IX Hispania Disappearance Myth

[Robert Vermaat]

I spent two weeks with Prof. Eric Birley in 1978, and by that date, he had definitely changed his views on the fate of the XI Hispana.

I read something like that as well. Birley, it seems, changed his mind soon after 1968:
Birley, E.B. (1971): The fate of the Ninth Legion, in: Butler, R.M. (ed.): Soldier and Civilian in Roman Yorkshire, pp. 71-80.

In that article he points to evidence presented by J.E. Bogaers from Noviomagus/Nijmegen, tiles with VEX BRIT, LEG VIIII, and even ()G VIIII HIS on them. The reference ('most accessibly, in German' so Birley wrote) is Bogaers (1967): Die Besatzungstruppen des Legionslagers von Nijmegen im 2. Jahrhundert nach Christus, in: Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms, pp. 54-76. Birley assumed (with Bogaers) that the Legion had sustained heavy casualties during the early 2nd century, before being brought to Germania Inferior for rest and refit.

Birley also pointed to an altar to Apollo found at Aquae Granni/Aachen (Germany), dedicated by a praefectus castrorum, formerly primus pilus of LEG IX Hispana, and by a reasonable inference (by Birley and prof. Nesselhauf) still serving with that Legion. He would then have been praefectus castrorum of Noviomagus/Nijmegen, visiting the spa of Aquae Granni/Aachen. Nesselhauf excluded the possibility that the man would have been from a mere vexillation due to his rank.

Nesselhauf also suggested that IX Hispana did not leave as early as 104 AD for the Danube (contra Ritterling - oops don't smite me Jasper! ) but that it resided in Noviomagus/Nijmegen before being sent to Vindobona/Vienna as part of Trajan's preparation's of the Parthian War. While engaged there, the wars in Britain broke out again, but as IX Hispana would have been unavailable, VI Victrix was sent instead, as early as 119 AD.

Birley on the other hand thought this scenario too early. He liked the idea of VI Victrix coming to Britain with Nepos in 122 AD. Birley assumed that VI Victrix moved into Eboracum/York whereas IX Hispana was to build itself a new base at Luguvallum/Carlisle, where tiles with LEG VIIII HIS were found (the tiles of Eboracum/York all showing LEG IX HIS). Birley thought IX Hispana transferred to Noviomagus/Nijmegen c. 126 AD and then on to the East.

Next is a ref. to a soldier in a written record (and thus possibly not genuine) from Misenum (CIL X 1769). It commemorates one Aelius Asclepiades, recruited in Cilicia and dying after 8 year's service, implying that the legio served in an Eastern province. Birley assumed that it might have been destroyed in the Jewish War under Hadrian, or that it might have been 'the Legion' destroyed by the Parthians according to Cassius Dio (LXXX 2.1), because no other Legion can be found to fit the bill.

The career whom Quinton referred to is from a papyrus from a cave in Israel (or Palestine as Birley wrote). It was published, too: Israel Exploration Journal XII (1962), p. 259, and Syme, Ronald (1965): Historia xiv, pp. 35ff.
In this papyrus is the name of Aninius Sextius Florentinus as governor of the province of Arabia in 127 AD. Now this guy was know already from an inscription to his memory at Petra, where his career showed he was proconsul of Narbonensis and before that legate of IX Hispana. The time between this command and his governor ship showed (according to Birley) that a) he would have been legate after rather than before 120 AD and b) the Legion had not been disgraced then (else why would its commander have received such posts). He would have been consul soon, had he not died.
Birley then goes on to cite the careers of two officers from IX Hispana, L. Aemilius Carus and L. Novius Crispinus. Carus was governor of Arabia in 143 AD (and consul by 144 AD), so he might have been with IX Hispana before Trajan died (as Claudius Maxiumus, consul in 144 AD, had served with IIII Scythica during 114-7 AD). But Novius Crispinus became consul by 150 AD and can hardly be supposed to have been with IX Hispana more than 30 years before. Therefore, Birley assumed, his career with IX Hispana would have been nearer to 130 AD than to 120 AD.

Birley, therfore, saw IX Hispana in existence well after 120 AD, long after the British Wars, and in an Eastern province.
He then cited this lovely poem from an unnamed memeber of the 8th congress of Roman Frontier Studies (1969):

The fate of the Ninth still engages
The minds of both nitwits and sages;
But that problem, one fears
Will be with us for years
And for ages and ages and ages!

Whover wrote that, was right, as we all know.

possibly disappearing at some point in eastern campaigns.

I still think that this fate is even more sad that the Legion 'disappearing in the Scottish mist'....