July 23, 2015 • 59 mins
Somewhere between 100 to 120 AD the 9th Roman legion disappeared from the record books. Were they disbanded, defeated in a fierce battle (if so which one), or absorbed into another legion?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thinking Sideways. I don't stories of things we simply don't
know the answer too well. Hey there, and welcome to
the podcast Thinking Sideways. The podcast I of course am Steve,
(00:26):
as always, joined by Gel and once again we have
another mystery for you. It's a very ancient mystery. We're
actually going to talk about a historical mystery this week,
which is a little abnormal for us. We are going
to talk about what happened to the ninth Roman Legion.
(00:48):
You might see it called the Spanish ninth Legion or
the Legion ninth Hispania goes by a bunch of names,
depending on which interpretation. But before we get in to
the story, I do want to say thank you to
Jason on Facebook because he suggested this to us. No.
(01:08):
I was really again, as always, love the listeners suggestions too,
freaking greatest thing ever. There's gonna be some explanations of
several things in a minute, but let me give you
an overview of what we're going to talk about. Somewhere
shortly after year zero, that's the transition between BC two
A D or C E and B C E B C.
(01:33):
I'm I'm gonna use B C and A D today,
but somewhere after that transition, the ninth Roman legion disappeared
from the records that were kept by the Romans. They
really did, and I've seen it. I've seen it in
two different ledgers. Essentially, I've seen it that they disappeared
(01:54):
after the records from one twenty and I've seen that
they did disappeared after the records that were kept in
the time of Marcus Aurelius in year one sive. So
that that means and that they appeared in the records
uh that were made, and they also appeared in the
records that they were they were absent from either or both. No,
(02:20):
either they were absent from the records of one twenty
or they were absent from the records of one sixty five,
not both. One well, one presumes if they were absent
in one twenty, they would have also been absent in
chronologically the set of records in which they disappeared was
(02:41):
either either or it's it's I see it called out
as both. So that's what's the hard part. There's no
evidence of specifically what are concrete events, so specifically what
happened to this legion um, you know, did they get
destroyed in battle? Were they or by another legion? Did
(03:03):
they get phased out budget cuts? We just don't know
that it was for the Romans. Did they have any superstitions?
It's like we considered thirteen to be an end an
unlucky number. In my research of the Romans and stuff
like that, I never came across that. I know that
they had superstitions, but I never saw any of that
(03:26):
impacting numbering. I mean, I've looked at the thirteen legions
and and the twenty feet legion, like none of that
seemed to apply to them like we are used to
it today. Additionally, one presumes they would have just not
ever created to begin with. To begin with, that's because
the gods would not have liked that. So why even
offend the gods by starting that, right, just like we
(03:49):
just arbitrarily saying no, there's no thirteenth floor, it's the
fourteenth play. Yeah, that's the thing we do. We do,
we really do. Okay, explanation time, because they is where
we've got to get in some historical explanation. By the way, Yeah,
the Romans were around a long time. They were the
here's the dates. Well, well, actually, you know what, I'll
(04:10):
start off to week in the dates is that it
was a very deep, very complex history, and it's divided
into brackets. There's brackets of time that denote the empires
because there was there was the republican the Empire, and
then after that. So the Roman Republic is dated between
(04:35):
five O nine b C, and it fell because of
civil wars, internal conflicts. It fell in twenty seven BC.
From twenty seven BC forward, it was known as the
Roman Empire because of the Holy Roman Empire, because it
(04:56):
was ruled by an emperor, and the Roman Empire ran
from BC to four seventy six. And by the way, everybody,
I'm I'm not going to call out a D on
all these numbers. If it's a b C, I'm gonna
call it out. If I don't call it out, it's
an a D, because otherwise it's going to get really
(05:18):
annoying me constantly calling these a D. Because there's a
most of what we deal with is from year zero forward.
That means that time from when we went to b
C to a D. So just to keep it simple
and easier for everybody, but the Roman Empire went until
four seventies six, and I know that our history buff
(05:39):
fans are gonna say, well, well, Steve, that's not when
the Empire ended. I understand that the eastern portion of
the Empire became the Byzantine Empire, which ran into the
fifteenth century. I understand that. But the important thing is
we're going to focus on year zero to ballpark. Year two.
Hun tripped the empire, the empire. It's all in the empire. Uh.
