Legions of Trajans Dacian wars

[Nathan Ross]

Thank you to all the contributors for excellent posts

It's worth mentioning that this subject has been discussed here before!

What legions did Trajan take to Dacia?

Dacian Wars: strength of Trajan's army

mile:

H.M.D.PARKER says

...the new legion called XXX Ulpia was sent to the danube district.

So can we 'assume' that the II Traiana had previously been created for 30 Legions to be in existence?

I don't think we can assume anything about the dates for either legion, except that Trajan raised them at point during his reign - II Traiana might have come first, but why those particular numbers? Could be II means 'the second legion raised by Trajan' :wink: We just don't know...

Also PARKER goes on to say...

We cannot trace in detail the part played by the individual Legions in the two Dacian wars; in the two campaigns only five can be definitely shown from distinctions conferred upon them, I Italica, IV Flavia Felix, V Macedonica, VII Claudia and perhaps the XIII Gemina 'corpus inscriptiuonum latinarum'

We could also add I Minervia to Parker's 'definite' list.

Parker's figure of 12-13 legions appears to have been intended as a maximum based on troops available in the Danubian provinces at the time. Neither Parker nor those drawing on him actually suggest that Trajan took that entire amount with him into Dacia. James Thorne, for example, in Erdkamp (ed) 'A Companion to the Roman Army' p.218: Trajan's Dacian Wars (ad 101–6)... involved elements of no less than 13 legions - elements is the important point here: many of these will have been vexillations and not entire legions.

However, this figure of 13, 14 or even 15 legions has been used less scrupulously in popular histories, and from there we get the massive estimates of Trajan's army. This in turn has migrated to the internet and become a factoid... More caution should be exercised! mile:

- Nathan