The Roman Ninth Legion's mysterious loss

History Net ^ | 16 March 2011 | Dr Miles Russel

[robowombat]

The Roman Ninth Legion's mysterious loss 16 March 2011

The disappearance of Rome's Ninth Legion has long baffled historians, but could a brutal ambush have been the event that forged the England-Scotland border, asks archaeologist Dr Miles Russell, of Bournemouth University.

One of the most enduring legends of Roman Britain concerns the disappearance of the Ninth Legion.

The theory that 5,000 of Rome's finest soldiers were lost in the swirling mists of Caledonia, as they marched north to put down a rebellion, forms the basis of a new film, The Eagle, but how much of it is true? It is easy to understand the appeal of stories surrounding the loss of the Roman Ninth Legion - a disadvantaged band of British warriors inflicting a humiliating defeat upon a well-trained, heavily-armoured professional army.

It's the ultimate triumph of the underdog - an unlikely tale of victory against the odds. Recently, however, the story has seeped further into the national consciousness of both England and Scotland. Find out more

Rome's Lost Legion is on the History Channel on Thursday 17 March at 2200 GMT

For the English, the massacre of the Ninth is an inspiring tale of home-grown "Davids" successfully taking on a relentless European "Goliath". For the Scots, given the debate on devolved government and national identity, not to say the cultural impact of Braveheart, the tale has gained extra currency - freedom-loving highlanders resisting monolithic, London-based imperialists.

The legend of the Ninth gained form thanks to acclaimed novelist Rosemary Sutcliff, whose masterpiece, The Eagle of the Ninth, became an instant bestseller when published in 1954.

Since then, generations of children and adults have been entranced by the story of a young Roman officer, Marcus Aquila, travelling north of Hadrian's Wall in order to uncover the truth about his father, lost with the Ninth, and the whereabouts of the Legion's battle standard, the bronze eagle.

The historians have dissented, theorising that the Ninth did not disappear in Britain at all, arguing both book and film are wrong. Their theory has been far more mundane - the legion was, in fact, a victim of strategic transfer, swapping the cold expanse of northern England, for arid wastes in the Middle East. Here, sometime before AD 160, they were wiped out in a war against the Persians.

The Ninth would have spent much of their time at York But, contrary to this view, there is not one shred of evidence that the Ninth were ever taken out of Britain. It's just a guess which, over time, has taken on a sheen of cast iron certainty. Three stamped tiles bearing the unit number of the Ninth found at Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, have been used to support the idea of transfer from Britain. But these all seem to date to the 80s AD, when detachments of the Ninth were indeed on the Rhine fighting Germanic tribes. They do not prove that the Ninth left Britain for good.

In fact, the last certain piece of evidence relating to the existence of the Legion from anywhere in the Roman Empire comes from York where an inscription, dating to AD 108, credits the Ninth with rebuilding the fortress in stone. Some time between then and the mid-2nd Century, when a record of all Legions was compiled, the unit had ceased to exist. But what happened to the Ninth?

Theories on the Ninth

Ambushed in Caledonia while fighting revolt Destroyed in the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt Wiped out in battle against the Parthians

The early years of the 2nd Century were deeply traumatic for Britannia. The Roman writer Fronto observed that, in the reign of the emperor Hadrian (AD 117 - 138), large numbers of Roman soldiers were killed by the British.

The number and full extent of these losses remain unknown, but they were evidently significant. The anonymously authored Augustan History, compiled in the 3rd Century, provides further detail, noting that when Hadrian became emperor, "the Britons could not be kept under Roman control". The British problem was of deep concern to Roman central government.

Thanks to a tombstone recovered from Ferentinum in Italy, we know that emergency reinforcements of over 3,000 men were rushed to the island on "the British Expedition", early in Hadrian's reign. The emperor himself visited the island in AD 122, in order to "correct many faults", bringing with him a new legion, the Sixth.

The fact that they took up residence in the legionary fortress of York suggests that the "great losses" of personnel, alluded to by Fronto, had occurred within the ranks of the Ninth.

It would seem that Sutcliff was right after all. It was the Ninth, the most exposed and northerly of all legions in Britain, that had borne the brunt of the uprising, ending their days fighting insurgents in the turmoil of early 2nd Century Britain.

The loss of such an elite military unit had an unexpected twist which reverberates to the present day. When the emperor Hadrian visited Britain at the head of a major troop surge, he realised that there was only one way to ensure stability in the island - he needed to build a wall. Hadrian's Wall was designed to keep invaders out of Roman territory as well as ensuring that potential insurgents within the province had no hope of receiving support from their allies to the north. From this point, cultures on either side of the great divide developed at different rates and in very different ways.

