Solving the Mystery of the Lost Roman Legion | History Hit Series

it is one of the great mysteries of ancient history in the early second century ad a Roman legion vanished from the historical record they're not there so at some point in the 2 Century something happens to them they disappear they're disbanded something here You've Got 5 a half thousand soldiers of R's Elite fighting Army what happens to them we do not know what happened to it literally disappears from history it remains one of the Mysteries we need to find out now with the help of leading experts I'm going to dive deeper into the story I'm going to be traveling across Britain visiting some of the key sites associated with the ninth Legion on This Island from the central role it played in helping extend Rome's control to a brutal runin with Britain's most famous warrior Queen the question of what's happened to the nin Legion has fascinated people for centuries this is the story of the ninth [Music] Legion I've always been interested in Roman history for as long as I can remember but one of the key things that really sparked the interest was when my dad read to me this book the eagle of the ninth when I was six or seven years old first published in the 1950s it was written by rosemy sliff and the story centers around a Roman legion the nth Legion sent North from York to crush an uprising Beyond Hadrian's Wall but the legion never returned it was destroyed and its precious Eagle standard was lost rosem M suck Cliff was a fantastic author I mean she she's somebody who suffered through illness throughout her entire life and and didn't get out much but her imagination was amazing and when the eagle of the ninth came out it was such a a captivating story I guess I mean archaeologists can look at it today and say there are certain parts which which don't quite ring true anymore but the idea of a legion being lost in Northern Britain about a son trying to find out what happened to his father about uh sort of the loss of Honor trying to recover this eagle and pinning it all to an archaeological Discovery this archaeological Discovery was the sil Chester Eagle discovered in the late 19th century this Roman bronze cast Eagle is extraordinary it's Talons are clawed over as if gripping onto something its head is tilted slightly to the right although it is now not believed to be a legionary eagle it inspired Rosemary Sutcliffe to write her famous novel Rosemary Sutcliff makes that brilliant link of saying this is possibly the eagle standard of the ninth Legion and if if it was why is it in silchester in southern Britain in barkshire and not anywhere near York where they may have died so creating this fantastic story about people going north and so spoiler alert uh retrieving the eagle and bringing it south and giving it an honorable burial so it it's a it's a fantastic story and it's a real sort of boy's own heroic tale although a fictional story the eagle of the ninth has its roots in one of the great mysteries of ancient history in the 2nd Century a Rome's ninth Legion Leo 9 Hispana disappears from the historical record vanishes over the decades over the centuries there have been many theories put forward as to what happened to this lost Legion but for me what is just as interesting what is just as amazing is what we do know about Rome's ninth Legion what we do know in particular about this Legion during the just under 100 years that we're for certain sure that it's spent in Roman Britain filled with military successes but also some disastrous defeats the story of the ninth Legion that we do know is worthy of an epic in its own right and its story deserves to be told by the first century ad the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean possessing one of the most formidable military forces in history Rome's conquering Army was divided into Legions each one a unit containing just over 5,000 soldiers every Legion had its own extraordinary story and the ninth Legion was no exception now the interesting thing is that there were at least two ninth Legions so the first ninth Legion originates in the 80s BC in the social wars in the later Roman Republic and this then becomes an elite fighting force it fights with Caesar throughout all of his campaigns in Gaul the sanguinous conquest of Gaul when he him himself claims he killed a million and enslaved a million well part of that story is the ninth Legion the original ninth Legion this ninth Legion almost certainly came to Britain in at least one of Caesar's two incursions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC and this same ninth Legion then participates in his later campaigns fighting Pompei in the Balkans Macedonia in Greece the Battle of Fales and then in North Africa and then in Spain it's an elite Legion but the year before Caesar's assassination 44 BC it is disbanded and we don't know why but in true Roman fashion within 2 years it's reformed so after Caesar's death Octavian reforms it and it again becomes another Elite Legion so it fights through all the major campaigns of the latest Civil Wars it fights at Philippi then when he becomes Augustus after being um called Emperor for the first time by the senate in 27 BC it fights in his canaban Wars in Spain so so it's particip ipating in all the major conflicts of Octavian later augustus's Reign so this is an elite Legion but the ninth record of service was soon stained by an Infamous event for the first time uh we we see it in a negative light because there's an occasion when it Rebels and interestingly this is a theme which you can see then threaded through the rest of the history of the ninth Legion no longer is it this bright shining light this true heroic Roman legion but suddenly things start over time over a long chronology to go wrong in this first instance in the beginning of the first century ad um you have this this uh Rebellion this Insurrection involving the legion ultimately the legion then comes back um into the front line again of the Roman military and laterally it is chosen as one of the four Legions to take part in the claudian invasion of Britain under Alis plaus on behalf of the emperor Claudius ad43 three and it plays a key role in The Invasion by the end of 43 ad the Romans had reached camalam modern day Colchester and here the emperor Claudius received the surrenders of British Chiefs the invasion was at an end the province of britania was declared it had ended in success the emperor Claudius he had his Conquest but for the 9th the fighting was far from over we've got Roman troops essentially heading west and northwards it's vital to go west because although the tribes predominantly in the south and east are on Rome side they they understand the need for good relationships with Rome and a lot of their leaders of a pro Roman to the West you've got the good mineral resources you've got the gold in central Wales you've got lead and tin in the west country uh you've got a whole range of of sort of