Legio IX Hispana- The Lost Roman Legion

Have you ever misplaced something really important? Maybe it was your house keys, your wallet, or you phone, all things that you really can’t be without? But more importantly have you ever misplaced a whole Roman Legion consisting of 5,000 Roman soldiers? That was the situation Emperor Marcus Aurelius found himself in 190 AD when the Ninth Legion-Spanish (IX Hispania) seemingly disappeared.

The Ninth Legion had fought in various provinces all over the Roman Empire and had been stationed in Britain since the Roman Invasion in 43 AD. There is also evidence to suggest that some members of the Ninth Legion were later stationed in Germany along the lower Rhine in 120 AD, including tile-stamps and a silver-plated bronze pendant with ‘LEG HISP IX’ printed on the reverse. Yet by 190 AD, it seems the Ninth Legion had ceased to exist, with lists of the Roman Legions making no mention of any Ninth Legion. Two such lists survive today, one is inscribed on a column in Rome, and another was written by the Greco-Roman historian Dio Cassius in 190 AD. Both lists record the existence of 33 Legions, eliminating the Ninth’s disappearance simply being a clerical error. Yet neither list makes any mention of a ‘IX Hispania”. So just where exactly did the Ninth Legion disappear to?  

A fragment of a Ninth Legion tablet, the inscription reads: ‘The Emperor Caesar, son of the divine Nerva, Nerva Traianus Augustus, Germanicus, Dacicus, pontifex maximus, in his twelfth year of tribunician power, five times acclaimed Imperator, five times consul, father of his country, made this gateway by agency of the Ninth Legion Hispana’ 

Historians have multiple theories for their disappearance including: a Scottish ambush, Jewish Revolt or annihilation by the Parthian Army during Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ Parthian War (161-6). Yet it seems that the most likely explanation for their disappearance can be found on the very fringes of the Roman Empire, in northern Britain. In the period that the Ninth disappeared, Britain was host to a series of Celtic revolts, especially on the northern frontier. The historian Miles Russell argues that the Ninth Legion fought and died in Britain, most likely at the hands of the indigenous Celtic tribes. Russell thoroughly disputes the view that the legion ever left Britain, arguing that the inscriptions found in Germany are actually from 80 AD when detachments of the Ninth were on the Rhine fighting Germanic tribes. Lawrence Keppie agrees with this view, suggesting that if they did indeed leave Britain they ceased to exist very soon afterwards.

A map of Roman Britain in the period the Ninth Legion disappeared

It seems that this is one mystery that will never get solved, there is very little archaeological evidence behind any of the theories, and even less documentary evidence. So until someone finds the lost journal of one of the soldiers of the Ninth Legion we’re stuck with vague theories and historical arguments, as is often the case with historical mysteries!

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Sources

Campbell, D.B, The Fate of the Ninth: The curious disappearance of Legio VIIII Hispania, Ancient Warfare magazine, Vol. IV, Issue 5, pp. 48-53 (2018)

Keppie, Lawrence, The Making of the Roman Army, from Republic to Empire (London, 1984)

Russell, Miles, What Happened to Britain’s Lost Roman Legion? BBC History Magazine: 40–45 (2011)