Ptolemaic or Augustan garrison at Alexandria?

[Dan Diffendale]

Can anyone point me in the direction of information on Ptolemaic or Augustan troops stationed at or near Alexandria in Egypt, aside from descriptions of fighting therein during the Civil Wars...?

[Praefectusclassis]

The Classis Alexandria Augusta is usually thought to have been there from Augustus reign onward.

[MD]

According to Strabo the Augustan garrison of Alexandria was one legion and 3 auxiliary cohorts:

Geographica Book 17.12
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... 17A2*.html

12 Egypt is now a Province; and it not only pays considerable tribute, but also is governed by prudent men — the praefects who are sent there from time to time. Now he who is sent has the rank of the king; and subordinate to him is the administrator of justice, who has supreme authority over most of the law-suits; and another is the official called Idiologus, who inquires into all properties that are without owners and that ought to fall to Caesar; and these are attended by freedmen of Caesar, as also by stewards, who are entrusted with affairs of more or less importance. There are also three legions of soldiers, one of which is stationed in the city and the others in the country; and apart from these there are nine Roman cohorts, three in the city, three on the borders of Aethiopia in Syenê, as a guard for that region, and three in the rest of the country. And there are also three bodies of cavalry, which likewise are assigned to the various critical points.

[Jona Lendering]

Apparently, there were two legions in Alexandria/Nicopolis:

• III Cyrenaica (35 BCE - 106; transfer to Arabia; replaced by II Traiana)
  XXII Deiotoriana (before 8 BCE - after 119; probably destroyed by Bar Kokhba)

After 119, the garrison was one legion strong, but in 298, Diocletian added the newly founded III Diocletiana.

At the beginning of the reign of Augustus, when Strabo was writing, XII Fulminata (stationed in "Babylon" = Cairo) was probably the third Egyptian legion.

In Late Antiquity, subunits of XIII Gemina and XI Claudia are known to have served in Egypt; their positions are not recorded and may have been Alexandria.

Other units visiting Egypt (and maybe staying briefly in Alexandria) are: V Macedonica (in 293) and a vexillatio of I Illyricorum with III Gallica (315-316).

For completeness' sake: I Maximiana and II Flavia Constantia were recruited in the Thebaid (after 296) and later transferred to Thrace.

It is often said that there were Jewish troops in Ptolemaic Alexandria, but I do not know the hard evidence.

[MeinPanzer]

Can anyone point me in the direction of information on Ptolemaic or Augustan troops stationed at or near Alexandria in Egypt, aside from descriptions of fighting therein during the Civil Wars...?

How early do you mean when you say Ptolemaic? I have some info from the 3rd C. BC.

[Dan Diffendale]

Thanks to all thus far...

How early do you mean when you say Ptolemaic? I have some info from the 3rd C. BC.

Well, I should say, from the foundation of the city until the Roman occupation, then tack on the reign of Augustus...