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Legio VIII Augusta and the Claudian Invasion*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Lawrence J. F. Keppie
Lawrence J. F. Keppie
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford
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Extract

The belief that legio VIII Augusta, either in whole or in part, had a share in the invasion of Britain in A.D. 43 has received notable support in recent years, not least from Professor S. S. Frere in Britannia. The participation of the legion is regarded as a probability by D. R. Dudley and G. Webster in both their recent books, and has been endorsed by the editor of Some inscriptions from Roman Britain, where the epigraphic evidence is given. The idea received no mention in the definitive works of either Collingwood or Richmond, and was rejected long ago by Ritterling. A fresh examination may therefore be in order of the actual evidence for the presence of the legion in Britain at this time.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 2 , November 1971 , pp. 149 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Lawrence J. F. Keppie 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

My thanks are due to Professor Frere who encouraged me to proceed with this paper, and to Dr. Brian Dobson for criticism and correction of its contents at all stages. The debt which I owe to him and to his colleagues in the University of Durham is considerable.

References

1 Britannia: A History of Roman Britain, 63 and 65 n. 2.

2 The Rebellion of Boudicca, 38 and 149 n. 20; The Roman Conquest of Britain, 16.

3 Some inscriptions from Roman Britain, ed. M. C. Greenstock, Nos. 14 and 15.

4 But seems to have slipped into De Vita Agricolae, ed. Richmond and Ogilvie, p. 187, being carried over from the edition of Furneaux and Anderson, p. 78.

5 In his article legio, in RE xii, cols. 1647–9. for an early exposition of the idea, cf. Hübner, CIL vii, p. 305 and more fully in Hermes, 1881, 521.

6 The presence of a vexillation from the legion in Britain in the second century is not disputed, cf. CIL x 5829, vii 495, RIB 782.

7 For Plautius, cf. now Epigraphische Studien, 4, 64, no. 1. There is a possibility that VIII and IX had operated together before outside their own province, against Tacfarinas; cf. Tacitus, Ann., iii, 9, with l'Annie Épigraphique, 1919, 29, ib. 1921, 20.

8 =ILS 2701. Parker, Roman Legions, 131 notes that ‘an inscription speaks of a vexillatio from VIII Aug.’ He quotes this inscription, which it will be seen is not quite so specific.

9 Tacitus, Ann., xv, 50, 60–1, 71; cf. Prosopographia Imperii Romani (second edition) G 112. He was affected by the fatalis omnium ignavia (Ann. xv, 61).

10 That the inscription was erected during his lifetime is more likely than after his death, when Gavius could be branded as a traitor.

11 His tribe Stellatina, which is that of Augusta Taurinorum, makes it probable that he was a local man.

12 Cohors XIII Urbana was at Rome and not yet at Lugdunum in the Neronian period; cf. H. Freis, Epigraphische Studien, 2, 10–11. Freis also shows that the Tribunate in an Urban Cohort outside Rome did not normally form part of the trib. vig., trib. urb., trib. praetor, career series (op. cit., 88).

13 In the following table iii 6359 etc. refers to the appropriate volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; l'Année Épigraphique is abbreviated to AE. In v 3374 the dona are carved on the stone; in the other cases they are part of the inscription.

14 On this man and his dona, awarded in two stages, see below, p. 152.

15 The inscription of L. Pellartius describes him as evocatus legionis. This means only that he was attached to a legion during his service as evocatus, not that he had previously served in a legion; but cf. Epigraphische Studien, 8, 118.

16 v 3375 shows his brother, also serving in leg. XI. Festus will have worked his way up from the ranks; cf. Greece & Rome, 1970, 192–3.

17 The material collected by Domaszewski, Die Rangordnung des rōmischen Heeres, 117 should be treated with caution. In some of his examples the dona are tied to posts prior to primus pilus (e.g. xi 5646, 6055), others are not tied in at all.

18 E.g. xi 395, 5646.

19 E.g. xi 2112; cf. x 3733.

20 For examples of dona given without the posts concerned— ILS 9200, CIL iii 2917.

21 Tacitus, Agricola, 13; Seneca, Octavia, 39–44; idem, Apocolocyntosis, 12.3; Suetonius, Claudius, 17.3; ILS 216.

22 For this thought, e.g. Dio lx, 19.2; Latin Anthology I, 419–26; Virgil, Eclogues, i.66; ILS 212 (Claudius' speech on the Gallic senators); he gave his son the name Britannicus, and Dio (lx, 22.1) states that he assumed it himself, but no literary, epigraphic, or numismatic evidence supports this. Cf. also Classical Review, 1951, 4–5.

