The Lost Romans

The mystery of the lost Roman herb

Around this time they constructed a new fortress at York Eboracum , as shown by finds of tile-stamps from the site. The Ninth participated in Agricola 's invasion of Caledonia modern Scotland in According to Tacitus the legion narrowly escaped destruction when the Caledonians beyond the Forth launched a surprise attack at night on their fort. The Caledonians "burst upon them as they were terrified in their sleep".

In desperate hand-to-hand fighting the Caledonians entered the camp, but Agricola was able to send cavalry to relieve the legion. Seeing the relief force, "the men of the Ninth Legion recovered their spirit, and sure of their safety, fought for glory", pushing back the Caledonians. The last attested activity of the Ninth in Britain is during the rebuilding in stone of the legionary fortress at York Eboracum in This is recorded in an inscribed stone tablet discovered in Several inscriptions attesting IX Hispana have been found in the site of the legionary fortress on the lower Rhine river at Noviomagus Batavorum Nijmegen , Netherlands.

These include some tile-stamps dated ; and a silver-plated bronze pendant, found in the s, that was part of a phalera military medal , with "LEG HISP IX" inscribed on the reverse. The archaeological evidence thus appears to indicate that elements of IX Hispana were present at Noviomagus sometime after when the previous incumbent legion, X Gemina , was transferred to the Danube and that IX was probably replaced by a detachment of legion XXX Ulpia Victrix not long after AD The evidence for the presence of senior officers such as Macer convinced several scholars that the Ninth Legion as a whole was based there between and It has been suggested that the Legio VI Hispana, attested to in a small number of inscriptions dated to the 1st and 2nd centuries and one from the 3rd, was in reality the IX Hispana, probably misspelled by stonemasons.

However, this view has few supporters. The Nijmegen finds, dating to c. The Ninth was apparently no longer in existence after Two lists of the legions survive from this era, one inscribed on a column found in Rome CIL VI and the other a list of legions in existence "today" provided by the contemporary Greco-Roman historian Dio Cassius , writing c.

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Both these lists date from after , as both include the 3 Parthica legions founded by Septimius Severus in that year. Both lists provide an identical list of 33 legions. Neither includes a "IX Hispana". It thus appears that IX Hispana disappeared sometime in the period — The traditional theory is that the Ninth was destroyed in a war on Britain's northern frontier against the indigenous Celtic tribes. According to the eminent 19th-century German classicist Theodor Mommsen , "under Hadrian there was a terrible catastrophe here, apparently an attack on the fortress of Eboracum [York] and the annihilation of the legion stationed there, the very same Ninth that had fought so unluckily in the Boudican revolt.

Mommsen's thesis was published long before the first traces of IX Hispana were found at Nijmegen. As a result of these, and of inscriptions proving that two senior officers, who were deputy commanders of the Ninth in c. These now suggest later conflicts in other theatres as possible scenes of IX Hispana's demise:. Several scholars continue to argue that destruction in Britain is the most likely scenario for the Ninth's disappearance. Russell argues that "by far the most plausible answer to the question 'what happened to the Ninth' is that they fought and died in Britain, disappearing in the late s or early s when the province was in disarray".

Lawrence Keppie says that "no inscriptions recording the building activities of the legion or the lives and careers of its members have come from the East", suggesting that if the legion did leave Britain, it ceased to exist very soon afterwards. There was a problem adding your email address. Be the first to discover new talent!

Each week, our editors select the one author and one book they believe to be most worthy of your attention and highlight them in our Pro Connect email alert. Sign up here to receive your FREE alerts. By clicking on "Submit" you agree that you have read and agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. A worthy effort by a youthful author whose best work on Romanian topics may still lie ahead.

The museum houses a large number of artifacts found at the site, including fragments of studded sandals legionaries lost, spearheads, and a Roman officer's ceremonial face-mask, which was originally silver-plated. Moreover, there is controversy among Kalkriese adherents themselves as to the details.

The German historians Peter Kehne and Reinhard Wolters believe that the battle was probably in the Detmold area, and that Kalkriese is the site of one of the battles in 15 CE. This theory is, however, in contradiction to Tacitus' account. This would have involved a march along the northern edge of the Wiehen Hills, and the army would have passed through flat, open country, devoid of the dense forests and ravines described by Cassius Dio. Historians such as Gustav-Adolf Lehmann and Boris Dreyer counter that Cassius Dio's description is too detailed and differentiated to be thus dismissed. Tony Clunn see below , the discoverer of the battlefield, and a "southern-approach" proponent, believes that the battered Roman army regrouped north of Ostercappeln , where Varus committed suicide, and that the remnants were finally overcome at the Kalkriese Gap.