(06:04):
The other thing that you're gonna need to understand is
what is a Roman legion. It's a bunch of guys, totally,
is a bunch of guys, no ladies involved, because ladies
did not serve in a legion as a soldier. It's
not like what we have today, where it's men and women.
It was that very antiquated model of men only in battle. Well,
(06:29):
you know, it made sense because I mean, you've got
to wear a heavy armor and carry a big old
heavy sword and shield and all that stuff. That's obviously
something guys are a lot better suited to our Yeah
at the time, yeah, with the technology that was available.
But here's what you're specifically, what a Roman legion is.
The Romans broke their army up into subunits, and each
(06:51):
subunit is what we refer to as a legion. Each
legion then was made up of five thousand men accompanied
by a cavalry unit. And I can never get a
sense of the size of the cavalry unit, but they
had a cavalry unit. Then. It probably just depends on
how many horses were available, I'm sure, but you know,
(07:13):
the terrain and all that stuff. Sorry, yeah, no, yeah,
where they are, it's going to have a huge impact.
Can you have horses? The legions, though, they were kind
of a one stop shop. Each legion was amazingly flexible.
They were the infantry. They well they had let's see,
they they would they would fight the battles. Obviously, they
(07:36):
were the guys who swung swords and shot bows and
arrows and work, right, they did policing work. But they
built fortifications, they had their own internal command structures. I
mean they really were. They were. They were a very small,
well rounded army. Here's here's an example of what a
(07:57):
legion could do. So this this is going to jump
ahead in time and we're going to come back to
this in a moment. But if anybody has heard of
I believe you pronounced Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian was an emperor
who he came into power at one seventeen, that's when
he came into power. He became the emperor, and one
of the things that he decided to do, because Rome
(08:21):
was in Britain, was he was going to stop the
Britons because they were beating the crap out of the Romans,
and he built the wall. He decided that they would
build a wall and coast to coast wall east to west,
or I'm going to describe it west east. Actually it
(08:42):
was built from Boundness on Solway to um Wait. We
always get in trouble for how do you pronounce this one?
The same area it's got to. The actual tent it
to the town is not actually at the town of
ten Myth, but if you're zoomed out a little bit
(09:04):
on the map, it's in that area and the wall
doesn't completely exist anymore. I need to I need people
to understand this was not in the beginning a stone wall.
This was an earthen wall, which meant they dug and
created an earthen barrier. It was a wall, a ditch
and a wall. Eventually they came back and they built
(09:26):
the stone wall on top of it. But they built
that original wall in six years, they got a lot
of territory. I'm assuming they I'm assuming they pressed a
lot of locals in the work. I don't know that
for sure, Joe. From what I understood, the legions did
the work. But you know, it could be that they said, hey,
(09:46):
I'm not digging this, and they could have hired locals,
or they could have like just force them to work.
I mean there's also that. Yeah. Yeah, the whole force
labor thing could completely be plausible. I don't know for
sure because I did the base six on the wall,
but I didn't actually get into the real specifics because
this is just kind of my general example of how
effective they were. Yeah, the Romans actually left a ton
(10:10):
of a ton of ruins behind in England. I mean
the ones that I've seen personally, or the wall at
Chester that have you been to the city of Chester. Yeah, yeah,
they built that was originally their their fort their fortifications,
and then the town of Chester grew up inside that
and then eventually outside it. But the wall is still there. Well,
we've talked about when we talked about Jack the Ripper,
(10:30):
I was talking about when I was on the Ripper
tour and walking inside of the remnants of the wall
that's in London, and that was one of the things
that I know the Legions would have built. And it's
a it's a six ft thick wall of stone. Yeah,
an the one that the one in Chester is is
wide enough to walk on. Yeah, it's yeah, it's amazing.
(10:51):
These things are insane, but this is this is what
these guys were. They were the jack of all trades
and by the way, they'd kill you too. They could
do it all a lot of the If you want
to learn more about the Romans and then the Roman Army,
see Life of Brian by Monty. That's not a good reference.
Show that's not actually a viable reference, not an accurate reference,
(11:14):
I think. Okay, okay, back to the story. Yeah, my
my final thing that I need to point out before
we get into the story is the name of our legion.
We're talking about the Ninth Legion, but there's there's a
few of them. Okay, here's here's what we have. This legion,
as I had said, it is called the Ninth Hispania.
