The Ancients - The Mystery of the Ninth Legion

Episode Date: January 24, 2021

The legions of Rome were the nucleus of Rome’s military might for centuries. From campaigning in northern Scotland to the Persian Gulf, these devastating battalions extended and cemented Roman power. Yet of these legions there was one whose end is shrouded in mystery: the Ninth Legion. So what might have happened to this legion? Joining me to talk through the theories surrounding the Ninth's disappearance is Dr Simon Elliott. Simon has recently written a book all about the Ninth's disappearance, and in this podcast he takes us through the various theories and evidence surrounding this mystery.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast we are talking about one of the great mysteries of ancient history. Now in the early 2nd century AD, a Roman legion vanishes. It disappears from all records. This was Legio IX Hispana, the Ninth Legion. Over the years, over the decades, over the centuries, there have been various theories put forwards

as to what happened to the Ninth. Indeed, the story has become immortalised in famous works such as Rosemary Sutcliffe's brilliant novel The Eagle of the Ninth, and more recently, Hollywood blockbusters such as Centurion and The Eagle. Now in today's podcast I was delighted to be joined by Dr Simon Elliott. Simon has come on the podcast before to talk about Old Testament warriors and he has recently released a book all about the fate of the Ninth Legion, all about the theories surrounding what might have happened to the Ninth. So it was great to get him on the show to talk through this absolutely fascinating ancient mystery. Here's Simon.

Simon Elliott, great to have you back on the show. Tristan, history hit. I love working with you guys. Thank you so much for having me back. Now, we are talking about one of the great detective stories of history. Well, you know what? That is absolutely spot on. I decided to put myself in the position of being the Hercule Poirot of historians, or maybe the Miss Marple, to look at this amazing, amazing mystery, because we know the fate of nearly every Roman legion, right? There may have been up to 60 legions that we know the name of at any one time in the Principate Empire of 30, maybe 32 under Septimius Severus. But the one legion, we don't know what happened to it, was the ninth

legion. And to me, this was a sort of a question which I really wanted to actually address. I wanted to follow the historical thread, the historical detective story, and see if I could actually come up with some solutions to this question, which has been dominating thinking about Roman legions in Britain, probably since the antiquarian period. I love that comparison of yourself to Miss Marple. Absolutely brilliant. Six foot six Miss Marple. Yeah, six foot six Miss Marple indeed. So let's look at the background first of all. Let's look at what we do know before we get onto the theories.

First of all, when do we first hear in the sources of a 9th Legion? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take you through exactly what we know about the 9th Legion. So I'll do a chronological analysis. If you can hear papers rustling, it's just because I'm making sure if they get it absolutely accurate. So the 9th Legion we know about isn't the first one. The first one dates to around sort of 90, 89 BC and it participated in the year-long siege of Asculum in the Social War when Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo led his Roman army to victory over their former Italian allies. So this is fairly well detailed. Now this early Ninth

Legion then does we know factually participate in Julius Caesar's campaigns in the conquest of Gaul and it participates fully which includes taking part almost certainly in both of his engagements in Britain in 55 and 54 BC his incursions into Britain and it survives through to about 45 BC and at that time for some reason it's disbanded we do not know why it's disbanded but what we do know bizarrely is it is then reformed about 44 43 bc so maybe even a less than a year later than when it was actually disbanded so this is something very odd going on here but our legion the ninth legion comes into being so this is the subject of our talk today the subject of my book the subject of the detective story so it's founded by octavian and it's probably founded with Caesarian veterans.

And we know it participates in 42 BC in the Battle of Philippi which are very sanguineous wars, campaigns when Augustus is trying to, or Octavian, then Augustus, is trying to conquer the far north of Spain. And it participates so well that it gets its first cognomen, which is Hispaniensis. So this is Legio IX Hispaniensis, later shortened to Legio IX Hispana. Circa 10 BC, the legion is redeployed to a colour in southeastern Italy. And then in AD 14, it's redeployed once more to a legion 9 his spanner circa 10 bc the legions redeployed to a color in southeastern italy and then in ad 14 it's redeployed once more to a legionary fortress in pannonia now this is interesting because this is the first occasion when we see that this is actually quite a potentially recalcitrant religion it's got a lot of character it's got a lot of self-awareness it thinks a lot