materials which will make Britain economically viable if you can start mining that so it's vital that the troops go west and start to incorporate that bit into the Roman Empire but the trouble is going west is you've got tribes and people who've had no history of contact with Rome so they're not necessarily on Rome's side they haven't traded with Rome resistance remained in the west riled up by a British leader called catticus that's a problem because the emperor Claudius has gone back to Rome and said it's all over you know the conquest is complete and yet there's still this character who is loose who is causing trouble it's that sense of you can't complete the conquest until caticus is brought back in Rome in Chains or is dead so he becomes the major Target for the Romans they have to get him if they can convince the rest of the Roman Empire that the conquest of Britain is finished yet as Rome was dealing with catticus and this resistance in the west the ninth was heading in a different direction the ninth Legion is going up the East Coast as far as we can see I mean the good thing about the Roman Legions is They al whenever they're building a fort they stamp their tiles so we've got a lot of numbers we we can see the second Legion is going down towards Dorset and exitor uh the 20th and the 14th Legions are going up into Wales um up towards angle SE and the ninth Legion seems to be going up the Eastern Seaboard going towards Lincoln and then up eventually towards York so to begin with the ninth isn't involved directly in the war against caticus but it is involved in trying to make sure that the Eastern side of Britain is kept secure and more critically the northern Frontier is secure because to the north you've got this uh the the tribe the brigantes which is a massive tribal Confederation really from Southern York right there up to North umberland covering an immense area if they're peaceful and if they can be persuaded to be on Rome's side then the rest of the soldiers can move into Wales they can start hunting down catticus and also the nth can stop katus from going northwards and trying to fent Rebellion up there too so they have a very important role early on but they're not directly involved with the with the war against the British leaders by 60 AD the ninth Legion had played a central role in helping Rome establish the fledgling Roman province of britania it had played a key role in The Invasion it had played a key role in the breakout campaigns it had established itself on Rome's Northern Edge founding a legionary fortress at Lincoln but it would be then that the ninth faced its greatest challenge to date a massive British revolt led by one of the most famous warrior women in our Island's history buddika was the queen of a British tribe called the II who are a Roman client tribe or a client state so actually nominally they were allies of Rome and the Romans did deals with some of the populations where they conquered a territory if it would save them time in the conquest of the more difficult parts of a territory do a deal with one of the tribes which are more acquiescent and this is the I who are in North Norfolk so doing a deal with them allowed the Legion of the ninth to actually start its campaign in the Midlands and the north um all well and good however jump forward to ad 6061 budus husband dies and in his will he's left his kingdom as a client State his kingdom half to his daughters and half to Rome now when you're a client State the usual way of doing things is for the Monarch who dies to leave all of his kingdom to Rome so this actually gets the backs of the Romans up and there there's trouble and the Romans send troops to force the II to give up all of their territory all of their portable wealth possibly to the Romans and this Sparks an Insurrection some of the stories we hear at this point are of the Roman money lenders calling in their loans to the aristocratic um Nobles of the II who they've lent money to to become effectively Roman to build gr public buildings to wear togers to educate their children in Latin in Rome and by calling in the money they're bankrupted so an Insurrection takes place also we hear from the primary sources that maybe buddika herself was Ill treated and her daughters raped as well whatever the truth there's a major problem and a rebellion starts and it becomes a conf floration eventually the whole of the southeast erupts into flames and we have the Budan Revolt for the ninth stationed to the north Northwest this was a major problem now at the time of the buddan Revolt the ninth Legion is based and its very recently founded legionary Fortress at Lincoln it would have had vexations based further south but the majority of troops would have been at Lincoln however given that the riv is in North Norfolk they're the First Responders and imagine the scene you've got budika marching down from North Norfolk she's approaching Colchester the provincial capital where Claudius early earlier announced the the province of britania to exist the commander the legate of the Legion serialis decides to put together an emergency force from the ninth Legion probably no more than 2,000 men so less than half the legion so vexations of legionaries um and also maybe auxiliaries especially auxiliary Cavalry and they hot foot it down to try to intercept buddika as she marches from North Norfolk down to Colchester but things didn't go as planned first they get there too late so when they get to Colchester it's been torched and all the Roman Colonial settlers there have been killed secondly when they eventually do engage buddika and her Force which by this time may have amounted to maybe 100,000 we're only talking about 2,000 Romans here so even though of those 100,000 native Britains in Revolt uh only a small percentage may have been actual Warriors still the odds against the Romans here are huge nevertheless serialis with his 2,000 men tries to intercept Buddha and he's defeated to the extent where he runs away so the legionary legate the general in charge of the Legion legs it and he goes with his guard Cavalry and they go and hide in a fort nearby until the buddhan revolts put down so the first story we have of the ninth Legion fighting a battle in terms of the Budan Revolt is very negative indeed the battle was a catastrophic defeat for serialis and his portion of the ninth Legion it was the first major military disaster that we know of that the Romans had suffered on this island by the end of the day perhaps as many as 2,000 legionaries had perished budd's Revolt would ultimately be put down at the Battle of Watling Street and in its aftermath but the damage budaa and her Warriors had dealt to the ninth Legion was severe it was in desperate need of replenishing and we hear in the aftermath of the Revolt 2,000 more legionaries being sent to to Britain many of whom would have been sent straight to the ninth to replenish that dented Legion and we know the ninth was