Legions: names, recruitment and deployment

[Epictetus]

Probably everyone knows by now that I’m not a military guy, so please excuse the very basic question.

A book I recently read, Mitchell’s Anatolia, includes a military map of part of the eastern frontier. It shows various places of interest, such as legionary and auxiliary fortresses, stationarii and cavalry on roads, and the origin of legionary recruits. The vast majority of this information came from inscriptions, I believe.

Some things seem self-explanatory, such as the “Legio XV Apollinaris” stationed at Satala, but I can’t figure out some of the labels. The legend for the map is unhelpful. For instance, at Ancyra it shows a fortress as well as a symbol saying that there was recruitment going on in the area. The label says:

III CYR., XXII CYR., V MAC., X FRET., II ADIUTR., I ITAL., IV FL., XIII GEM., I PARTH.

What does all this mean? Are these legions? Is the “V MAC.” something like the 5th Macedonian legion? I can’t imagine all these legions being stationed there, so does this mean that recruitment for those legions happened around Ancyra? Were legions named after the areas in which they were originally deployed?

[D B Campbell]

III CYR., XXII CYR., V MAC., X FRET., II ADIUTR., I ITAL., IV FL., XIII GEM., I PARTH.

Yup. These are (some of) the legions that typically recruited from Asia Minor and the East: III Cyrenaica, XXII Cyrenaica (later, and more usually, known as Deiotariana), V Macedonica, X Fretensis, II Adiutrix, I Italica, IV Flavia, XIII Gemina, I Parthica.