : Archaeological research 2000–2001 in the area of ​​the late Roman fortress of Göd-Bócsaújtelep (preliminary report) 2002. In: Communicationes archeologicae Hungariae 2003. Népművelési Propaganda Iroda. Budapest 2003. p. 101.
  24. ↑ Notitia Dignitatum Occ. XXXIV ( Praefectus legionis decimae geminae and Praefectus legionis decimae et quartae decimae geminae geminarum militum liburnariorum ).
  25. ↑ Notitia Dignitatum Or. VII.