of itself we know this because in actual fact it's part of a mutiny because at some stage around this time three legions are based in one legionary fortress and they all including our legionary Spanish rebel and this rebellion is put down we don't know how but the legion survives it's not cashiered it survives. Then around AD 20 it's redeployed to North Africa to support legio 3 Augusta and its campaign against the Numidian rebel Tasferinas participates in a major victory in AD 22. Then the 9th Legion moves to the legionary fortress at Sisak in modern Croatia in Pannonia again AD 22 and there it remains until in AD 43 it receives its great calling because the governor of the region Pannonia at the time is of course Aulus Plautius who Claudius decides is going to lead the Claudian invasion of Britain in AD 43.

And Legio IX Hispana is one of the four legions which goes to Britain and fully participates in the Claudian invasion, fully participates in all of the various breakout campaigns, all the way through to founding Lincoln as a legionary fortress, even later founding York as a legionary fortress even later founding York as a legionary fortress which becomes its home. So Roman York Ibarakam is founded by the 9th legion on the river Ouse and it becomes the base for the legion in the far north of Britain which is the bulwark against any problems in the far far north of the unconquered part of the growing

province. The next date which is important is the first date, Tristan, which is the date when it is last mentioned in history. So in terms of historiography, this is in AD 82 as part of Agricola's campaigns in the far north of Britain. So this is in the region of modern Scotland. When Tacitus says that on a given night in AD 82, the Ninth Legion is in its marching camp. Remember Roman legions at the end of every day's march when they're in enemy territory, build a marching camp to defend themselves. And on a given night in AD 82, the camp is almost overrun by an attack of the native Britons. And apparently Agricola, Tacitus tells us, and he would do because Tacitus

is writing about his father-in-law, Tacitus tells us, and he would do because Tacitus is writing about his father-in-law, Tacitus tells us that Agricola saves the day by turning it with another legion, which prevents the 9th legion in its marching camp being overrun. Of course, Tacitus also tells us that the 9th legion then claimed that they're okay, actually, and that they were winning. So you have this push and shove in the historical narrative between Agricola, the boss, and the 9th legion who were almost overrun. between Agricola the boss and the 9th legion who were almost overrun so this is the second time we have the 9th legion mentioned in the context of something which is not esteemed so we have it rebelling earlier in Pannonia and now it's almost overrun is this a taste of things to come let us see so moving on we have AD 104 to 120 possibly vexillations we can talk about this later

of the 9th legion moving to the legionary fortress at nijmegen on the rhine but then in ad 108 we get the next most important piece of history regarding the ninth legion and this is the epigraphy on the stone built rebuilt southeastern gate at the legionary fortress in york which is in the reign of the emperor trajan references the gate being rebuilt by the 9th legion. This is so important because it's the last time they're ever mentioned. So we have AD 182 the last time in history by a historian. AD 108 we have the last time it's mentioned ever and that's it. It disappears from history in terms of the written record from that point. We then move to AD 122 when we know that Hadrian arrived in Britain. We can talk about his role in the building of Hadrian's Wall whether it was begun earlier or during his visit later perhaps but the key thing here is he brings another legion

so legio six victrix and six victrix is installed in York to replace the ninth legion so therefore the ninth legion is no longer inork it is either gone or somewhere else and then if we look at the building of hadrian's wall as we know hadrian's wall is covered in epigraphy in writing from the various legions and military units which built hadrian's wall so even one of my areas of speciality the classic britannica the regional navy in britain we know because of inscriptions built parts of hadrian's wall there is no inscription from the ninth legion so to my mind it's not there it's gone so sometime between 108 and 122 it's gone and then finally we go to ad 168 when we have the construction of a

pillar a pair of pillars actually in rome which list the extant legions of their day, AD 168, and they don't list the 9th Hispana. So it's definitely gone by then. So that is what we factually know. That's an amazing roundup there, Simon. And just before we go on to the theories of what could possibly have happened to the 9th Legion, there's one episode from the history of the 9th Legion that I would like us to just focus on a little bit because it is absolutely extraordinary. I think it's 60 or 61 AD, the 9th Legion, it has a run-in with the famous Iceni Queen Boudica. Well, this is interesting because the context we're talking about here is the famous 9th Legion, an elite legion, one of the four legions chosen by Claudius to invade amazing, fantastical far-off Britannia, the Game of Thrones, the Tolkien-esque sort of invasion of his day, Claudius II, invade amazing, fantastical far-off Britannia, the Game of Thrones, the Tolkien-esque sort of invasion of his day, Claudius. So this is an elite legion, but we know earlier it rebelled.