replenished because soon enough we hear of this Legion back in the field once more now if we jump forward in time to the 870s the ninth Legion comes back into Focus again but with the same guy involved the same Roman leader Seri Alis but this time serialis isn't the failed legionary legate having lost his battle with buddika he's now um rebuilt his reputation uh with the Flav the new flavian Dynasty in the context of The Batavian revolt and he becomes the governor of Britain and he gets given orders to uh create wealth and create glory for the new flavian Dynasty and he gets told to conquer the far north of Britain which includes the brigantes tribe in the North and the ninth Legion gets given orders to March North and begin this Conquest process the first thing they do is they March to the Rivero where they then build another legionary Fort and this is today's [Music] York York has its fair share of extraordinary Roman history in 306 ad Constantine I better known as Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor here by his soldiers probably very near to where I'm standing now at the prinkipia the heart of Roman York which is today underneath York Minster almost 100 years earlier another Roman Emperor septo Severus he came to York too he established it as his capital for 3 years when he went campaigning further north in the heartlands of what is today Scotland he ultimately died here in 211 and 100 years more than 100 years before that that was when New York was first established as a legionary fortress with the ninth Legion it's quite surreal to think that all this incredible Roman history well it began with leio 9 hispan the ninth Legion were the Builders of Roman York they established here in the year 71 ad the first Roman structures in this part of the country the first Fortress of Eber Raam which was initially built out of Earth and Timber and then was later rebuilt in stone and you can still see remnants of it here in York today York as we understand it today is essentially a Roman creation uh it's a legionary fortress for the 9th now Legions are usually put they're not on the front line they're often a way back and it's the auxiliaries the less well- paid troops that do the policing duties but York is established as a major Center Point a major node in in Rome's conquest of Britain and that's the ninth so the ninth is the most Northerly of all the legions we got the um we got the 20th Legion at Chester we've got the second um at um Kean in South W but the ninth is primarily that unit on the Northern Frontier so its role has always been heading northwards probably of all the legions it better understands the brigantes the tribes to the north those soldiers of the ninth Legion stationed at York were helping keep an eye over large SES of territory owned by Peoples such as the brigantes and archaeology survives that tells us more about one particular figure we're very lucky in the Yorkshire Museum to have some wonderful tombstones that provide really personal insights into individuals this is one of them this is the wonderful Tombstone or tomb marker of an individual called Lucius duus rafus this individual Lucius was a soldier in the ninth Legion and by looking closely at his tomb marker we can tell a lot about him if we look at how rafus is depicted in the tombstone we can learn a lot about his role within the ninth Legion you can see that he's holding a decorated pole in his left hand now that's a standard and this tells us that he had a specific role in the legion as a standard Bearer there would be one of these per Century that's around 80 soldiers and they would support the Centurion who was the head of that group they had a very specific role in battle they needed to make sure that all the fighting soldiers knew where their Centurion was to keep morale up and it was by holding this decorated pole high within the melee that they were able to do this it's a very important and also a very dangerous role because they were holding this standard they weren't able to um protect thems with a shield what's so fantastic about this object is that it puts a name a face and a personality to a member of the ninth Legion unfort Ely we don't know exactly when rafus died um but we we think it's quite likely that he was one of the first soldiers that was stationed here in Roman York so one of the Builders of the city not all of the Knight would remain in and around York during the late 1st Century ad detachments or vexations were sent across Britain as well as to the continent for service on the rine but it most significant campaign would be under the command of one of the most renowned Roman governors of Britain agria is one of those governors of Britain for whom we actually know quite a lot um and that's because his son-in-law tacitus wrote a a biography in fact it's less of a biography it's more of a sort of hagiography it's it's a very sort of um positive story about how great and wonderful his father-in-law was and all the wonderful things he did for Rome but it's useful from our point of view because it gives us a sort of a year-by-year account so AG gria is probably the only Roman governor who could actually claim to have conquered the far north of Britain and part of this process in his campaigns from let's say Ad 78 through ad 83 uh involved directly absolutely directly the ninth Legion um the ninth Legion at the time one of four Roman Legions in Britain playing a key role in his campaigns marching from the north of the province remember at this time the bord is probably around the sway first of the time so we going north into the Scottish borders and then we're going further north into F and then further north into the upper Midland Valley just shy of the Highland line and then we're going even further north towards the Moray lowlands so this is a real attempt to conquer the far north of Britain one key place where we see the remains of extensive military activity by agrica is in perthshire and then they get to around um place called inle in perire um and that's where they build a legionary fortress it's the the uh big fort in Scotland the next nearest being um York they don't quite finish that um but we know they're campaigning around there they're building their forts in around [Music] Persia I've come to the remains of Ardo Roman fort in Scotland now the fort here was first constructed by the Romans in the first century ad During the flavian period and the remains of the flavian fort here can be seen it's very extensive the far reaches of the ditches visible to this day here our dock is a ran fort in central Scotland in perthshire and it's one of the best surviving examples of its type anywhere anywhere in the Roman Empire um as you can see from the massive ramparts and ditches around its perimeter it survives in really good quality condition the fort itself um it's an incredibly well-preserved Fort a number of rampart and ditches still survive um it's on the route into the highlands