To Rule Britannia by John Waite

Author:John Waite [John Waite]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

The soldiers were sorely displeased at the paltry character of the rewards given them for the wars which had been waged at this time and none of them consented to bear arms for longer than the regular period of his service. It was therefore voted that twenty thousand sesterces should be given to members of the pretorian guard when they had served sixteen years, and twelve thousand to the other soldiers when they had served twenty years. Twenty-three, or, as others say, twenty-five, legions of citizen soldiers were being supported at this time. At present only nineteen of them still exist, as follows: the Second (Augusta), with its winter quarters in Upper Britain; the three Thirds – the Gallica in Phoenicia, the Cyrenaica in Arabia, and the Augusta in Numidia; the Fourth (Scythica) in Syria; the Fifth (Macedonica) in Dacia; the two Sixths, of which the one (Victrix) is stationed in Lower Britain, the other (Ferrata) in Judaea; the Seventh (generally called Claudia) in Upper Moesia; the Eighth (Augusta) in Upper Germany; the two Tenths in upper Pannonia (Gemina) and in Judaea; the Eleventh (Claudia) in Lower Moesia (for two legions were thus named after Claudius because they had not fought against him in the rebellion of Camillus); the Twelfth (Fulminata) in Cappadocia; the Thirteenth (Gemina) in Dacia; the Fourteenth (Gemina) in Upper Pannonia; the Fifteenth (Apollinaris) in Cappadocia; the Twentieth (called both Valeria and Victrix) in upper Britain. These latter, I believe, were the troops which Augustus took over and retained, along with those called the Twenty-second who are quartered in Germany – and this in spite of the fact that they were by no means called Valerians by all and do not use that name any longer. These are the legions that still remain out of those of Augustus; of the rest, some were disbanded altogether, and others were merged with various legions by Augustus himself and by other emperors, in consequence of which such legions have come to bear the name Gemina.²³

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