We know later it's almost overrun. If we go to the Boudiccan revolt, we know that the first responders to the Boudiccan revolt, AD 60-61, was the 9th Legion, because the 9th Legion was based in Lincoln and probably had vexillations probably further south. And vexillations of legion because the 9th legion was based in lincoln and probably had vacillations probably further south and vacillations of legionaries probably with some supporting auxilia try and intercept budica this is under the command of the legate in charge of the 9th legion at the time who's serialis who's later a famous governor of britain in natural fact supporter of vespasian the first flavian emperor and they arrived too late to stop the sack of Colchester so they failed once they then try and engage Boudicca and her troops a hundred thousand maybe as they travel

southwest from Colchester to London and they're hammered they're defeated to the extent where Serialis actually flees the battlefield leaving his legionaries to die where they stand and then spends the rest of the Boudiccan revolt hiding with his cavalry in a local fort. So we have another ignominious failure here. So you put the dates together yourself very well. You go from the rebellion in Pannonia, you go from the Boudiccan failure, you go through to it being overrun almost in AD 82, as Tacitus tells us. So perhaps what we're seeing here is the ninth legion portrayed to us in the age in which we live today through popular fiction and maybe an antiquarian view of it as well as being an elite legion. I call it an elite legion, you've called it an elite legion, and yet

we have three failures here. So maybe it wasn't as good as it's portrayed to be in the modern world. Absolutely. An elite legion that is clouded by several significant failures, it seems. And disappears. It just absolutely disappears. There is potentially only one other legion which disappears. And even that, we almost certainly know what happened to it. It's interesting at the moment, of course, in popular television, we have on Netflix, barbarians talking about Varus and his three legions, which were destroyed in Teutoburg Forest. We know what happened to those. It's now on Netflix. We know exactly what happened to them. The contemporary histories tell us exactly what

happened to them. They tell us that Augustus was so shamed that they lost their eagles that he just said, I don't want to reform them. That's it, they're gone. We have no reference to the ninth legion here. It just goes poof, disappears from history. All right then, let's go on to the theories. So Simon, what is the first theory that we'll go on to around the 9th's disappearance? So the four hypotheses are lost in the north, lost in the south, both in Britain, lost on the Rhine and Danube, and lost in the east. So we'll start with lost in the north. The lost in the north theory actually is the oldest theory about the 9th Legion. And this is where the story comes from. This is where the historiography, the detective story begins. So we have John Horsley, who's an antiquarian,

who in 1732 puts together an amazing reference called Britannia Romana, the Roman Antiquities of Britain. In it, he tries to detail, as he found then in the contemporary sources, the history of every legion in Britain. And it's he who notes that we don't know what happened to the 9th Legion. He notes it arrived, he notes what it did, but he doesn't know what happened to it. We then move on to the 1850s with the famous German scholar Theodor Monson, who's the first one taking on Horsley's interesting observation to come up with a hypothesis.

And Monson's effectively the most important Roman scholar of his day. And Monson, in his History of Romeome which is a multi-volume work comes up with a hypothesis that at some stage in the ad 110s maybe early ad 120s the ninth legion was lost trying to defend the legionary fortress in york at ibarakum founded by the ninth legion against revolt by the northern brigantes and again we know the romans never really got on with the northern peoples of britain because we know from references at vinderlander etc that they didn't think very highly of them we also know from the way fortifications were built in the north and maintained in the north that the romans never really trusted what was going on north of britain