um just Slightly North of that we seem to get a fortified signaling chain um Ardo has a key role in that it is pivotal it is controlling Act AC it in this area obviously when you visit our dog today it's it seems quite quiet and peaceful the wind blowing across a relatively empty field you get to the ramparts and then you get an idea of the Majesty but what that does is hide the hive of activity that you'd have had going on there you would have had these wooden Barrack blocks you would have had the headquarters building you've got to imagine the noise of hundreds of men um you'd have had soldiers on guard at night time and you've really got to imagine something that's quite busy and and often it's good to actually have a think about when you've watched some film or a television program that's actually shown the Roman army the battle scene at the beginning of gladiator when they all come back and they're in the camp afterwards and it shows you an image of something that's really quite dirty and smelly and I think you've got to help you've got to conjure up this isn't this lovely Windswept moall this was a busy active Place full of soldiers so our dock it's beautifully preserved of all of these deep ditches these fortifications you can just imagine what it would have originally looked like with a wooden wall surrounding it it's an absolutely astonishing sight and it may also very tentatively have a link to the ninth Legion now when I say tensive link to the ninth I mean very very tensive we have no evidence that the ninth was ever here but the key for me was that we believe that this fort was first constructed as I mentioned in the avian period so probably during the campaign of agrica in the north of which we know the ninth served some thoughts you're lucky enough to find something that actually gives you a date like a coin hord or something that that actually has a the latest date which at least helps you to do that we don't have that evidence for our doc but we do have plenty of evidence shown that was occupied in the 80s ad so very much contemporary with agricola's campaigns and would have been occupied when he was operating in Scotland could the knife Legion have been here at some point during that campaign it's possible but we don't know for [Music] sure by 82 agria campaign in the North had met with some astonishing success he had constructed forts as far north as Perth including perhaps this one beautifully preserved at our dock he had secured the land south of the F and the Clyde he had campaigned on the islands to the West and he had even according to his son-in-law tacitus contemplated a future invasion of Ireland but agricola's campaign was far from finished agria returned his attention to the north using the fleet and Army in tandem to pressure his foe the caledonians who put up a fierce resistance the caledonians went on the offensive attacking Forts and damaging Roman morale the Caledonian assaults were terrifying and seemingly Relentless as the ninth Legion was about to find out to combat this Caledonian aggression a gria decided to divide his army into three separate sections the weakest of which according to tacitus was the ninth Legion now why was the ninth the weakest well perhaps some of the unit was elsewhere at the time but now the ninth was exposed and the caledonians pounced the ninth Le region somewhere probably in the upper Midland Valley so just shy of the Highlands is in a marching camp and remember a Roman military unit specifically a legion at the end of every night when they're campaigning in enemy territory builds a marching camp this is to defend itself from being attacked overnight which proves very relevant here because on this given evening in 82 so we are told by tacitus the Roman historian in his R the native Britains in the far north will call them the caledonians attack in force completely out of the blue and almost overwhelm this entire Legion of 5,500 men in its marching Camp according to tacitus the centuries were caught off guard and the caledonians got into the camp itself what followed was Anarchy it must have been hell on Earth the KN unprepared the enemies swirling all around them a nightmare most Roman fors are designed so that troops can get out they don't want to sit behind their walls penned in they got multiple gateways they can get out as quickly as they can they can form up in the field and then they can fight an enemy as they're trained to do so but the ninth are caught in their Fort so the ninth Legion is in danger of being overwhelmed by The caledonians Who are attacking your Force tacitus says that agria arrives in the nick of time to save the legion from being annihilated he sent reinforcements he sent his Cavalry and just in the nick of time whilst the knights were holding out they managed to get some sort of order agricola's reinforcements came and routed the attacking caledonians the ninth was saved from total Destruction but the damage it had suffered was severe we don't know how many losses they suffered but they go from being a premier fighting unit to one that has suffered significant losses and later on at the at the major battle of mon scus the legions and specifically the ninth does not take part agria sends all his um less wellaid auxiliary soldiers into the front line they get moaned they're like Canon fodder you know it doesn't matter how many of them die because they're not ultimately Roman but the legions are kept in reserve and it might be that groups like The Ninth have been so badly molded by that stage that they're not fighting fit and therefore they're not actually able to to do the job this deadly Knight attack on the ninth Legion is an extraordinary story but did it really happen the archeological record and what is happening to the ninth are two very different things we don't have any information that the enemy was burning down the fortification um we've got no archaeological evidence of that the text itself says they just killed a few people it doesn't say they were burning it down so we don't really know what was happening um we've not found any evidence of dead Roman soldiers that that have obvious marks of being slaughtered we don't have the same indigenous population we don't have any sort of battle site so the Archaeology is not clear um in terms of the ninth Legion we don't know where it happened when it happened and we have no archaeological evidence for that doesn't mean say it didn't happen just means that we haven't discovered that or perhaps tacitus was just spinning a bit of a tall tail there what's so interesting about this Infamous night attack this moing that the ninth suffers in Scotland is that this is the last literary reference we ever hear of the ninth Legion it's the last time the ninth Legion is ever mentioned in history ever that's that's it it's never again mentioned in history so what happened to it in the next episode we look at what the archaeology can tell us you know that's the point