Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!



HOME UP

Legiones I

Legio I Italica

Legio I Augusta

 

Legio I Italica

Cognomina: Italica ("Italian"); Italica Severiana ("Severus' Italian")
Foundation: By Nero, circa 67 CE, to participate in planned Caspian invasion 
Birthdate Dies natalis 20 September (CIL iii.7591)
Notable Commanders: None 
Major Actions: First and second battles of Cremona (civil war, 69 CE); Dacian/Sarmatian campaigns (86-90 CE); Dacian wars (101-106 CE); Marcommanic wars (166-180 CE)
Permanent Stations: Lugdunum, Gaul (now Lyon, France); Novae (near Svishtov, Bulgaria)

Discussion: Legio I Italica was enrolled by Nero circa 67 CE to augment Roman forces in advance of a projected expedition against the Albani tribe living near the Bosporus straits, the entrance to the Caspian Sea.  (Suetonius, Life of Nero 19.2)

The theatrically vainglorious Nero styled his new Italian legion "The Phalanx of Alexander the Great."

While I Italica's initial dilectus recruited only Italians, future recruits were found mostly outside of Italy.  Out of eight later inscriptions left by I Italica soldiers in Moesia, two soldiers are Italian, one Narbonese, two Macedonian, and four of Thracian descent.

 

68-69 CE   I Italica joined the army of Vitellius, defeating Otho's forces at the first battle of Cremona (also called Bedriacum), but was itself defeated in turn by Vespasian at the second battle of Cremona.

The victor, Vespasian, posted I Italica along with the other defeated remnants of Vitellius' legions to Illyricum and Moesia where they could not threaten his consolidation of imperial power.  

 

86-90 CE I Italica next saw action in Domitian's punitive campaigns against the Dacians, 86-88 CE.  The legion also took part in the inconclusive Sarmatian campaign in 89-90, in which an army of Iazyges and Suebi destroyed Legio V Alaudae.  

 

101-106 CE Under the command of Trajan, a Roman army including I Italica resumed the offensive against the Dacian kingdom in two separate wars, 101-102 and 105-106 CE.  After the final victory, I Italica returned to Novae, Lower Moesia.

 

166-180 CE On the orders of Marcus Aurelius, I Italica and other legions detached cohorts into task forces called vexillationes, which were then sent to the defense of the Rhine against the German tribes of the Marcomanni.  The majority of the legion, with its commander and aquila, remained in Novae.

 

Post 180 CE After 180 CE, little else is known about I Italica.  Like the other frontier legions, it probably devolved into a regional border militia much less disciplined and well-equipped than the original.  

On the basis of an inscription dated to 224 CE commemorating the dies natalis of the legion, it seems that a second cognomen, Severiana, was bestowed (CIL 3.6224).  However, the honorific does not appear in a later inscription of 300 CE (L'Annee epigraphique, Paris 1981, pg 777).  It may have been the product of a desperate effort by Severus Alexander to legitimize his rule by association with the dynasty of Septimius Severus, whose name Alexander assumed.

The 5th c. eastern emperor Justinian attempted to restore Novae's walls during his efforts to reunify the crumbling Roman empire, but the work was abandoned and the townsfolk drifted away.

 

Modern Re-enactment and Research Legio I Italica in Atlanta, Georgia.

Novae, near modern Svishtov (Swisjtow), Bulgaria, has been excavated by Polish and Bulgarian archaeologists.

 

 

Legio I Augusta

Cognomina: Augusta ("Augustus' Own"); Germanica ("German-conquering") 
Foundation: Probably by Caesar, circa 48-46 BCE; may have been raised by the consul Pansa against Marcus Antonius, c. 43 BCE
Birthdate Unknown; emblem unknown
Notable Commanders: None 
Major Actions: Civil war (pro-Caesar), Hispania, 46 BCE
?Battle of Mutina, 43 BCE
?Battle of Phillippi, 42 BCE
Campaigns against Sextus Pompeius, 38-36 BCE
Civil war (pro-Octavian), 32-31 BCE
Cantabrian war, Hispania, c. 26-19 BCE
Civil war (Vitellius) 69 CE
Revolt of Civilis, 70 CE
Permanent Stations: Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne, Germany)
Bonna (Bonn, Germany)

[map to be added]

Discussion: It is thought that Legio I (later called Augusta and then reconstituted as I Germanica) was raised in Italy by Julius Caesar after he entered his second consulship in 48 BCE, just after he had crossed the Rubicon river, plunging the Roman world into civil war.  At the same time he also raised three other legions using the numerals traditionally reserved for consular legions (I-IV).  

It is also possible that the consul Caius Vibius Pansa raised Legio I with several others in 43 BCE, to support the senatorial forces in alliance with Octavian against Marcus Antonius, culminating in a clash at Mutina.