The ultimate legacy of the Ninth was the creation of a permanent border, forever dividing Britain. The origins of what were to become the independent kingdoms of England and Scotland may be traced to the loss of this unluckiest of Roman legions.

Dr Miles Russell is a senior lecturer in Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology at Bournemouth University.

[SuperLuminal]

"Dr. Who is so wibbley wobbedledy."

Yep! Little did Albert know that the correction he was looking for, for so many years,in:

R_mn - 1/2g_mnR + g_mnL = 8piG/c⁴T_mn

was the "wibbley wobbededy stuff" (WWS)...

So the FR correction to the equation should result in:
R_mn - 1/2g_mnR + g_mnLWWS = 8piG/c⁴T_mn

Which means that all this "dark energy" that we hear about "constantly" is fake news equivalent to man-induced global warming...

[MightyMama]

I go with Jim Butcher’s opinion that they wound up in another world and started taming the local elementals to help ‘em out. “Codex Alera” is goooood reading.

[SunkenCiv]

Rosemary Sutcliffe's "The Eagle of the Ninth" is the source of the modern myth that a Roman legion was annihilated in Caledonia (not Scotland, the ancestors of the Scots were peeing their kilts in fear in Ireland for a century after the Romans left Britain). The loss of the Ninth in Caledonia just didn't happen. Roman conquest of Caledonia was never finished because A) there wasn't anything of much value in the whole territory and B) because there was seldom any threat at all from the Pictish population.

• Romans went to war on diet of pizza, dig shows
• The Romans in Ireland
• World Heritage bid hope for wall [ Antonine Wall in Scotland ]
• Iron-masters of the Caledonians
• Hadrian's Wall Had A Bigger And Older Scottish Brother [tr]

[kalee]

Eagle of the bed Ninth was made into a movie. It was on Netflix or Amazon, we saw it earlier this year.

[kalee]

Eagle of the Ninth was made into a movie. It was on Netflix or Amazon, we saw it earlier this year.

[teeman8r]

thanks

t

[Red Badger]

IOW, the Romans Pict their enemies wisely.................

[SunkenCiv]

Any polity that gave 'em too much crap got their asses kicked. :^) The Romans only operated in force in what is now Scotland four times, beginning with Agricola, and ending with Septimius Severus. Hadrian's Wall (as well as the other "limes" and wall systems such as the one in Germany and the much less well known one is the Middle East) offered a sturdy defensive barrier, but mainly served the role of the great hedge in British India, controlling access and trade and excise tax flow.

[Red Badger]

The Romans only operated in force in what is now Scotland four times......

And every time they got kilt..............

[Texan5]

The people I know who are of Scottish ancestry are certain that their ancestors were part of the last of the best Scots-the ones who ended up here in the Carolinas after the Highland Clearances-and those who stayed in Scotland were wusses with no sense of adventure...

[colorado tanker]

I suppose to someone from the Mediterranean, Yorkshire must have seemed a bleak wasteland. Personally, I found the Dales a beautiful place.

[Domestic Church]

“The legend of the Ninth gained form thanks to acclaimed novelist Rosemary Sutcliff”

I remember reading this excellent book and including it in our home school. My fathers family were from Northern Scotland, Aberdeenshire. They were very tall and brawny with Scots chiseled features but had a light Mediterranean skin coloring that always made me think there must have been some Roman soldiers in the lineage.

[Domestic Church]

I think what was left of The Ninth Legion went native in the far north.

[SunkenCiv]

:^) Yeah, the Romans carried the kilts out on the tips of their spears, as trophies. The Caledonians got their asses kicked each time the Romans decided they needed it kicked. During the 350+ years of Roman Britain, they only felt it needed to be done four times. IOW, the Caledonians were not much of a threat.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/antoninewall/index

http://www.antoninewall.org/about-wall/wall-after-romans

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8VbxILaaGNE/T3Nz7_5ausI/AAAAAAAABUo/eorDgpZ_Yfo/s1600/wee_suenos%2Bstone%2B%25281%2529.JPG

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/forres/suenosstone/index.html

http://loveofscotland.blogspot.com/2012/04/pictish-stones-of-forres-rodney-and.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=Antonine+Wall&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&ei=UpCTWvTIKqiatgXH6aPoCA&start=20&sa=N

http://www.google.com/search?q=Hadrian%27s+Wall&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&tbm=isch

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/romanempire/index

[SunkenCiv]

The Roman Ninth Legion’s mysterious loss
BBC | March 16, 2011 | Unknown
Posted on 03/16/2011 4:28:52 AM PDT by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2689541/posts