(11:39):
Well that's in a reference to Spain. That's what Romans
called Spain at the time, was Hispania. But the thing
is What gets confusing is yet, Yeah, they use that
as a training ground, which meant that every legion that
came out of modern day Spain was a number his
Spania and actually it was it was Hispania was actually
(12:03):
the Iberian Peninsula, so Spain and Portugal. Yeah, that's that's
good point. I'm generalizing. This is something by the way,
sorry to interrupt, but did they raise these legions in
in the Iberian Peninsula? So were these Spaniards that that
were in that populated this legion. I do not believe. So,
I do not believe that all of the soldiers that
(12:24):
were in the legion came from the region that they're
named for. There's there's a couple of things that we'll
get into about guys who were Roman citizens joining legions
and why they would do so and being in these
different legions. But I think it was it was it
was a training ground and it was also a place
(12:48):
to find talent at Yeah. I mean, the thing about
the Roman Empire is that the Roman Empire colonized everywhere
that it was. It was freaking here. So locals is
kind of a loose term at some point in the
way that you know, you say, there's um, well, or
like you know, in South Africa, people who were originally
(13:10):
British citizens whose family have lived there for a while,
our locals. But they're not you know, they're not they're
not like they're not indigenous. Yeah, I guess is the
word that I'm looking for. So, you know, it's it's
kind of a hard question to answer. You had to
be a Roman citizen to be in the legion. You
(13:31):
had to be a Roman citizen to be in the legion.
It was a way to become a citizen. It was
a way to become a citil. But you had to
be a Roman citizen to be in the legion. But
how if it was a way to become a citizen,
that's kind of kind of sign up and you would
become eventually a citizen. Yeah, got it? Okay, Yeah, it's
it's not be getting into the legion didn't require citizenship.
(13:56):
Being in the legion required it. Not getting into it.
That makes sense. So you a citizen immediately upon joining
that that was always my understanding. That was not my
understanding is that it was a stepping stone to citizenship.
You had to prove your service to the Empire. And okay,
and here's something to point out. Becoming a citizen in
(14:19):
Rome is a hard thing to pin down because in
the thousand year actual Roman Empire rule, it changed constantly
what a citizen was and how to become a citizen.
So these things that is abb and flow. It's flexed
(14:40):
around a lot between the Republic and the Empire. We're
talking about thousand years and it's it's hard. It's hard
to imagine that the definition is staying the same year time. Yeah. No,
but so we could both be right. No, I think
we're actually I think we are both right to think
at the beginning it was one, in the end it
was the other. But I do Yeah, it's okay, we're
way off track. Where does Russell Russell Crowe falls in
(15:05):
about two minutes after the episode ends. Okay, What I
was getting at though, when I was talking about the
ninth Hispania is that the Hispania part of the name
dictates where they come from. The ninth obviously is legion number.
Numbering the legions is a very common practice. We see
(15:27):
it in military practices now where they'll name the number battalions.
You know, your battalion one to three, blah blah blah blah. Blah,
and then there's some naming convention after that to say
that you're from a certain area. This is very common.
What makes it all confusing is two bits of information. One,
(15:49):
how the ninth was written, because it's all by the way,
if you haven't figured this out, because it's Romans. All
in Romaneum roles, it is either I X, which would
be nine, or V I I I I, which is nine,
which is obviously a less easy way to say. It's
a very long way of saying it still works. But
(16:16):
what's also confusing is that legions operated on There was
numbers of legions, and they had different naming conventions based
on where they were from or who founded the legions.
So you could have the ninth legion, which would be
the ninth his Spania, or you could have another legion
(16:40):
which was the ninth Augusta, the ninth legion founded by Augusta.
So there Augustus, thank you. So there were there could be,
based on my research of that specific time, somewhere between
five six legions with the same name or different names,
(17:04):
but the same number. So the ninth, So there were
other Nights, the Talent, or there were other ninth legions
that didn't get lost, right, correct, So we could say
that there are ninth legion A, BC, D, E, and F.
That's a way to look at it. But we're only
talking about one of that uh that numeral set that
(17:26):
I just ran off, So that makes it even more confusing.
And when we get into the things that are dug up,
the things that obviously have been excavated about them, that's
that's going to be an important thing to remember. Yeah,
Unfortunately it's a little bit fragmentary and stuff that's been
dug up about them. Yeah, fragmentary. That was not a pun, right,
(17:47):
because these things are broken up. Yeah? Okay, Uh well, okay, no,
what we I think we've got enough jas I think
any other details you guys, okay, thank goodness. Do you
know anything about their history and when we when it began?