where they disappear so it did not take part in building the wall for whatever reason it wasn't around by then in Britain the possibility of them being lost somewhere on the rine or just a disbandment as we dive into the mystery of the Lost Legion in the last episode we tracked the nin's history right up to its last mention in the literature A Deadly Knight attack suffered somewhere in central Scotland in 82 ad at the height of arria's campaigns in the north it's the last time the ninth Legion is ever mentioned in history ever that's it it's never again mentioned in history so what happened next well to continue the story we must now turn our attention to the archaeology following the end of arria's campaign in Scotland the ninth ultimately returned to its legionary Fortress at York and it's here that we have the next key in the story the next key archaeological find an inscription dat into the early 2nd Century ad which is located here at the Yorkshire Museum [Music] this Monumental inscription is a dedication to the rebuilding of a major Gateway in stone and this Gateway was probably part of the Roman Fortress most likely the major Southeastern entrance to the Fortress the inscription is written in contracted Latin and it's actually only the last line that tells us that this has anything to do with the ninth Legion at all the first few lines of the inscription are actually dedicated to the Roman Emperor at the time traan and it's essentially a list of his honors titles and roles which form a fairly extensive CV we can see that we have imp for imperator or Emperor and he's also listed as ponteix Maximus or chief priest of the Empire the great thing about those sort of inscriptions is I mean they're not great literary text they just say who built this and the name of the emperor and usually when he's citing an emperor you get a whole list of his titles and because the titles change every year you can pinpoint the exact time that inscription dates to so it's set up by the ninth Legion and it's dedicated to the emperor Tran and the list of titles that he is given dates from December 107 ad to December 108 so we've got that 12month period where that inscription is put in but that's the last definitive physical evidence that we've got for the ninth Legion after 108 you know that's the point where they disappear so we know that in 108 they're in New York they're repairing the Gateway we know very little about what happens to them afterwards it's astonishing to think that that inscription is the last reference we have to the ninth Legion in Britain after that it's gone within 15 years of this inscription we find a new Legion based at York the sixth victrix they were instrumental in rebuilding the Roman Fortress here the multangular tower which you can see in the museum Gardens here in York um which is the corner Tower of the Fortress it has 10 sides hence it's name the mangular tower is the finest standing remains that show the activity of the sixth now at the start of the 2 Century ad the sixth victrix have been stationed on the Ry but in around ad1 120 latest ad122 the sixth was transferred to Northern Britain to The legionary Fortress at York Roman eum now why is this so significant in the story of the ninth well the ninth had been stationed at York but it seems now almost certain that by the time the sixth arrives at York the ninth has gone the York legionary Fortress it wasn't large enough to fit two full Legions so it suggest that by that time the N had gone and this is seems to be further affirmed that maybe the ninth isn't in Britain At All by Hadrian's great legacy on this island the remains of which you can still see today adrien's [Music] W every unit which participated in building it left an inscription here there graffiti official every single unit there's no inscription at all from nin hispan so it did not take part in building the wall for whatever reason it wasn't around by then in [Music] [Applause] Britain is argued that the the ninth was building part of the wall and hasn't left any inscriptions um the the Western sector of haen wall was actually built in turf so they could have created inscriptions in wood and we have one from a different Legion uh which have completely disappeared I don't like that theory uh it doesn't fit with how I understand the building of haen War took place which was in um sectors of five miles a piece and these sectors divide into three blocks of five miles which suggest there only three Legions building in Britain the 2 the 6th and the 20th not the 9th so it appears that the legion was no no longer in Britain by 122 ad and we know that less than 50 years later the ninth Legion is no longer in existence anywhere in ad1 168 we have a column being built in Rome which is called the colella Mafi and this lists all the legions which are exent in the Roman Empire at the time probably any one time in the Roman Empire prate period anyway there are probably 30 odd Legions that's the case here uh and we can date it because it's got the italic Legions listed which are created around the time of the moranic wars so we can date it fairly accurately and on that column which lists all the legions in existence in the Roman Empire at the time in ad1 168 the ninth Legion isn't there it's gone so what happened to the ninth Legion well there have been a number of theories put forwards over the decades indeed over the centuries and to this day it Remains the subject of heated scholarly debate so the starting point is to look at where we first became aware that it disappears from history and this is with an antiquarian in the 1730s called John horley John horley U did an analysis of the entry and exit of every Roman legance Britain which still to this day an actual fact stands up to to rigor academic rigor and um he determined that the anyone he couldn't work out where it went to what happened to it was the ninth Legion and since that time people looking elsewhere of the Empire have drawn the same conclusion jump forward to the 1850s and you have a German academic one of the leading Roman historians of his day a leading antiquarian called Theodore mson and Theodore mson wrote a multivolume history of the Roman Empire Empire and in it he took horley's um observation about The Disappearance of the ninth Legion and he started investigating it and he came up with a hypothesis of himself which he published in the later 1850s and his hypothesis was that this Legion had arrived as we know with the Roman invasion of Britain by Alis plaus uh on behalf of Claudius in ad43 and it participated in all manifestations of the conquest campaigns uh but later something happens in the north and it gets wiped out and his theory was it was in York and there was an Insurrection of the local brigantes in the far north of Britain and they attacked York which was the legionary base of the ninth Legion and wiped it out and this was the starting point of all the analysis about what really happened to the