probably so this is a hypothesis which monson came up with which is perfectly valid the only downside is there's no evidence for it at all all we know is the anecdote the legion disappears poof from history so looking at whether it was lost in the north we can come up with three potential sort of sub-hypotheses one that as monson says it was lost in a brig. Two, and this is where we embed popular fiction, because the reason why we talk about the 9th Legion, almost certainly now, in popular history, as opposed to in academic history,

is because of Roger M. Sutcliffe's famous book, The Legion of the Ninth, which became Hollywood movies, et cetera. And this thrust the story of the 9th Legion in front of the British public in the 50s and 60s, which goes all the way through to today. I've just moved house, and I found that I've actually got two copies of the British public in the 50s and 60s, which goes all the way through to today. I've just moved house and I found that I've actually got two copies of the book, one dating from when I was at university in the 1980s for the first time, and one I bought when I was writing

the book. So this is a really powerful, still to this very day, piece of popular fiction. Rosemary Sutcliffe's hypothesis, which she extrapolates in her book, is that the 9th Legion was lost campaigning north of the northern border of the province of Britannia, which is north by this time of Hadrian's Wall, as was later. So this is the line of the Tyne to the Solway Firth. So you're now into the area of the Scottish borders, five, the upper lowlands, maybe even the highlands.

So the Legion marches north to its doom and never comes back and then her protagonist tries to find the eagle which his father who had commanded the legion somehow lost and brought shame on his family which is a great great piece of fiction but could it be true instead of being lost at a brigantian revolt could the ninth legion have been lost campaigning in the far north of britain north of the brigantian territory the third sub hypothesis here lost in the north is that it was lost in some kind of major conflagration which encapsulates the two so it's the whole of the north in some way shape or form has a major event so almost like a buddhican revolt but in the far north so not only do we have the ninth legion campaigning and suffering north of the northern border we also have a Brigantian revolt as well so everything

goes wrong so Brigantian revolt lost in the far north or a region-wide rebellion including the far north and the Brigantian territory so that's number one and to my mind there's no hard evidence whatsoever that's the beauty of this from a historical fiction perspective but also the tribulations for me as an archaeologist and a historian it's a great story but there's no evidence for it whatsoever which is something which dogs us all the time when we're talking about the ninth legion because there's nothing there in terms of we can look at it being in places but what we can't do is say what happened to it based on the archaeology. So the second theory was it lost in the south and here we go to a really interesting sort of fairly modern theory in a recent edition of Britannia by Dr Dominic Paring the great archaeologist

at UCL. He got this theory called the Hadrianic War in London and in his theory he talks about an event taking place in London between the later AD 110s, so around the accession of Hadrian. Let's remember Hadrian is a fairly unlikely successor to Trajan really. He's in the yeast when he succeeds Trajan, when Trajan dies. And as often happens around the time of the accession of a new emperor, particularly if it's a fairly undignified handover, and this may have been, you get things happening around the empire because people don't accept the result so we know occasionally around the empire at this time there is a moderate amount of revolt etc so maybe something like that happened in london

so here we look at from the accession of hadrian maybe into the mid to late 120s and here we have three events within this hadrianic wall we have the finding of hundreds of beheaded skulls in the upper reaches of the Warbrook Valley. Beheaded skulls? Beheaded skulls, yeah. So these are skulls of people who've been beheaded. They're found in the upper reaches of the Warbrook Valley, sort of in the stream.

Remember in Roman London, the Warbrook, which today is covered over by the streets in the Roman period, it was actually a very significant waterway which bisected Roman London in half with its tributaries and the Warbrook itself, leaving the northern boundary of the Palmerium, the religious boundary of London, later to become the Severan Land Wars of London. So in the upper reaches, so around where London Wall is today, hundreds of schools have been found

in rescue archaeology and early 19th century archaeology, all beheaded, all unusual in that you have this almost a mass decapitating event. Secondly, you have the Hadrianic fire in London. So the Hadrianic fire, usually dated to the mid-AD 120s, is a burning event in Roman London of a scale of what you and I would call from our upbringing, the Great Fire of London at the time of Christopher Wrem. So the whole of London is burnt down in a massive conflagration. And usually this conflagration features mainly the fronts of buildings being burnt, not the whole buildings. So it looks as though places have been torched. So it looks as though you have two things here. You have these beheaded skulls around this time in the upper