I do not. Actually, we don't know. We don't know
(18:08):
exactly when the ninth Hispania was created, the seventh and
tenth of what really Joe ever the death of what? Uh? No,
we do have We've got some dates that we can
nail down which help us figure out how old it is.
(18:29):
We know that they were they participated in the Social War,
which was a war between Rome and its allies in Italy,
which was in ninety b C. We also know that
around sixty BC they were involved in battles that were
overseen by Pompey Volcano. The Many. Yeah, of course it
(18:55):
was totally the volcano was in charge, worst general ever
and it took over Um. And then we also know
that they were they served with Julius Caesar when he
was bad invaded Gaul, which would have been in fifty
(19:16):
eight BC. So we've got some France France, Yes, that
is correct. So we've got some before that year zero
time frame that I keep referencing, so we know that
there at least a hundred years old before that happens.
I've got to guess they're older than that, but it's
really it's hard to pin down. Scholars have figured out
(19:38):
that the Ninth Hispania was in Pannonia, which is modern
day Sitia, which is in Croatia. So they were in
Croatia between the year nine to the year forty three.
So if they were there that long, they were probably
kind of like doing garrison duty. I assume I would.
(19:59):
I would guess that, And I've got to think that
if they were in that same spot for thirty plus years.
That is a that's a serious way point, you know,
of cycling soldiers through. I can't imagine that it's so
much a Spanish group anymore. If we're going to talk
about that, well, maybe they requisitioned all their men from
(20:23):
where it originally started from, unless they're feeding them in,
unless it's a trained ship, trained ship, I don't know. Yeah,
you know, it's like it's it's probably they would just
get him from anywhere. And there's no particular reason that
the original the original name is still there. But it's
kind of like it's kind of like George Washington's acts,
you know, yeah, you know, um, so probably there were
(20:45):
not that many systems, you know, Iberians in there anymore.
It's true. But but after after about the year forty three,
it is believed that this legion was transferred. They went
some where. We don't know where, we don't know why,
and we really don't know what happened after that point.
(21:07):
So from there is when we start stepping into our
theories about this specific Roman legion. There are some there's
a number of theories and let me look through here, uh,
not seeing any cabros, not seeing any aliens. That's because
it predates both upbras and aliens. Joseph doesn't actually predate aliens,
(21:30):
but that's a different story. It predates Roman aliens space. Honestly,
aliens have been visiting us for like a million years. Okay,
now that we're done with that, I'm gonna give everybody
a heads up that what we're doing with our theories
is we're taking them in chronological order. I'm going to
go from oldest to newest. And that's the oldest in
(21:52):
terms of when and what happened, or in terms of
when somebody came up with the theory, oldest in terms
of date that occur. So, for example, our first theory
is centered in England between the years of one oh
eight and one nineteen because it does appear that they
(22:12):
were in England for a little while. It does, And
that's that's exactly right. Because in eighteen fifty four York, England,
these poor slubs is a bunch of workers, I think,
I don't remember what they were digging, but they dug
up a stone slab turned out to be a meter
square or not square, was a meter rectangle. I don't
(22:33):
think it was a meter thick yeah, but they they
dug up a slab that turned out to be inscribed
within the Roman language. I guess the Roman language would
be Latin. You're right, Steve doesn't know what languages watched.
Everything is Roman. To me, I really don't know what
(22:56):
I'm doing. You wouldn't think I've been reading about this
for weeks on end. Okay, Well that specific stone, now
that we're ignoring my stupidity. Uh. It talks about the
emperor Trajan. Trajan was a emperor and he was in
that time frame he ruled God. Let's say Trajan was
(23:17):
from he was eight to one seventeen year ninety eight
to one seventeen, so we had almost twenty year rule,
which was long for a Roman empire. It really was
because emperor's got assassinated. Yeah, they were. They were prime targets.
A lot of poisoning going on. But it talks about
(23:38):
the fact that they were in They were in Britannia.
I believe is is it Britannia or Britannia Britannia. I'm
gonna say Britannia, Britain. They were in Britain. They were
in Britain. And the key point is is that we
know it's Trajan, which means we know that the time
frame is in his is the act. And they had
(24:02):
a date on the slab. They had a date on
the slab and they yeah, exactly, they do mention themselves.
