The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial ArmyCheesman, George Leonard
History
The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army
Cheesman, George Leonard
Rome -- Army; Rome -- Colonies
A stronger argument is perhaps to be found in inscriptions which
contain the phrase _legio … et auxilia eius_.[146] It could be
wished that these texts were more numerous and more precise, but they
support the supposition that some connexion existed between each legion
and a definite group of auxiliary regiments better than any evidence
previously adduced. The connexion, however, must have been very slight
and easily broken. Dr. Hardy has pointed out that although three out
of the four legions stationed in Germania Superior in 70 left the
province for good during the following thirty-five years, there is
abundant evidence that nothing like the same proportion of the auxilia
stationed in the province accompanied them.[147] It is also clear that,
in the second century at any rate, the number of auxilia attached to
any legion was not fixed in accordance with any general principle, but
depended upon the exigencies of the local situation on each frontier. A
reference to the list of provincial garrisons contained in the appendix
will show that whereas there are not likely to have been more than
three thousand auxilia apiece to each of the three legions of Pannonia
Superior, there were probably thirty thousand to be divided among the
three legions of Britain, while in Dacia there was only one legion with
something approaching twenty-five thousand auxilia. Still, with these
reservations, it seems possible enough that the auxilia were always
considered as in some sense dependent on the legions, and that where
several legions were stationed in the same province, an arrangement was
made dividing the auxilia into a corresponding number of groups, each
of which was for certain purposes attached to a particular legion.[148]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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