Based on a reinterpretation of the writings of Tacitus, Paterculus, and Florus and a new analysis of those of Cassius Dio, he proposes that an ambush took place in Varus's summer camp during a peaceful meeting between the Roman commanders and the Germans. The legacy of the Germanic victory was resurrected with the recovery of the histories of Tacitus in the 15th century, when the figure of Arminius, now known as "Hermann" a mistranslation of the name "Armin" which has often been incorrectly attributed to Martin Luther , became a nationalistic symbol of Pan-Germanism. From then, Teutoburg Forest has been seen as a pivotal clash that ended Roman expansion into northern Europe.

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This notion became especially prevalent in the 19th century, when it formed an integral part of the mythology of German nationalism. In the German Heinrich von Kleist 's play Die Hermannsschlacht aroused anti- Napoleonic sentiment, even though it could not be performed under occupation. Copies of the text are found on many souvenirs available at the Detmold monument.

The battle had a profound effect on 19th century German nationalism along with the histories of Tacitus ; the Germans, at that time still divided into many states , identified with the Germanic tribes as shared ancestors of one "German people" and came to associate the imperialistic Napoleonic French and Austro-Hungarian forces with the invading Romans, destined for defeat. As a symbol of unified Romantic nationalism , the Hermannsdenkmal , a monument to Hermann surmounted by a statue, was erected in a forested area near Detmold , believed at that time to be the site of the battle.

Paid for largely out of private funds, the monument remained unfinished for decades and was not completed until , after the Franco-Prussian War of —71 unified the country. The completed monument was then a symbol of conservative German nationalism. Hermann, Missouri , US, claims Hermann Arminius as its namesake and a third statue of Hermann was dedicated there in a ceremony on 24 September , celebrating the 2,th anniversary of Teutoburg Forest. In Germany, where since the end of World War II there has been a strong aversion to nationalistic celebration of the past, such tones have disappeared from German textbooks.

Legio IX Hispana

The following is a list of all known references to the battle from the literary sources of classical antiquity. Though the account provided in the Roman History is the most detailed of these, Dio Cassius' almost two-century removal from the event and his use of detail mentioned by no earlier author render it much more likely to be a literary re-imagining than a reliable historical record. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

He fell in the Varian War. His freedman's bones may be interred here. Publius Caelius, son of Titus, of the Lemonian district, his brother, erected this monument. Early Imperial campaigns in Germania. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. September Learn how and when to remove this template message. January Learn how and when to remove this template message. Unfortunate campaign of Germanicus , unknown artist, circa Archived from the original on The Battle that stopped Rome.

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After this, the legion was probably part of the imperial army in the Rhine borderlands that was campaigning against the Germanic tribes. The Teutoburg Forest myth is noteworthy in 19th century Germanic interpretations as to why the "march of the Roman Empire" was halted, but in reality Roman punitive campaigns into Germania continued even after that disaster, and they were intended less for conquest or expansion than they were to force barbarian tribes into some kind of political structure that would be compliant with Roman diplomatic efforts. Italicus , a nephew of Arminius, was appointed king of the Cherusci, Vangio and Sido became vassal princes of the powerful Suebi , [68] [69] and the Quadian client king Vannius was imposed as a ruler of the Marcomanni. With his main objectives reached and winter approaching, Germanicus ordered his army back to their winter camps, with the fleet incurring some damage from a storm in the North Sea. Contemporary and modern historians have generally regarded Arminius' victory over Varus as "Rome's greatest defeat", [4] one of the most decisive battles recorded in military history , [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] and as "a turning-point in world history ".

Retrieved January 16, Mommsen referred to the Battle of the Teutoburg forest as a turning-point in world history. The Illyrians, , p. The great rebellion of All 6 had been led by their chief Bato, and their relatively low total of decuriae likely reflects The four-year war which lasted Daesitiates was soon matched by rebellion of the Breuci in Pannonia, headed by Pinnes and another Bato. A Dictionary of the Roman Empire. Bohn, , Book 1, chapter 60, p.

Legio IX Hispana - Wikipedia

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Historical Dictionary of Austria. When the Romans began to appear in the region, shortly before the beginning of the Christian era, they turned Noricum into an administrative province, which encompassed much of what today is Austria.

The Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay. Concise Encyclopedia Of World History. Bowman; Edward Champlin; Andrew Lintott. The Cambridge Ancient History: X, The Augustan Empire, 43 B. Retrieved 18 November At the time, the location of the battle, the Cheruscan tribal seat, even Arminius' real name were unknown. June 23, Retrieved November 2, in German.

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