And it wasn't the nicest time. Well, to be honest,
for the Romans, it was never a nice time to
be in Britain. They paid hell the entire time that
they were in Britain. That's one of the reasons that
(24:22):
that Hadrian's Wall was built, and were not particularly grateful
for all the cool stuff that Romans did for they
really didn't like them. Uh yeah, not a good thing, well,
the Brits and uh, eventually the Picks because when we
get into the Ireland, that's where the Picks were at,
and they hated him even more. And it's was a
(24:45):
lot of people died, lots and lots of people died
because of this invasion. And you know what the stupid
thing is, I've read a lot of accounts. It made
sense why the Romans conquered where they conquered around the Mediterranean.
Do you know why they appear to have invaded Britain. No,
they like the food, nobody really does it just seems
(25:07):
to have been kind of a political I'm going to
expand the empire move because Caesar was one of the
ones who did it, Julius Caesar. Well, they you know,
that's that's the more territory and people you rule over,
and the more you can collect in taxes. And that's
a great point. Typically the empires back in those days,
like the Ottomans very good example, they didn't actually exercise
(25:29):
that much, nearly as much control as like the Romans did.
They usually just like set up set up a government
or whatever, and then just collected taxes and then the
people out of the provinces could really kind of semi
govern themselves, and but as long as they send in
their tribute and it was all fine. Yeah, it's a
great point. So we've we've got that stone slab. We
(25:49):
also have another bit of evidence that says there shows
that the Ninth Hispania was in Britain at this time.
It does appear that they were were actually well, we
do have one good piece of evidence that shows that
the Ninth Hispania was in that area in that time
(26:10):
frame the one oh eight forward, the year one o
eight forward, and that is a guy who would eventually
become a Roman senator. Um and Devin, you are better
with this than and when it comes to Latin Roman Italian. Yeah,
Joe and I were talking about this. I think it
is Lucia Lucius Barbulus Legionarius. Okay, so what's his first name?
(26:38):
Lucius Lucius. Okay, We're gonna stick with Lucius because that's
easier to say. He is believed to as a young man,
have served with the ninth Hispania as of the year
one fifty. There was a practice among young men who
(27:00):
wanted to move up the political ladder to serve with
the legion because that got you kind of some street credit.
It got you, you know, you you put your time
and you proved your service to the empire. That would
then allow you to move forward. And and there's some
problems with this because some men would serve with more
than one legion. But what he did specifically is he
(27:26):
was part of the military tribune, which is it tribune
or tribune? Tribune, tribune? Thank you? What this did? You
can almost think about this in the United States. We've
got the House in the Senate and they're theoretically supposed
to balance each other. This was this military tribune was
(27:46):
supposed to help balance the Senate. Yeah, you know, Rome
was a pretty militarized society, so it makes sense that
there would be a military component to their civilian senate. Okay,
well the thing is, of course then he uh, he serves.
(28:06):
But like I said, there are times where a guy
would serve with a couple of the different numbered legions,
So it's possible this is gonna get messy when I
explained it, so I apologize. He could have served with
the ninth Hispania, he could have served with the ninth
something else, or he could have served with another numbered
(28:31):
his Spania. So we've got three possible combinations going on here,
which makes it really tough. I I don't know, I
don't know which it is, but but I did. I
want to I want to explain something, or I want
to I want to share with something that I came
across that I found amazingly interesting. And I'm really kind
(28:53):
of peeved at my history teachers for not explaining to
me about Rome. We all know that Rome was the
big deal. They were the hot shots. It was an
amazingly impressive bunch of guys, and when you think about it,
and you take a look at a map of Rome. Say,
(29:15):
in the year one hundred they owned the Mediterranean, and
I mean literally owned the Mediterranean north to south. They
went from Egypt to England and west to east. They
went from Spain to Iraq, all of North Africa. They
(29:36):
held it all, and they did it in an insanely
short amount of time. The Romans, roughly this is a
rough date. They started expanding from Italy around fifty b C.
As of about the year one hundred, they owned pretty
much all of it. That's an amazing rate of progress,
(29:57):
especially when you figure ships and horseback that's how you
get around other than your own two feet. I just
looked up the interesting fact it was fifty four countries
that they owned at the height of their's Here's the
great thing that I found, and I love the article
(30:17):
that I found that pointed this out because this is
what I never understood. How they made it so rapidly
through places. Rome was conquering other city states or civilizations.