 

48-44 BCE

There is no evidence that the green Legio I accompanied Caesar's 12-legion expeditionary force across the Adriatic Sea to confront Pompeius Magnus' senatorial army at Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus.  

Left behind in Italy, Legio I apparently sat out the campaigns Caesar waged against Pharnaces II in Asia Minor as well as the victory over the Pompeians at Thapsus in North Africa (46 BCE).

Legio I may have gotten its first chance to fight in 46, as part of Caesar's hasty campaign against the stubborn holdouts of Pompeian resistance in Spain.  In the Spanish War (ch. 26.4), Caesar recounts a taunt of Gnaeus Pompeius, mocking the inexperience of his legions.  While not specifically mentioned in the sources, Legio I's sister legions II and III (later Gallica) are; it is therefore not so far a stretch to place Legio I in the Caesarian army at Munda. 

Six months after the triumph at Munda, Caesar was slain.  The invasion of Parthia for which he had been assembling an army in Macedonia -- not including Legio I, apparently -- was abandoned.

 

44-36 BCE In the scramble for power following Caesar's assassination, Legio I cast its allegiance to Octavian, Caesar's young heir.  

It is unclear whether Legio I actually fought at Mutina (43 BCE) against Marcus Antonius; however, if the consul Pansa raised the legion, combat at Mutina would have been almost a certainty.  It should be mentioned that Pansa, who was mortally wounded in the fierce fighting, lost over half his men and his raw legions fled back to their camp in confusion and fear (Appian, Civil Wars III.69).

Given the massive mobilization of the Triumvirs' forces to destroy the opposing army of Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius, it seems likely that Legio I took part at the battle of Phillippi in 42 BCE.

Octavian utilized Legio I during his sporadic suppression of Sextus Pompeius, 38-36 BCE (Appian, Civil Wars V.112).  

 

35-31 BCE The activities of Legio I are unclear during this period, but it seems reasonable to presume that the legion transferred across the Adriatic Sea with the great majority of Octavian's army to fight the Antonian forces at Actium.

 

30-16 BCE During this period, Legio I seems to have gained a cognomen -- Augusta -- only to lose it for their later involvement in a mutiny.

In 26 BCE, Augustus (formerly Octavian) moved forces to northwestern Hispania to extend Roman domination over the Cantabri tribe.  By 19 BCE, Augustus' general M. Vipsanius Agrippa was still unable to drive the stubborn Cantabri to submission.  

After some Roman troops mutinied over service conditions and the poor conduct of the campaign, Agrippa punished them by discharge in disgrace and the removal of the honorific title Augusta from Legio I (Dio 54.11.5).

The Cantabri were finally subdued that year and Legio I remained in Spain until c. 16 BCE, when it was transferred to the Rhine frontier.

 

circa 16 BCE-
9 CE

Legio I established a fortress with Legio XX (later Valeria Victrix) at Colonia Agrippinensis in Lower Germany.

Mutiny??

 

9-68 CE In the wake of the disastrous loss of Varus' 3 legions to a Cheruscan ambush in the Teutoburgiensis Saltus, Legio I was transferred to Bonna.  His forward German policy a patent failure, Augustus abandons his plan for a new province of Germania.  The Rhine frontier solidifies under Tiberius and later emperors.

At some time during this period, perhaps while serving under the elder Drusus or Germanicus, Legio I won a new cognomen, Germanica, presumably for victories against the restive German tribes beyond the Rhine.  

69-70 CE [incomplete]
Modern Re-enactment and Research No re-enactment efforts.

Cf. Ronald Syme, "Some notes on the legions under Augustus," Journal of Roman Studies 23 (1933) for a discussion of the continuity of Legio I from the Cantabrian war to the legion's reappearance on the German frontier.

The evidence for the cognomen Germanica is found in AE 1976, 515 (indicating a possible Augustan date); CIL xii.2234; Dessau ILS 2342 (Claudian period); and AE 1956, 169.

 

 

HOME UP Sitemap News & Events The Legions Elite Troops Bibliography Travelogue Update Log Search Page Corona Award Links Staff & Credits

Click to send email to us
Contact
Click to go to our Message Board
Discuss
Click to search our website!
Search

Sign Guestbook
Click to see what's new!
See Changes

You're Visitor Number


Link to Us!

Text credited to individual authors and photographers remain the intellectual property of those contributors. 
This website is © 2000, 2001 by RomanArmy.com 
Wherever possible, non-original material on this site has been credited to its source and is considered free use/fair use for educational purposes.  We are not a commercial site.
Soldier images in the banner above are of the Ermine Street Guard, one of the oldest Roman re-enactor groups in existence. 

Keep the Web free -- support a ban on Internet taxation and regulation by government.

We use WebCounter for our free hit counter.  Click to try it! Microsoft is evil, but we are stuck with them, so what can you do?