ninth Legion momson centered his theory around the belief that Northern Roman Britain was in a state of unrest in the early 2nd Century caused by Imperial neglect now the interesting thing about the province of Britain at the beginning of the second century ads it's fairly quiet because most of the military action is taking place well away from this Northwestern corner of the Roman Empire so for example uh the ad 108 reference to Tran in The legionary Fortress in York while Tran is spending most of his time fighting daia and then later fighting the pathans in the Middle East um so there's very little action in his r taking place compared to that in Britain I think if anything Britain has been progressively ignored you know it's an island away from the major Center of things it's in Barbarian territory it's not top of the list of of Rome sort of concerns and traan Emperor just before hadrien his concerns is winning military Victory military glory in the East um and also by having great big Conquest he doesn't think about Britain Britain's done as far as the Romans are considered it's been conquered so his role is really taking soldiers out of Britain and putting them somewhere else and you get the feeling that I guess those governors sent to the province those soldiers serving there feel increasingly abandoned and they're not getting the attention that they deserve when Tran died in August 117 his successor hadrien inherited a britania Rife with instability now this is my old secondhand copy of the text the ancient text that is the Historia austa and in it it has a biography of the emperor hadrien and interestingly in this copy in this text it records how when hren came to the throne the Britain could not be kept under Roman control that's a nice vague statement um we don't know whether that means that Britain's in the province are rebelling or there's an invasion from outside Roman territory but the suggestion is but the fact that it's noticed by by a sort of a court biographer biographer of hren suggests that it's a major incident and later on we're told that when hin comes to power um there are two significant disasters milit militarily speaking we're told U great numbers of soldiers killed by the Jews great numbers by the Britain the Jewish Wars we know a lot about uh we've got lots of literary texts for that we got to know nothing about what's going on in Britain but it does suggest if the situation is in Britain as as bad is is in Judea in the east then we are talking about hundreds if not thousands of people being killed troops being in disarray our source for this unrest is Cornelius fronto a senator writing some two generations after the events fronto was a well-placed figure within the Imperial regime but he doesn't tell us the cause of this trouble one possibility could lie in the political makeup of Roman Britain at that time so in the North and the West the whole local economies bent towards maintaining the Roman military presence there needed to maintain this border which by that time dropped back down to the line of say the sway Earth to the time um and therefore your experience of living in Roman Britain if you're in the South and the East is very different to the North and the west but that means also that if you're one of the natives in the North and the West you're not going to be as enamored with the experience of being part of Roman Britain as if you were in the South and the East and to that end many people believe that the native tribes in the north and particularly the huge Confederation called The brigantes Who effectively run from Chester all the way through to the Scottish borders that whole area of northern northern England today and the Scottish borders um they were very very recalcitrant uh members as it were of the Roman Empire I think the brigantes they they never become Holy Roman there are pockets of romanness when you look at orra You' got mosaics and you've got um some degree of Prosperity but to all intents and purposes you'll still see native farmsteads and areas really much as they they were before it's a dispersed population with small sort of farming units some are directly under the control of Rome because they near a Roman Fort but generally speaking I think the brigantes never become Holy Roman not like the Atri batis or the catalone to the South who become very romanized and you got Villas and temples and towns the branes aren't like that at all although they they lose their independence they never really become a functioning part of the Roman Empire so the fact that military is there is always a negative impact on them now we know that more Roman soldiers came to Britain during the reign of the emperor hadrien the sick victorx for example may even have come to Britain with hadrien himself when he visited this island in around 122 ad and we also know that other soldiers ventured to Britain at this time a tombstone discovered near Rome for a certain Titus Pontius sabinus records how he led a Detachment of 3,000 soldiers to Britain on a British Expedition now could this Expedition be linked to unrest in the north of the province a buanes Revolt we don't know but it's possible I think of all the tribes if if we're told that the Britains could not be kept under control as Roman historians said I think the most likely to Rebel at that stage would have been the brigantes of course the ninth Legion at York is right in the center of that so if there is a rebellion they're going to be on the front line of that they're the ones who are going to have to deal with that as best they can and because Britain's been such a neglected part of the Roman Empire and there's no formal Frontier creators they are in the the problem they've got potential attack from the north from those tribes who are not part of the Roman Empire they've got the potential the brigan is rebelling against them and they got problems with instability in the South spreading North so of all the legions of all the military units in the province the ninth of the most exposed the building of Hadrian's Wall may also be a suggestion for unrest in the area and not just to the north I think the thing is really when Hadrian's Wall is built um you know when he creates that Frontier we we tend to think of it as a wall to keep out all the Perils of the north you know the barbarians to the north to keep them out of Roman Britain it's just as much a wall to to tell the branes you're not getting any more support from anyone else you are stuck inside Roman Britain now so it's much as facing north as it's facing south it's it's a it's a permanent border and it tells them you're in Roman territory you've got to just suck it up you are going to be Roman and there's nothing you can do about it so the evidence does seem to suggest that at least the north of Britain was in some state of Revolt of unrest of some instability in the early 2nd Century ad but could this be linked to the 9th de appearance well the blunt