Legio II beyond the realms of Exeter

[66kbm]

Hi all
Another of my "theories" Two marching camps in North Devon...seems very out of place..Now i dont have the dates of these camps but just maybee they were built for the Legion to occupy/get a foothold in Devon if trouble flared up after the Legion moved to Caerleon...after all its only a couple of hours accross the Bristol Channel compared to maybee a weeks march by land to get there.
Kevin

[Spurius Papirius Cursor]

Hi Kevin

Don't know if you can get your hands on this item:

R.J. Brewer (ed.) 2000. Roman Fortresses and their Legions. Cardiff and London: The Society of Antiquaries of London and National Museums and Galleries of Wales. ISBN 0 85431 274 9 and ISSN 0953-7155.

If you can, there's an interesting discussion revolving around the deployment of Leg. II Aug. and Leg. XX V.V. in Germany about 255 AD. It's part of R.S.O. Tomlin's chapter, "The Legions in the Late Empire", pp. 163-165.

All the best

Howard Russell/SPC

[66kbm]

Thanks Howard,i will keep an eye open for that one,first stop Amazon
Kevin

[Vindex]

Abe Books new is cheaper than Amazon new...and not far off Amazon used.

Admittedly there was a cheaper one...but I beat you to it :wink:

[Caratacus]

Yeah - well they called Galileo a heretic as well!

Having my trusty copy of Hod Hill (Vol.1), by Brailsford open in front of me as I type this, it do say on p.5 that there were found 79 spearheads, in three sub-divisions (dubbed large, slender and small). On p.6, it adds that there were just 9 examples of pila, only four of which were beyond doubt. There were also lots of catapult bolt heads. This seems to me to be a very definite weighting towards the spear type, rather than the javelin.

I thought that the argument was that we should look at what the tactical use of the soldier was, which would govern what weapons he was equipped with. Auxiliaries seem to be generally shown with the hasta type of spear, legionaries with the pilum. Now, I'm sure we could get into the familiar argument as to what is exactly being shown on some of these tombstones - but here goes anyway. How about: CIL xiii 07582, from Wiesbaden, coh I PANNONIORUM? This chap certainly seems to have two spears, rather than javelins. Or perhaps CIL xiii 07684, Firmus, coh RAETORUM, again with the spears (which looks clearer to me - nice pickie there btw, Sir!)

There could be any number of explanations as to why there are pila in evidence at Hod Hill. I don't doubt that the legion was there at some stage as they wended their merry way on down to Exeter. I suppose it's also the case that the hill fort was fought over and 'reduced' by the army before they occupied a corner of it with their 'fortlet' (hence all the ballista bolts) and that some pila got 'lost' in that process. Maybe some of the auxiliary soldiers had lost their own spears and 'boosted' a couple from the stores (or a careless legionary who left them outside his tent!) (Have to be careful here - I'm beginning to sound like someone on "Time Team"! :grin

There are other things about Hod Hill that exercise me, I must admit. The evidence suggests that there was a serious fire, which destroyed at least a portion of the buildings. Richmond rules out a deliberate fire set by the occupiers as the fort was abandoned (p.121, Vol.2) because not all the buildings were fired. Ditto for an attack on the fort, for which there was no evidence either. It looks as though the garrison just walked away from the place, leaving some buildings more or less intact. This doesn't sound like typical legionary behavior to me. At Inchtuthill they removed a million nails from the buildings before they left. Roman Army doctrine seems to have been to leave nothing that a potential enemy could use - even shelter. Richmond also comments that the possible garrison at HH may well initially have been mixed (legionary infantry with an ala of cavalry - which would make some tactical sense, using the infantry to hold the fort and the cavalry to scout around and 'be visible'. He goes on to suggest that this was a fairly normal practice before the permanent positioning of auxiliary troops in garrison had been made and cites Vespasian's actions when C-in-C in Palestine in support of this. One last thing. Richmond says (p.119) that: "The type of accommodation accorded to the men .... presents a picture of cramped discomfort hardly likely to have been suffered for long". I've heard it expressed that the quarters for auxiliary soldiers were provided at a lower scale in terms of size, etc. than were those for the legionary troops.

Given the tactical/strategic situation at the time, with Vespasian et al chuntering off down the peninsula into who-knows-what, would he really leave even an understrength cohort of his best troops thus isolated? Or would he dump one of his 2nd line units (which may have been seriously understrength and hence a bit of a liability to him) there to guard his back and possibly intimidate the natives into behaving themselves? Whoever they were, they seem to have been left hanging around there for some eight years.

All speculation on my part, of course - but fun all the same! I did read a paper a year or so back which also posited this idea - long after I trotted it out in my thesis (so I didn't pinch it). Unfortunately I cannot now remember where I saw it - though it was in English - so maybe JRS?