reach of the Warbrook, where they may have been chucked away or deposited ritually. And then you also have it looks like london's torched so it's deliberately burnt so this is an event potentially a rebellion this hadronic war finally towards the end of the ad 120s you get the building of the cripplegate fort now it's unusual as you know tristan for the romans to build a fortification within the pomerium boundary the religious boundary of a settlement because the Romans like to keep the military and wider society as separate because the military then as now but even more so then are separate from society and it's unusual to have a fort built within a town and yet we have in London a fort being built so putting all those things together what you might have is some kind

of event which leads to the beheading, the town being torched and then subsequently the fort being built. So what may have happened is potentially a rebellion including the town being torched, the protagonists being people other than the 9th legion, the 9th legion then coming down to put down the rebellion and for some reason suffering so badly it's destroyed or cashiered or let's think about this maybe for some reason the ninth legion is called down to london and it's the ninth legion and let's remember it's got form for some reason gets involved around the accession of hadrian when then we know there's more trouble around the empire the ninth legion doesn't accept for some reason it's got it's got a strong sense of self-will strong sense of self-identity decides that it doesn't like hajim become the emperor so maybe they're the vector for the rebellion so maybe the schools are either the people the ninth put down

or they're the schools of the ninth who are slaughtered afterwards because maybe auxiliary cavalry come in to put down this rebellion and we do know Tristan that auxiliary cavalry especially Gallic and German ones even in the Principate let alone in the late republic are known for being headhunters and then maybe the forts installed later to bring the provincial capital back to heel so maybe it was lost in the south now it sounds far-fetched but I do say read the book because when you read the chapter where I've got a lot of cross-referencing with contemporary historians and a lot of analogy looking at what happened elsewhere at the time of Hadrian's accession,

it suddenly becomes a viable option. Well, I was about to, Simon. so possibly those decapitated heads in around the Woolbrook could possibly belong to members of the 9th Legion. And amazingly, here's the kicker, amazingly, some of the skulls have been examined forensically. And they turn out, some of them, not to be from Northern Europe. Whoa. Hang on, hold the phone. There you go. They're just smoking gun. So some of them may have come from Spain. This is Legio IX Hispana.

Some of them may be North African. We know the Romans recruited into their legions from the widest selection of candidates from the empire. They didn't just come from a given region, especially when they're refilling the ranks. This legion's been fighting a long time, remember, in Britain. Remember the Romans when they were campaigning in britain it took them over 40 years to even remotely be able to say they'd actually successfully conquered most of the main island of britain it's not like the eight years of caesar in gaul this is a grueling

40 plus year period so we know from burials in lincoln and in york that there were many casualties in the ninth legion So they have battle casualties being filled with new recruits coming from elsewhere in the empire. So certainly Spain and certainly North Africa. So there's a smoking gun for you. That's a smoking gun indeed. And from what you were saying with the first theory as well about possibly being lost in the North and that one as well, you can really see why the whole story of the 9th Legion would be so attractive to someone like Rosemary Sutcliffe and for historical fiction because it is a great story but for archaeologists and historians it is also extremely difficult but exciting at the same time to try and piece together what might have happened to it.

And here's the beauty, we actually, going back to my earlier point about the burials in York and Lincoln and elsewhere actually in the province of Britannia, we know the names of individual legionaries in the 9th Legion. There's a famous aquilifer from Lincoln who may actually because he was the right age when he was buried may actually have participated in the Claudian invasion so this is a man whose career over 20 years as a Roman legionary ultimately an aquilifer an elite member of clearly with the eagle standard was a member of the elite member of the Roman Legion, could have landed as an ordinary legionary with the Aldus Plautius, fought his way through all the campaigns and ended up helping found the legionary fortress at Lincoln and then died there, possibly in the Boudiccan

Revolt. This man could directly link Plautius and Paulinus in one lifetime. Absolutely. There you go. For any future fictional or TV films on the 9th Legion, you've got your main character there as well, because that's the historical figure who is in the 9th Legion. Damn, I've given the game away. Anyhow, let's move away from the island of Britain itself, because let's go on to your third theory. The third theory is lost on the Rhine and Danube. Now we do know there was at least a vexillation of the 9th Legion, which was based for some time from the mid-AD 100s to the mid-AD 110s in Nijmegen at the legionary fortress on the Rhine.