answer is yes monson's Theory uh was that uh it had been overwhelmed in an attack by the Banes on New York which was The legionary Fortress in its home uh Rosemary suck conceit was that it was defeated in an offensive operation in the far north of Britain um either of those two could be accurate the reality is there we'll never know because there is absolutely no his historical or archaeological evidence anywhere to say either was the case a third sub hypothesis could be that it was actually lost in a region wide conflagration in the North and the unconquered far north Ain to the buddan Revolt so one a bantian Revolt two it was defeated in an offensive operation in the far north three a conf floration of the entire north of the province and the unconquered far north all three could have happened but we have no evidence for it the theory that the ninth was lost somewhere in Northern Britain in the 2nd Century ad is certainly the strongest in popular imagination but the case is far from closed it's important to remember that the Roman province of Britannia was just a fragment of a much larger Empire that stretch the length and breadth of the Mediterranean and Beyond and it is with within this much wider context that we must continue our narrative the ad 108 inscription from York is the last attested mention of the ninth Legion in Britain but it's not quite the last mention we hear of the ninth from anywhere in the Roman Empire tombstones dating to the mid 2nd Century ad survive on various frontiers of the Roman Empire which mention the deceases serving in the knif Legion or at least being related to the nin Legion in some way or form and one of the most interesting of these tombstones comes from a far-flung frontier not in Britain but on an Eastern edge of the Roman [Music] Empire well the evidence we've got uh from inscriptions in includes uh one from the far end of the Empire um at Petra uh Petra's got some fantastic tombs cut into the Rock I mean we're all familiar with the treasury from Indiana Jones in the Last [Music] Crusade but as you explore Petra further there all wonderful tombs and one of these is to a man called florentinus who was governor of that Province and we know something about his career not least also uh because we know his two predecessors as Governor so we can date him pretty closely to the late 120s and his previous post but one was Tribune in the ninth Legion and these posts are usually last for three years so if we take the career as being normal that is having changing posts every three years would bring him into the early 120s for service in the ninth Legion further inscriptions have been discovered elsewhere in Rome a memorial was set up to the senator Lucius imidia carus in the mid 2nd Century ad which highlights among the man's many other achievements how carus had previously served as a military Tribune in the ninth Legion meanwhile at the Roman legionary Fortress of lambis near Tazo in modern day Algeria a dedication by soldiers of the third Legion to their Commander Lucius novius crispinus was discovered similar to carus this inscription believed to have been erected some time around around 150 ad records how crispinus had previously served in the ninth Legion these inscriptions have allowed some Scholars to put forward a different argument for the fate of the ninth Legion an argument where the ninth was not destroyed in the early 2nd Century well we come back to Emily Ring's article in 1925 where he looked at these career inscriptions his argument was that these career inscriptions suggested that the ninth Legion was still existence into the 120s and Eric Burley looked again at the evidence and suggested one of these career inscriptions indicates that the ninth Legion was still in existence perhaps even up to 130 so what came out suddenly was a ping of if you like disbelief in how people had previous to that point seen the end of the ninth Legion he said no no can't have happened can't have been destroyed in the early years of Hayden's Reign because in the later years of Hayden's Reign the careers of these officers suggest that it was still in existence more evidence has been uncovered since a diploma dating to around 140 ad mentions how a certain quintus camurus numus unior had previously served in leio 9 Hispana so this is pushing the survival of the ninth possibly even further on so if the ninth was not lost in Britain the question is where did it meet its end now one theory is that the ninth was transferred to the Ry to The legionary Fortress at nyagan because it's here that we find a rare mention of the ninth outside of Britain now we do know that certainly of exhalation so a unit from the ninth Legion was deployed to The legionary Fortress at nargan sometime before ad 108 and 8120 not the whole Legion just of exhalation we know this because we have the stamps on the tiles they manufactured as part of the rebuilding process of the legionary Fortress the really interesting thing there is that it's not the usual ninth Legion stamp because usually that's a one and an X this actually is a v1111 and the only vacillation we know of anywhere in Roman Britain from the ninth Legion which stamped its tiles like that was based near carile so you probably have a velation based in the northwest of Roman Britain being redeployed for some reason to NY Morgan probably for a short period of time but there's no evidence at all that it carried out any fighting and if you look at the major conf floration on the danu in particular in the later 2nd Century ad the maram manic Wars with Mar and Lucius feris and L later Commodus there's no evidence at all it took place or it even existed now given the lack of evidence for fighting along the rine at this period it's unlikely that this was where the ninth disappeared and it's a similar case for the river danu but there is one other area of the Roman Empire that we know for sure in the 2 Century ad that there was vicious fighting that there was Bloody Conflict at this time to the east Rome was involved in a series of bloody conflicts particularly in Judea now it's not unusual when you have major incidents either offensive or defensive in the Roman Empire to have military units transferred all over the Empire it's probably more unusual than not to have a legion transferred from Britain in the extreme Northwest of Empire to the extreme Eastern Frontier in Syria but it could have happened generally speaking only detachments of Legions were moved which is what we come down to with nine Waker and with just a Detachment there but there're still for um some years after this another 30 40 years after um 108 um and and the legion last recorded in Britain whole Legions were still being moved around the Empire so it's not impossible the nines were simply uprooted and transferred eastwards there is a series of events which could have been the context of the transference you have the three exceptionally sanguinous Jewish revolts the great Revolt in