They weren't settling or taking over small areas. They were
taking over nations. So let's take Macedonia for example. Okay,
(30:44):
Macedonia had a pretty big, you know, footprint. They went
in they conquered the Macedonians. Well, they conquered the central
power structure of Macedonia. Therefore they owned all of the air.
Is that it owned. Those people are as civilized people.
They're used to dealing with the laws of a governance.
(31:07):
They're used to paying taxes, they have to follow rules
like they're used to. How it works. This all is
kind of, you know, status quo for them. They may
not like the Romans, but that's not the point. The
Romans once they won, they took it all. Well, now
let's contrast that too. When they expanded past that point
(31:32):
to say Britain or Ireland or Germany. We first tribes,
exact warlike tribes who were loosely connected but not centrally organized.
So the Romans run in and they think, well, we're
going to take over the central government, We're going to
own it all. But none of those tribes rule the others.
(31:54):
And by the way, none of them, none of them
like the Romans. So they all fight back, they all revolt.
It's constant guerrilla warfare. The poor, the legionnaires, the legions,
they're used to one style of fighting, which is your
army is over there, my army is over here, and
we say one, two, three, and we run at each other,
(32:18):
and whoever standing at the end winds. But gorilla warfare
doesn't work like that. That's sneakier in that much sneakier.
But having gotten used to that way, I mean, the
Romans got a little, a little comfortable. I'm not saying
that the wars that they fought reasy, but they got
used to this is how it works. We go into
(32:38):
the big city, we conquered the city, and for the
most part, things are easy at them. It was a
bit of rule of war, right. It was kind of like, well,
these are the rules of the war, so we're gonna
play by it. And well, you know, fair, you're not
playing by the rules. Hey, oh, I guess there isn't
a referee. Never mind. For the Romans, the rule of
war was that in the spring you got ready and
(33:00):
you marched out for war. In the summer, you fought.
In the fall, you finished the battle, and then you
went home because you rested in the winter, because nobody
fought in the winter. That just is how it happened.
For all these other tribes or these other these rougher
than the savages or the barbarians the Romans called them.
(33:23):
That didn't apply. They didn't care. It was December and
they would launch raids and they would attack, and so
the Romans were really scrambling the whole time. They they
got themselves nothing but pain for those later expansions that
went into those areas. Yeah, and uh, you know, I
(33:44):
mean kind of a waste of their time. They lost
a lot of men and what they left behind some
cool artifacts, huge casualties, but they did they did build
some kind of decent or decent would be the aqueducts
and the roads that you're referring to, or just anything
in general that they built up. The stone, the walled
cities that they build, Adrian's walls, the baths at Bath
and into those it was pretty cool. You can't bathe
(34:07):
in those though, you can't really know, they won't let
you there, an historical kind of thing. Didn't quite Yeah,
I didn't get that, fine, Yeah, okay, well let's yeah.
So anyway, so because they were stationed in England, I know,
this is one of the theories is and they were
confronted with these these you know, savages Britain, the Brits
(34:30):
to be you know, yeah, the Britain's the Britain's destroyed them.
Is this theory is that they were there, they were
destroyed and they just never got reconstituted. Correct. Yeah, So anyway,
that's a popular theory. It was popularized some woman whose
name escapes me right now. I wrote a book novel
like back in the fifties about is that the one
that was turned into that movie The Eagle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes.
(34:51):
Then it's uh, it's a very popular theory in Britain.
And I don't know that it's true, you know. I
I put that in. I put the movie The Eagle
in my queue and I'm is gonna watch it? And
then I noticed that it was rated at at two stars,
which really kind of told me something about how a
good the movie was and possibly how good the story was.
(35:11):
And so I never went through. I can understand why
it would be popular. And uh, well, yeah in the
UK is the we triumphed over the giant Roman Empire.
We beat them back. I get them totally. The reason
kind the reason that Braveheart is so popular in Scotland.
(35:31):
It's true. It's definitely not Mel Gibson. It's moved to
our next theory. Yeah, we're now going to move to
the year one seventeen to one thirty. This is a
bit of an extension the previous theory. We've talked about
Hadrian or Hadrian before. I still can't figure out which
(35:52):
way I'm going to say it. I go both ways.
But Hadrian, that guy through the Roman armies or agents
at the Brits, and he killed a lot of men
because he just continually just threw him into the grinder. Well,
it's known that he was constantly having this battle. Obviously,
(36:13):
we talked about the wall he had, which was a
fortification that he had constructed. It's then plausible that maybe
the Ninth was there, and there's actually some historical record
that may support that the Ninth was there during his reign,
that specifically being some tiles and plates that were found.
