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Legio I Adjutrix

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Harvey F. Miller
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Extract

Conceived by Nero and born in the heat of the civil wars of A. D. 68–9, I Adjutrix was an extraordinary legion. Composed of former seamen, non-citizens from Pannonia, Egypt, Syria, and Greece, it possessed a character all its own, an ambition which at the outset prompted it to mob Galba while demanding legion status, and an enthusiasm which in its first formal battle caused it seriously to disconcert the veteran apax legion by its dash and bravery.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , April 1981 , pp. 73 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1981

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References

Notes

1. The evidence for this assumption of inferiority is fragmentary but persuasive: (a) the naval service period was 26 years compared with the auxilia's 25 and the legions’ 20 (Webster, Graham, Roman Imperial Army (London, 1969), p. 105Google Scholar); (b) naval pay may, according to one construction placed on Apion's letter of early second century A. D., have been only three-fourths that of auxiliary pay (Starr, C. G., Roman Imperial Navy(Cambridge, 1960), p. 81Google Scholar); (c) at the time of Commodus, a legionary soldier was punished by transfer to the fleet (Starr, p. 67); (d) Tacitus refers to the best of naval personnel at Ravenna ‘anxious to transfer to service in the legions’ (Hist. 3.50).

2. Starr, , op. cit., p. 68Google Scholar.

3. Ibid. Table 1: Starr's analysis of the provenance of sailors at Misenum in the first two centuries A.D. shows that 30 per cent came from the Balkan area (Pannonians, Bessi, Dalmatians, Dacians, etc.), 24 per cent from Ionian Asia Minor and Greece, 32 per cent from Egypt and Syria, and 14 per cent from Sardinia, Corsica, Africa, and other. Only 6 out of a total of 224 were Italian.

4. The Misene fleet at the time provided transportation for troops and dignitaries, swift courier vessels, and anti-piracy and anti-bandit patrols in the Tyrrhenian Sea area (Casson, Lionel, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1971), p. 141Google Scholar, Starr, op. cit., p. 18Google Scholar, and Dio Cassius 55. 28. 1).

5. Starr, , op. cit., p. 20Google Scholar.

6. Ibid. p. 82, Webster, , op. cit., p. 157Google Scholar.

7. Starr, , op. cit., pp. 57–8Google Scholar for inscriptions, tombstones, marines in late Republic. Casson, op. cit., plate 133, Temple of Isis, for naval dress and appearance, and p. 313 for naval men equipped and dressed as army men except for specialized weapons.

8. Ulpian- Corpus Iuris Civilis, Digest 37. 13.

9. Rodgers, W. L., Greek and Roman Naval Warfare from Salamis to Actium (U.S. Naval Inst., 1964)Google Scholar, appendix to Chapter 17, and Casson, op. cit., p. 149Google Scholar.

10. Webster, , op. cit., p. 157Google Scholar. Parker, H. M. D., The Roman Legions (Oxford, 1928), p. 100Google Scholar.

11. ‘Nam cum classiarios, quos Nero ex remigibus iustos milites fecerat, redire ad pristinum statum cogeret’.

12. Plutarch, Galba 15: ‘… shouting to have … quarters assigned to them’.

13. Suetonius, , Galba 12Google Scholar; Dio 63.3.1; Tac, . Hist. 1.6Google Scholar.

14. ‘Galba dedit veteranis qui militaverunt in legione I adiutrice civitatem ipsis liberis posterisque eorum et conubium cum uxoribus,’ I.L.S. 1988.

15. Parker, , op. cit., p. 102Google Scholar; I.L.S. 9059.

16. Pauly-Wissowa 12.1382 and 1439, Diplomata, I.L.S. 1988, 1989Google Scholar.

17. Parker, , op. cit., pp. 102–4Google Scholar.

18. Tac, . Agricola 25Google Scholar, ‘…infantry, cavalry, and marines [campaigning across the Forth] often meeting in the same camp, would mess and make merry together.’ Tac, . Annals 4.27Google Scholar concerns the suppression of a slave revolt in A.D. 24 by naval crews acting as a unified land force. Naval personnel seem to have been used as conventional infantry soldiers by all the contending parties during the civil wars (Tac, . Hist. 3.55, 2.11, 2.17, 2.22Google Scholar).

19. Parker, , op. cit., p. 104Google Scholar; Webster, , op. cit., p. 110Google Scholar.

20. Roughly a year after the enrolment of the first formal naval legion, a second was formed, probably by Mucianus, of sailors deserting the Vitellian fleet at Ravenna for Vespasian's cause.

21. Conveniently for many of the Danubian tribesmen who eventually made up the bulk of the legion, P–W 12.1386.