<em>Where the forts on Hadrians wall only occupied by auxilia forces? Does someone know of a fort where a group of legionaries was stationed?</em><br>
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Step forward the heretic. The legions built most of the thing, were almost certainly involved in building the forts after the 'forts decision' and would presumably have been based in them whilst finishing them off. There may even have been legionaries involved after that: a Newstead type lorica segmentata hinge came from Great Chesters, whilst the Vindolanda writing tablets appear to include references to legionaries at that site immediately prior to the Wall being built, and Corbridge (just south of the Wall) had legionaries based there throughout the 2nd century.<br>
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The problem is one of visibility of the evidence. There may have been detachments of legionaries around like those posted to train the Usipi during Agricola's campaigns in Scotland, but they are not easy to spot with our highly limited evidence.<br>
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The Roman army had a predilection for mixed garrisoning (in fact, I would go so far as to say that garrison homogeneity was the exception, not the rule: remember the Vindolanda tablet talking about all the Batavians outposted at Coria?) so it would not surprise me to find legionaries knocking around on the Wall. Not in cohorts perhaps, perhaps not even in centuries, but they would have been around (look at all the evidence for outposting of small numbers of soldiers from provinces like Egypt). Very small detachments are probably less likely to indulge in the 'epigraphic habit' so you will not find any monumental inscriptions saying 'Hey look at us! Legionaries at Housesteads' but the tombstones, were they to survive in any numbers, might tell a different story.<br>
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Of course, you won't find that in any of the standard text books, where an overly simplistic 'one auxiliary unit = one auxiliary fort' view prevails... yet.<br>
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Mike Bishop <p></p><i></i>