Mike Thomas

[66kbm]

Hi all
I actually stumbled into this, if i was looking for it, i wouldnt have found it.
Google books online
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LXF5x...st&f=false
That also has to be the longest link ive ever seen.If that link doesnt work type into google search..second augustan legion in the south west...it should be the eigth searcg result,some very intersting stuff.
Kevin

[Vindex]

Hi all
I actually stumbled into this, if i was looking for it, i wouldnt have found it.
Google books online
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LXF5x...st&f=false
That also has to be the longest link ive ever seen.If that link doesnt work type into google search..second augustan legion in the south west...it should be the eigth searcg result,some very intersting stuff.
Kevin

I found a copy of this the last time I went to the museum at Caerleon (free entry and some seriously good exhibits - and as many photographs as you'd like to take!)

Chapter 6 is particularly interesting to me and it includes an appendix which lists officers' names. Having seen Claudius Cupitus' century stone in the museum, I get a great feeling of characterisation/humanisation to then find a superb silver badge/brooch/award in the museum at Vindolanda given to Quintus Sollinus of the century of Cupitus.

I always assume it's the same Cupitus; so if you know different may I please ask you to keep it to yourselves and not burst my bubble :wink:

[Spurius Papirius Cursor]

Hi again Kevin

Being immersed in the "Late Legions" chapter of Brewer's Roman Fortresses and their Legions, I didn't notice (and therefore didn't mention) two other chapters that cover your legions. Chapter 6, Mark Hassall "Pre-Hadrianic legionary dispositions in Britain" (pp. 51-68) and W. H. Manning's The Fortresses of Legio XX" (pp. 69-82).

Might I suggest if you have an accessible public library (I don't know what your local UK situation is I'm afraid) they might be able to get the book on inter-library loan. Cheaper, unless you want to own it. It's a reasonable investment for those interested in the legion.

Cheers

Howard/SPC

[Tim Edwards]

Kevin,

I have this book at home, one of the many hundred intent on buckling my cheap Swedish book shelves - it is the best work on Leg II Avg to date, and you'd be welcome to borrow it at some point.

I would also heartily recommend John Manley's AD43 as an excellent foil to the traditional invasion narrative.

Leg II Avg, or at least the Roman units in Southern England, have left a trail of broken kit across the Westcountry. Hod Hill, Waddon Hill and Chichester were packed full of Roman goodies, including silvered Weisenau cheek guards, Kalkriese lorica fittings and oodles of belt plates.
Don't believe everything Mike Fulford says about Camerton either, there's a very significant lorica assemblage and fort shaped outline which you can spot from Google Maps if you have sharp eyes. (I can't be the first to have noticed, but in case I am, you read it here first!!!)

Recently dissapeared into grey literature also include the excavations of barrack block layers near Exeter market, I suggest pestering Exeter Archaeology, though I don't know whether they still exist...

[66kbm]

Hi Tim
Of all people to not have even mentioned my "crusade" about LEG II AVG in the Westcountry/Exeter area....i must be getting old and forgetfull. When you mention the "Barrack block" near Exeter market, is this reasonably new info? as i do have the book "Roman Exeter, Fortress and Town" by Paul T Bidwell. Cant find reference in there to a market...damn good book though. Just incase you all thought i was mad to chase such a subject, as a youngster, aged maybee 7, my mother took me to see the Cathederal in Exeter and upon arrival we never went in as i was too engrossed in the holes in the ground and the "stuff" showing inside those holes. Since then i have wanted to know more and more about LEG II AVG at/in Exeter hence the thread
Kevin

[Carus Andiae]

I've been following this with interest, since Leg II Aug is my favourite legion(!); with regards to the Exeter fortress and specifically its size and garrison, Christopher Henderson in Fortress into City (ed. Graham Webster, 1988) has this to say on p.95:

Exeter is smaller than the other full legionary bases in Britain. This is probably accounted for by the necessity to fit the fortress into a restricted spur site...

...Until recently the fortress at Exeter was thought incapable of accomadating a full legion. However, the discovery of its full size and the elucidation of the layout of the barracks... have now placed the matter beyond doubt. The fortress was apparently designed to accomodate a garrison comprising 12 units of quingenary strength. Since in the pre-Flavian period the normal complement of a legion was 10 quingenary cohorts, it follows that two of the units provided for in the fortress are likely to have been auxiliaries... [perhaps] cavalry alae.

Thoughts? My understanding was that standard legion (at full strength, of course) was nine cohorts of 480 (six centuries apiece), and one of 800 (five double-strength centuries) plus one 120-strong cavalry unit, 5240 men in all. According to Henderson, a pre-Flavian legion could field 5000 (not including cavalry, presumably), whereas Exeter was built for 6000. One way or another the numbers don't add up. In any case, assuming the posited barrack space is accurate, Exeter doesn't look like a legion scattering bits of itself over the countryside!