We know this because of the stamped tile that they left behind. Obviously, the Roman legionaries did all the building necessary, not only actually for their own needs in their fortresses their marching camps but for wider society as well so one of the key things they did was make tiles and they often put the stamp of the legion in the tiles so we know from about a hundred pieces of tile that there was a vexillation at least of exhalation regiment of the ninth legion based in nijmegen for about a 10-year period. Here's the interesting thing though, all the mentions I've had so far of the 9th Legion in epigraphy and history have styled the 9th Legion Legio 1X, as it were, so 9 spelt like that. So the 9th Legion, which is detailed at Nijmegen is styled Legio V1111 uniquely apart from one location in Cumbria. So you have a

location in Cumbria where in the early AD 100s you have tiles being stamped near Carlisle which have the Legion styled this way and then later the unit based in Nijmegen starts itself in the same way but nowhere else does the 9th legion do that so the hypothesis would be here that you have a vexillation which in the early 100s is based in the northwest of Britain which for some reason is then redeployed to Nijmegen and around that time you also have one or two other pieces of epigraphy there's an altar which mentions an officer who takes the waters because he's not feeling very well at a health spa in germania inferior and you also have a couple of pieces of horse decoration which are styled the ninth legion as well but that's it and again the style the same way so therefore probably you have this vexillation moving from

the northwest of britain to nijmegen why was itijmegen? Because around the time it was based there, the legion which was earlier based there was fighting with Trajan in his attempts to conquer Dacia and then stayed on the Danube. And it looks like there were other vexillations from other legions in Britain which did the same as well, which at that time would have been 2 Augusta and 20 Villeria Victrix and possibly 14 Germina as well. But that's it. Again, the trail goes cold. So then you look for a context about how, let's hypothesise, it may have been the whole legion, not just the vexillation there. How could it have been lost? And the only conflict you can find, which is of a scale where you would have a legion being lost in the second century AD, is the Marcomannic Wars

with Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. But these take place much later, much, much later in the second century AD is the Marcomannic Wars with Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. But these take place much later, much, much later in the century, and there's no evidence whatsoever that it participated in the Marcomannic Wars. The Marcomannic Wars obviously are very important in the context. Septimius Severus later, which I've also written about, and also one of my recent books just out now about Pertinax as well, the Roman emperor for three months in AD 193, the first of the year of the five emperors. So through those two protagonists, if nobody else, we know a huge amount about what happened in the Marcomannic Wars, and there's no mention of a ninth legion. So it wasn't there. So the trail goes cold again. So finally, we look at the fourth hypothesis, was it lost in the east?

So clearly, what we're looking for here is something that is so sanguineous which is a great word to describe what i'm trying to portray about the ninth legion was there something so sanguineous in the history of the ninth legion in the east that it could provide context a hypothesis for it being lost and there were opportunities so clearly you can look at the three Jewish revolts which were sanguineous in their extreme the Romans really struggled to put down the three Jewish revolts they had to call in troops from across the empire which is unusual because to transfer legions and auxiliary units from the west to the eastern Mediterranean

takes time and is very expensive such was the jeopardy involved in the Jewish revolts certainly for the ninth legion you could see context for a the jeopardy involved in the Jewish revolt. Certainly for the 9th Legion you could see context for a legion being lost in the second Jewish revolt which is the Kitos War which takes place in the context of Trajan's campaigns against the Parthians and in the east where you end up with a conflagration from AD 115 of many Jewish communities not just in Judea but also in Jewish communities across the various cities of the Mediterranean. Probably a Roman legion is lost in the Ketos War. It's never named, but there's context. We certainly know that another legion is probably lost in the context