(36:35):
There was a tile that was found, a roofing tile
that was found, a ceramic tile found in the Netherlands,
and then followed by that there was a roofing tile
and then a plate found in Northern England. The tile
from Northern England has a stamp in the back of it,
(36:57):
and by the way, that was found in n and
that stamp in that ceramic says al E g V
I I I I H. And that's it. Then we've
got the plate from which is also ceramic, that has
a stamp and it found thank you. That's good clarification.
(37:21):
And that's the one that was found in Britain or
in the North Britain. We're ignoring the Netherlands for the moment.
We're only talking about Britain. The one, the plate that
was found in Britain has a very similar stamp. It's
has l E g v I I I I H
I sp both of which are interpreted to mean Leggio
(37:44):
ninth Hispania, the ninth legion of Spain. The one that
the roofing tile that was found in the Netherlands, though,
is not so conclusive. And the reason is is that
the end of it is broken. The end of it
where the you know, we've got up through the numerals
and then we should get into the characters, the letter characters.
(38:06):
That's where it's broken. And the first character that can
be read, that first line of it is actually at
an angle. So if we think about this, an H
is straight up. The first line of the letter H
would be a vertical line. Yeah, this one is at
an angle diagonal, Yes, which suggests that would be an A,
(38:32):
which would mean it was the ninth AUGUSTA, a different legion. Yeah.
And actually, to explain to our listeners, one of the
theories that was out there is that they were they
didn't disappear from England. They were they were just transferred
out and sent somewhere else by the Netherlands and so
yes and yeah, And the discovery of this stuff like
gave gave rise to this theory. But it appears that
(38:54):
they probably didn't get relocated to the Netherlands. Well no,
I see. The problem is is that we don't know
a if it was the entire legion that went there,
or if it was just a company or a part
of the legion that got transferred there. That's the problem is. Okay,
the legions would do this, They would send detachments to
(39:16):
support another legion. So Legion A is getting its butt
kicked and it's lost a bunch of men. So we say, hey,
the the Emperor says we have to send you a
thousand men. We send you a thousand men. Those thousand
men still consider themselves part of the ninth Legion, yea,
even though there with the seventh Legion. So that is
(39:38):
where he gets weird, because they would still leave record
of their group, regardless of the whole that they were
officially according the empire. So it's not clear if the
legion itself was maybe stationed at, say the Netherlands, and
that they just sent five thousand men over to help
in Britain, or a thousand men because the legion is
(40:01):
five thousand Sorry, I meant um, or you know, if
the actual legion was in Britain and they sent a
contingent to the Netherlands. Correct, yeah, we or or you
know I mean or they all went both places. Yes,
it could have been that they can been divided up
(40:22):
into several areas. Because here's the thing. Yes, Rome took
over and for the most part, in general things were good,
but they use the legions as their police force because
not everybody was happy with Roman rule. Of course, it
never is you come in and you take over the
(40:44):
people and they welcome you and everybody loves you. That
just doesn't happen. So what would happen is and they
would send small detachments. That is because later emperors learned
from the mistakes of their emperors, where there would be
a battle or an uprising in one area. They would
(41:07):
take a legion from another place and they would move
it there to support what was going on. But the
place that they had just now left unguarded would rise
up or somebody would try to invade because they didn't
have that supporting policing force anymore. So the smart thing is,
don't move all of it. All your eggs in one basket.
(41:29):
You shift bits and pieces round. Yeah, yeah, but still,
and so they might have sent some forces over to
the nither ones there there maybe somebody like somebody from
the ninth and rejoined joined some other legion and just
took some souvenirs along with them. Could have been as
as simple as that a roofing tile is in A
plate is a weird okay, A plate I get. A
(41:50):
roofing tile is a weird souvenir because usually you make it,
you stamp it, and you use it. Tearing it then
off of the roof and taking it with you would
to me be the equivalent of taking the light switch
plate off of my apartment and taking it to my
new apartment. That you've never done that, I don't know.