[Nathan Ross]

My understanding was that standard legion (at full strength, of course) was nine cohorts of 480 (six centuries apiece), and one of 800 (five double-strength centuries) plus one 120-strong cavalry unit, 5240 men in all... One way or another the numbers don't add up.

The double-strength first cohort was probably an innovation of the Flavian era. Henderson's 'pre-Flavian' legion would therefore contain ten cohorts of around 480-500 men each (quingenary). The 'legion cavalry' were included on the rolls of their centuries, and so may not have been extra troops needing additional accomodation. The twelve units mentioned in the extract would therefore be ten legion cohorts and two auxiliary cohorts of about the same strength.

[mcbishop]

One way or another the numbers don't add up.

Too right! A major problem with the 'small fortress' hypothesis is that it is very difficult to define what size a fortress ought to be and what it contained. Many, possibly most, but by no means all, contained at least one ala (a point Mark Hassall made many years ago but never published) and at least one auxiliary cohort; those that didn't contain an ala would have a cavalry fort close by (think Carnuntum). Fortresses that contained their ala would often be replaced by a fort for it when things moved on (Usk, Neuss). Most legions were also outposting on a prodigious scale if our documentary evidence from the empire is anything to go by, so it is at best doubtful that any legionary fortress ever contained 5,000 (or whatever your favoured figure is) legionaries sitting there twiddling their thumbs. So, is a fortress with its ala outwith its defences a 'small' fortress? Or one built to the particular whim of its praefectus castrorum, perhaps skimping a bit on intervallum space, packing the buildings in a bit more, or whatever? The reality is there was no standard legionary fortress beyond the modern (and highly persistent) meme of the plan of Neuss (which was in its own way heterodox). And don't even get me started on the Later Empire...

Anyway, all coming to a bookshop near you... eventually. :wink:

Mike Bishop

[66kbm]

Gentlemen...let me sumerise so far.
Going on the information provided by contributions and through literature that i have read, and my own cunning, i sumise that the Legion advanced into the area we now know as Devon, dropping off/not dropping off units on route, upon reaching a point, where they decided to advance as a "complete/legion" sized unit and had to stop and consolidate ground gained in order not to have the logistical "trail" reaching too far and thus giving the locals/Dumnonii a military and tactical advantage, lessons learned in AD 9.
My personal view ia that the legion advance beyond the lowest crossing of the Exe, an important strategical point, onward to North Tawton. From there units dissimated all over the county and beyond into Cornwall, this i will return to, to subdue/conquer/exploit the locals and build safe havens for themselves. The remainder then retired back to the lowest crossing point of the river Exe and built a fortress on the area now known as Exeter, to be supplied by a port/naval base nearby at Topsham, a first century military ditch has been found there on the site of the new school.
So units left at North Tawton now blanket the area with military emplacements, forts/fortlets/signal stations andcosolidate thier position north of Dartmoor. Exploitation of the natural resources begins.
Other units, size and name unknown, advance westwards into Cornwall and eventually stop andconsolidate a position at a place called Nanstallon...just to the west of what now is Bodmin. A fort,villa and other buildings have been discovered including mines all dated to the 1st century AD. At the same time, presumably to exploit and control the wealth of Cornish Tin, two more forts were built at Restormel and Calstock. Now Cornish Tin had been exported for centuries before the Roman invasion, well into the the Bronze age with Brittany in France, so maybee the locals here were not so "bothered" about Roman occupation as were the locals back in Devon.
There are a huge amount of Military sites in both Devon and Cornwall, constucted in the first century AD, that means the Military occupiers must have built them....LEGIO II AVG or its Auxillaries. They were only in this this area for 20 years before being moved onto Gloucester? and eventually Caerleon/Newport Wales.
As for the events of AD61...who knows, maybee the Legion was so far spread that it was no longer a Legion,and was no longer in a position to aid Paulinus. As for the events of AD69 we know for definate that a "vexillation" from the Legion went to fight for Vespasian and regained the Legions honour.
All constructive/non constructive critisism allowed.
Kevin

[Vindex]

My response is in the spirit of an honorary 'Gentleman' the proud position of which I have occupied for many years :wink:

Without quite the depth of knowledge in the area which you have Kevin(my own interest in the Second founded on their occupation of the area around the gold mine at Luentinum/Dolaucothi), I cannot flag up any major disagreements with what you have said and your hypothesis on AD61 is one which I certainly subscribe to. Perhaps this was another lesson learned as much as AD9 - the relentless search for natural resources over stretched troops avaiable and perhaps post AD61 led to the brief occupation in parts of Devon and Cornwall.

The Second's occupation of the South West, including Wales, is fairly attributed to the interest in natural resources I think. What else could they possibly want Britannia for and make such an effort to cross a sea to find? Natural resources such as precious metals and it's grain producing abilities to sustain a large force makes for a good expeditionary force combination.

The Second must also have acquired a very good core of professional, specialist engineers with the manpower in the form of the Legion to back up their ambitious extraction operations.