23 xi 395; cf. G. E. F. Chilver, Cisalpine Gaul, 92, where the author seems to suggest that Valens had only joined up in 43; but he was already close to evocatio then. For the same misconception cf. A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny, 684. If Valens had only enlisted in 43, he would not have been evocatus till 59; this leaves him seven years to get to a procuratorship.

24 The dona were given in two stages: TAP as a senior principalis on the staff of the Praetorian Prefect, and CA on his promotion to evocatus. No separate campaign is adduced for the CA and indeed no other campaign is known for a Praetorian to have been decorated in. Most probably, after the initial award of TAP, his stipendia were completed and he was selected to continue service as evocatus—between the actual award and its presentation at the Triumph in 44; by the time of the Triumph he was now eligible for a higher grade of decoration. For awards made at the British Triumph, cf. Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas pertinentes, iv, 1086: τιµαØεμτα εμ τωι [κατα] βρεταμμωμ Øριαµβωι and AE 1924, 78: d.d. in tri]um [pho a divo] Claudia. The restoration is made probable by the context.

25 E.g. Caesar, Bell. Gall., iii, 35.6; Bell Civ., iii, 91.

26 Soon to appear as Laufbahnen der Primipili, in the series Epigraphische Studien.

27 L. Antonius Naso (ILS 9199) was trib. leg., trib. vig., trib. urb. (twice), and trib. praetor, between 66 and early 69. This is remarkable and could be explained by arguing a speedy career hastened by loyalty when many were suspect.

28 Tacitus, , Ann., xv, 60–1.Google Scholar

29 = ILS 967.

30 Dio lx, 24.1; Suetonius, Claudius 24.2; Tacitus, , Ann., xiii, 29. For a Quaestor selected for the new post in the first year of its operation, cf. ILS 966: Domitius Decidius, the probable father-in-law of Agricola.Google Scholar

31 The tribe of Suasa was Camilia (Kubitschek, Imperium Romanum Tributim Descriptum, 77).

32 For a partial parallelism of phrase, cf. v 2090 : C. Vettonius Fabia Maximus veteranus ex militia reversus.

33 Tacitus, , Ann., xii, 15–21; Dio lx, 28.7; Hesperia, 1941, 239; Prosopographia Imperii Romani (second edition) D 70; Epigraphische Studien, 4, 65, no. 3.Google Scholar

34 ii 2079, 3272; Epigraphische Studien, 1, 9.

35 In 62 leg. V Mac. went east to the Parthian War; by the time it had returned (70–1), VIII Aug. had gone permanently to the Rhine (Ritterling, op. cit., 1574 and 1652).

36 So Prosopographia Imperii Romani (second edition) C 1257; Wiener Studien, 1936, 192ff. For the revolt, American Journal of Philology, 1970, 161 ff. J. J. Wilkes. Dalmatia, 83 ff.

37 Dio lx, 15.4.

38 Suetonius, Claudius, 13.2; Orosius 7, 6.7; Tacitus, , Hist., i, 89.Google Scholar

39 Suetonius, Otho, 1.2.

40 On this evidence cf. Betz, Untersuchungen zur Militargeschichte der römischen Provinz Dalmatien, 72; Wilkes, op. cit., 115; Epigraphische Studien, 4, 46–7.

41 For a contemporary example of vagueness which probably refers to Gaius' German or British ‘campaigns’, cf. ILS 2696.

42 This would be the only direct evidence for the participation of legio IX Hispana in the invasion itself; II Aug. is well attested (ILS 2696, Tacitus, Hist., iii, 44). One inscription records legio XX (AE 1924, 78). There is no evidence for legio XIV Gemina in the invasion.

43 ILS 974, a Tribune of legio V Alaudae decorated by Claudius, probably refers to the campaigns of Corbulo on the Rhine in 47; V Alaudae was one of the legions under his command, xiii 5093 records a Tribune recalled by Claudius for the British War. He had previously served in IIII Mac. in Spain. This does not necessarily establish a connection between this legion and the invasion, though Spain with three legions at no great distance would be a more suitable place from which to draw vexillations than distant Pannonia.

44 The Leicester tile (Ephemeris Epigraphica vii 1124), reading LVIII, has caused difficulties. It may just be a numeral and, at any rate, legio VIII could hardly have penetrated to Leicester and set up a tilery there during its supposed short stay in Britain; cf. Dudley and Webster, The Rebellion of Boudicca, 149 n. 20.

45 Caesar, Bell. Gall, v, 8.2.