of the later Bar Kokhba revolt, which is a Messenaic revolt, which is a revolt which prompts Hadrian to stamp down so heavily on the remaining decimated jewish population in judea that the province is renamed jerusalem's renamed effectively the beginning of the jewish diaspora and we think maybe a legion was lost there though we think it may be in the 22nd legion but not definitively finally finally the final sub hypothesis the final hypothesis is another hugely sanguineous conflict which is the roman parthian war at the beginning of the ad 160s which again we know a lot about because it's led by lucius ferus it's where pertinax makes his name as first as a soldier we have a lot of context here we know at the beginning of the war in cappadocia which is the northern part of the eastern Limes, we have a legion in Cappadocia being led to try and stop

the Parthians doing a right flanking maneuver into Syria through Armenia and into Cappadocia and then into Syria. We know that the Roman governor of Cappadocia leads a legion, which is not named, to its doom. And we do know the name of the governor because he kills himself he's so ashamed and it looks like what happens here is it's this classic Romans underestimating the Parthians which they do time and again they find themselves caught on the march surrounded by Parthian horse archers it's almost like the battle of Carai and Crassus you end up with the Roman legion being on the march Roman legions in that case this is a Roman legion being surrounded by Parthian horse archers

being pummeled decimated with bombardments of horse archers arrows starting to get disorganized and then hit by Parthian cataphracts and maybe foot troops but the legions wiped out and the governor of Cappadocia in charge of the legion kills himself it is not one of the legions in Cappadocia of which there are two because they survive and continue happily almost through to the end of the legions in Cappadocia of which there are two because they survive and continue happily almost through to the end of the dominate phase of empire let alone the phase of empire so it's a different legion because as we know from Varus the Romans look very poorly on a legion being lost so it's not one of those two legions so it's another legion so that is

actually potentially a candidate there now it's quite a big gap as we know from 108, the last proper mention, 122 when we know another legion took the ninth legion's place in York through to the Rome-Parthene war in the early AD 160s. That's a big gap for there to be no mention of a legion. However a legion is lost and it may be a candidate. So there you have your four hypotheses you have. Let us recap. Lost in the north, lost in the south, both in Britain, lost on the Rhine and Danube, and lost in the east. I love the variation in these two. I mean, we started with the first theory in northern England near York,

and we've ended with the fourth theory in the east, in Armenia, at the end of the second century. I know, how very Roman. That's what I love. We're talking about a phase of the second century AD, as you noticed, when the Roman Empire, the height of the Principate, the whole Roman Empire is at its height. It's when it's expanded to its greatest extent, largely. It's when it starts this transition from offense to defense defense probably gone as far as it needs to go in terms of major geographic conquest the nature of the military begins to change maybe there's a flavor of that taking place in what happens to the ninth legion maybe it's not as elite as it used to be maybe it wasn't elite at all by the way going back to our earlier point

so it's not just not elite it's even less elite yes, you can see the map before you can't. You can look at modern Scotland. You can look at London. You look at the vast expanse of the Rhine from the Delta all the way through to central Germany. You can look at the vast, vast expanse of the Danube from central Germany through to the Black Sea. And then you can look at the Eastern Limes

all the way through to not just Judea, but Egypt as well, given the Jewish communities there which were involved in the Kitos War. So that's a game. It doesn't help us really, does it? Because what I've done, I've actually sort of demonstrated that because we don't know, I've looked at all the potential candidates for what happened to it. And within those four hypotheses, there are multiple tens of sub-hypotheses. So I don't think I've really helped us, to be honest. Many, many layers to it. And Simon, if I may, it's now the big climax. It's the part of the Miss Marple or the Hercule Poirot documentary that we've all been waiting to hear, to find out the answer of all these theories. Which do you think is the most likely? I'll go from least to most, if I may, Tristan. So, it was not,

pauses for effect, lost on the Rhine or Danube. There's no evidence for it whatsoever. If a Roman legion had been lost fighting north of the Rhine or Danube, even outside of the context of the Marcomannic Wars, we would know about it. We would certainly know about it because it's so highly commented on in contemporary literature, if it was lost in the Marcomannic Wars. So it's not that. And then the next two are very, very close. Okay, so I'm going to go three, the Hadrianic War. So four is a non-starter at all. The next two are quite bunched. So it's almost like two seconds. I'll go bottom second or third the Hadrianic War in London because the opportunities there actually there's got to be a lot more research on this Hadrianic War theory but something happened we don't know about which is often the case of

course in classical history Roman or otherwise because we have these big gaps because we have so few sources to use even with good archaeology today. So that's a potential. I will not rule that out, but we need more information. Interestingly, because of the amount of rescue archaeology that takes place in London to this day, if we are to find a real smoking gun in the archaeological record about the 9th Legion and its fate, it's more likely to be found there in the context of this theory than the others then we have lost in the east and that's a good candidate because we know a legion was lost certainly in the roman parthian war and almost certainly in one two or three of the jewish revolts finally therefore you can see what the winner is today Tristan the winner is lost in the north and I think