the ad 60s and70s you have the ketos war around the time of Tran's conquests in the east in the 8110s and then you have the the the by far the the most uh challenging um Jewish Revolt the Romans face which was the barop for revolt in the 813s and certainly in the latter it seems though at least one Legion was lost so the Romans lost a lot of troops including a legion in the Jewish revolts and finally you have the Roman parthan war from 8161 to 165 when at the very beginning in ad-161 when the parthan king basis I four invades from Armenia towards the Roman province of capid doia the Roman governor in capid doia so this is the northern part of the eastern border um sanus decides he's going to take matters into his own hand decides he going to be very brave takes a legion with him that's unnamed remember that the legion's unnamed then and now and he marches the legion into Armenia to try and stop orases and it's wiped out to a man and he commits suicide so we know there a legion's been lost in the barova revolt and Alle legion's been lost in the Roman parthan War both unamed so whether that's the ninth Legion or not we don't know but certainly the Romans lost the legion there so the ninth could have perished fighting in the East we have the bloody conflict and we know that Legions were lost during this time period but unfortunately we still lack clearcut evidence to support this we have tantalizing references that might support it but the evidence is still not 100% there well one might say well where's the evidence for it being a t in in the East and I can't produce any um all I can say is what one my University professors remarked John man was that the evidence for the Existence and positioning of Legions in the East is not good I've been to see four of the legionary fortresses on the Eastern Frontier and uh two are now underneath the Ataturk dams one is underneath the town of me melatini mtia and only one survives and he's hardly been touched by excavations so all these four sites have hardly been examined by archaeology so we don't know what the evidence for their history is it could be that there is evidence lurking there for the ninth Legion and that I think is a exciting possibility that new evidence will be discovered somewhere along the Eastern Frontier for the N Legion but others remain unconvinced there is a sort of counter there I think because rosem me suus but the eagle of the 9th and the recent films and so on has promoted in popular fiction the idea that the ninth was destroyed in Britain has led historians and archaeologists to to go against that and say that no no no ridiculous uh there's no evidence of a major perhaps Uprising we think the ninth was taken out of Britain and died somewhere else we know that there are tile stamps in nyagan uh on the r Frontier which probably dates to the mid 80s when over parts of the ninth were there um propping up the frontier before they were sent back to Britain again there's no other fort in the whole of the Roman Empire that has evidence of the night if they're in Forts and building stuff they will be stamping tiles we've got none of that evidence whatsoever um it's possible they died on another Frontier uh we hear of significant losses in the East but the fact that they're not actually mentioned I mean documentary sources for the time aren't great but for me I would say I would be 99.9% sure that they they died fighting in Britain because that's where they're based it makes no sense to take them out before then and it for them to die somewhere else the probability is they're fighting and dying trying to hold Britain together rather than going anywhere else I mean the fact that they are replaced by the sixth Legion to me suggests that they've borne the brunt of the fighting they haven't disgraced themselves because we still hear of EX soldiers from the 9th who've retired and go on to live as far as we can tell a happy life 20 30 years later but I think they were very severely mauled to the point where they had so many losses they just can't be replaced you can't just recruit more people to fill the gaps in there they it's easier to bring another Legion over and to replace them and to absorb whoever survived into different Legions and different units so I think the evidence as far as we can see is more suggestive that the nin died fighting and they probably died somewhere in that area of [Music] York so the candidates are lost in the north of Britain lost in the south of Britain lost on the RH and danu lost in the East I put them in this order number one lost in the north number two lost in the East number three lost in the south of Britain number four lost on the ran danu I believe it's most likely that the ninth Legion was lost in the north of Britain because there's no evidence it ever left the province apart from that one single vexation going to n Morgan nothing else I mean the good thing about Archaeology is that every new find changes the theory if we find tiles with I ex hisp uh in Judea or along the danu frontier brilliant we can say we know that the ninth was moved out and they did die somewhere else at the moment we haven't got that so our best guess is that they died in Britain the possibility of them being lost somewhere in Britain Remains the possibility of them being lost somewhere on the Rine or just a disbandment but it's still it remains one of the Mysteries we need to find [Music] out what's happened to the ninth Legion is a question that will continue to Captivate imaginations and divide opinion was it lost in Britain or did it get transferred and did it perish on another Frontier of the Roman Empire the debate continues the truth is we can't really make an Absol abolute statement of what happened to the KN Legion until archaeology uncovers some new groundbreaking evidence but that's makes me very excited for the future we only need this new archaeological Discovery and it could solve the mystery once and for all the fate of the nin Legion may be a mystery for now but hopefully not forever thanks for watching this video on the history Hit YouTube channel you can subscribe right here to make sure you don't miss any of our great films that are coming out or if you are a true history fan check out our special dedicated History Channel History hit. 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Channel: History Hit

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Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, roman legion, roman legion documentary, roman legion ambush, lost roman legion, mystery of the lost roman legion, ninth legion documentary, ninth legion roman army britain, the ninth legion the eagle, the ninth roman legion, history of ninth legion, mystery of ninth legion, tristan hughes, tristan hughes history hit, the ancients, roman army missing, roman mysteries, simon elliott, the ninth legion movie

Id: uzqXhGM-uRY

Length: 62min 43sec (3763 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024