Mars Legion

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The Mars Legion ( Latin Legio Martia ) was a legion of the Roman army, presumably founded by Gaius Iulius Caesar in 49 BC. For the civil war at the end of the Roman Republic from veterans of the Gallic War . The nickname refers to the Roman god of war Mars . A number of the Legion is not recorded, but it is assumed that it was numbered XXV, XXVI, XXVIII, XXIX or XXX.

It is said that the Mars Legion participated in the war in North Africa in 46 BC. Took part. In 44 BC BC she was stationed in Macedonia . After Caesar's death, Mark Antony took command of the Legion as acting consul and relocated the Legio Martia and the Legio IIII Macedonica to Gallia Cisalpina (Northern Italy).

However, the Mars Legion ran at the end of 44 BC. BC with the IIII Macedonica in Alba Fucens to Octavian (later Augustus ) and fought for him and (nominally) the Senate , for which reason it was praised by Marcus Tullius Cicero , in April 43 BC. In the battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina . At Mutina the Legion suffered heavy losses. In Padua , the then Patavium, the tombstone of a centurion of the Legion was found, who probably perished in these battles.

Then Octavian probably moved the Legion to Rhegium , where it was used against Sextus Pompey . After Octavian and Antonius had allied themselves in the Second Triumvirate and fought together in Greece against the Caesar killers Brutus and Cassius , the Mars legion was to strengthen its armed forces together with another legion and to cross the Adriatic on a fleet led by Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus . On the day of the first battle at Philippi in the autumn of 42 BC. The ships were intercepted and completely destroyed by an enemy fleet under the command of Lucius Staius Murcus . Only a few members of the two legions survived the downfall.

literature

  • Lawrence JF Keppie: The making of the Roman Army. From Republic to Empire . University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma 1998, ISBN 0-8061-3014-8 , p. 201.
  • Lawrence JF Keppie: A centurion of legion Martia at Padova? In: Journal of Roman military equipment studies 2 (1991), pp. 115-121.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Lawrence JF Keppie: The making of the Roman Army. From Republic to Empire , University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma 1998, ISBN 0-8061-3014-8 , p. 201
  2. ↑ Cicero , Philippica 4, 5: Legio Martia, quae mihi videtur divinitus ab eo deo traxisse nomen, a quo populum Romanum generatum accepimus ... - “The Mars Legion, which - it seems to me - by divine providence, the name of that God, from whom the Roman people are said to have descended ... "
  3. ↑ Valerius Maximus 3, 2, 19.
  4. ↑ a b Lawrence JF Keppie: Legions and veterans: Roman army papers 1971-2000 , Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07744-8 , p. 69 (Mavors. Roman Army Researches, Volume 12).
  5. ↑ Philippica 4, 5-6 and 14, 26-38.
  6. ^ AE 1982, 395 .
  7. ^ Appian , Civil Wars 4, 115.