Rosemary Sutcliffe may well have been right I can't see the Brigantes having the wherewithal especially with the Romans having suffered so heavily with Boudicca and learning from the experience I can't see the Brigantes having the wherewithal to take a Roman legion out in the legionary fortress so I think Momsen was just looking at what he knew from the days in which he lived and the evidence available to him so i don't think it's that i think it's far more likely either it was lost campaigning in the far north and remember in ad82 the legion was almost lost campaigning in the north it's got form yeah or potentially it was the region-wide conflagration the brigantian territory and the far north.

But either of those two jump out to me as being the candidate. So here's my final comment on the detective story. My final statement is Rosemary Sutcliffe was probably right. Oh, it sounds like it indeed. Well, very possibly. And if we just talk about the legacy of the 9th quickly before we finish it all off. Possibly. And if we just talk about the legacy of the Ninth quickly before we finish it all off, we see this scene of the Ninth going north beyond the wall, as it were, and suffering this horrific ambush, this destruction in that famous Hollywood movie, Centurion. time that sort of 20 year period from sort of 1992 to the 2010 the 2015 you tend to find that Hollywood movies because one would go first and another one would come you'd have a pair of movies

about the same thing so think of Armageddon and Deep Impact as example well this is a classic example of that where you very quickly have two movies with really a list Hollywood casts talking about the theory so the Centurion and the Eagle, both portraying a very grim fate in the far north. And it's clearly a story which the public like because it's interesting, isn't it? It's got the huge jeopardy of the Legion being lost. It's got the honourable individuals

trying to get the honour back for their Legion and their family. Quite a Roman thing in actual fact. And it's got the fact that actually we don't know what happened to it. So the detective thing's always there. It's always going to draw people to it. And that's why I'd love writing the book and researching it because all books that one writes are, there's research and there's detective aspects to it. Anyway, that's part of the gig. But with this one in particular, it really was a detective story. So you can join me at the

beginning of the book and you're following the evidential trails with me. And that's what the beauty of it is. I tease through all these various hypotheses and sub-hypotheses. I try and break these hypotheses. I look at the evidence or the not evidence. I remove the received wisdom, but there's a lot of received wisdom, especially in popular culture about the Ninth Legion. And that's what gives me this great sort of insight to be able to do the research for the book. The book is out in February, so I really recommend it to your viewers. I really loved researching it. You can't get away from the fact that the 9th Legion sound a bit crap, actually. Because, I mean, if you look at the ones that lasted all the way through,

Legio II Augusta lasted all the way through to the late 4th century. I'm doing some research on the Roman legions in Britain for some other work. Legio VI Victrix probably survived until the late third maybe early fourth century 20 valeria victrix may have survived to the mid fourth century so it's unusual that you have this big legion etc not just disappearing but also when you actually look at the research about it it's just not got a very good track record actually and they put it in york they kept it in york so they didn't put two augusta which is actually i think two augusta was the elite legion, by the way. You would think they'd have put 2 Augusta on the northern border, where more troops than the ones in the south would

be on the northern border. For some reason, they didn't. Fantastic. Well, Simon, ancient history's Miss Marple slash Hercule Poirot. This was an absolutely enjoyable, very good, brilliant chat. And one last time, your book on the 9th Legion is called? Roman Britain's Lost Legion, What Really Happened to Legion 09, His Spanner. He says twirling his Hercule Poirot-esque moustache. Fantastic.

We'll put a screenshot of this Zoom call up on the podcast as well on a fellow account so people can see. Simon, thank you so much for coming on the show. Absolute pleasure. It's always a joy working with you guys. Thank you.