Legio V survivors?

[Come in Nighthawk]

I think one can't say that 'The Vlachs in Macedonia' are descendants of 'the'5th legion. As I said elsewhere, there's a nice article by Ross Cowan in the wings about what happened to V Macedonia, so i won't cut the grass before his feet. :wink:

But Vlachs could at one time have served as soldiers in a unit by that name, until well into Byzantine times I suppose. But it would take a loooong tradition to retain such a memory, and besides that, they can't be 'the' descendants.

My first impulse, if I were to credit this, was thinking; "gee, mayhap they claim to be some tiny pocket of folks who can trace their descent from a detachment of "V Macedonica"?" -- but oral tradition can be tricky. OtoH, aren't the Albanians considered to be the "survivors, albeit with a DNA-admixture of Slavs and Turks, of the original "Illyrians?" That is, linguistically they derive from that group, however "dilute" their DNA stock is today? Culture and ethnicity (vice the old ideas of "race") CAN be powerful tools to bind a folk together; especially in face of adversity.