(42:14):
For me, it's more of a Hey, my house got destroyed,
and now I got transferred. I'm going to take a
piece of my house and make it a part of
my new house. I mean that it's possible. It's not
as though things weren't getting destroyed. It's absolutely possible. I'm
not going to discount any of that. I just yeah,
but again, the only one you have, the only the
only real evidence that they got transferred to the Netherlands
(42:35):
is basically a thing that could have been a different
Ninth Legion anyway, right, Yeah, and that's about it. Yeah,
we don't know. Yeah, but let's let's move to the
third theory, which is that the Ninth Legion, which is
this is a little bit again these kind of fall
in line was absorbed and or relocated. And this says
(42:57):
that they were moved, moved to a stronger legion and
then absorbed by it. And the specific instance that we
can point to is the fact that in Caledonia, which
is modern day Scotland, the Ninth Legion was almost completely
(43:19):
wiped out. This would have been the year eighty two
to eight three. By the way, they absolutely got their
butts kicked. It was another group that came in that
barely saved him, and there wasn't a whole lot left.
There's also evidence that the sixth Legion, and I don't
know which sixth legion, I couldn't see it called out,
(43:43):
was also transferred to northern England, and it also then disappeared.
So it's been debated whether those two were combined into
a new number legion. So the sixth and the ninth
were then com me angled into not probably not the fifteen.
(44:03):
Probably not math unfortunately it's not basic math, but we'll
go with that they were co mingled into a completely
different number and then subsequently they were destroyed. Is kind
of triangle, the perm triangle the Roman legions. The the
only thing that I will say when we talk about
(44:26):
we talked about the transfer thing. The only thing I
can think of that might substantiate that is if there's
an officer from the ninth Hispania they get wiped out
or transferred absorbed, he's still loyal to his group. Then
they're making these tiles or plates and he goes ahead
and says, you know what, I'm gonna stamp it in
(44:46):
their name in remembrance of my fallen brothers. That's the
only instance where if this is right, This would make
sense the evidence that we picked up. Um. Then the
next two theories are really all about destruction, and it
is absolutely the destruction of the Ninth Hispania. They're all
(45:09):
kind of about destruction, aren't they. These ones more so
than others, because the other ones could be they just
they kind of maybe got disbanded or petered out. I
don't know. These ones are all pure kill, straight up kill.
Second last theory here is that in the year one
thirty two, there was a uprising in what is now
(45:31):
known as in modern day times it is Israel Palestines. Yeah,
it's it's kind of gray areum, Okay, So that little
country at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean right there.
This uprising was known as the Bar Kochba revolt, and
that was the revolt where the Jewish people of the
(45:53):
area they totally rose up against Romans with absolutely justifiable
reasons because there was huge religious persecution going on, and
they they inflicted huge damage on the Romans. But but
this theory says that the Ninth was sent to that
(46:13):
area to reinforce the legions that were already stationed there,
but they were defeated through heavy casualties. The entire legion
was killed by the local forces, and the men that
remained of the Ninth were then disbanded. There wasn't enough
of them to even matter, so they just, you know,
(46:36):
go home. What sort of evidence for this one, Well,
there's evidence that, I mean, the uprising happened, and they
it's it's called the Second Jewish Uprising. There was one
prior and this one is where they really they they
boxed them about the years. They really kind of did
(46:58):
them in. But and there's a lot of deaths on
the Roman side. Yeah, but did they find any actual
evidence that the Ninth Legion was actually there? Did they
find any remnants of tiles or plates or anything else. See,
this is the reason I don't believe this one is
because they owned the whole Mediterranean. They had lots of
forces much closer to Palestine than England. You know, specifically
(47:21):
which one that would be. I'm gonna butcher this unless
you can help me out with a devon. I'm gonna
say it's the Dio Tariana. That's close enough, sweet, because
I have to say it one more time later on
Tario Tariana Tariana. The twenty second mort Or Division was
(47:44):
based in Egypt, and it was documented in the Roman
records as being in the area at that time. Here's
the key point. The twenty second legion, who we're talking about,
they disappear from the record books, just like the ninth,
(48:06):
so we don't know whether it was the ninth or
the twenty second or both. And I have to say
that if it was both of them, that is one
of the largest Roman defeats in history. Two legions decimated
is unheard of, and there's only one other defeat that
(48:29):
was worse. So you think that would be better recorded
and well known, unless they were trying to, you know,
hide the casualties, you know, trying to play it cool
and say no we did I mean, yeah, we got defeated,
but it wasn't that bad. Let's just hey, hey, you
wrote out all that on that stone, right, throw that
over the hill. What is it going to break those
(48:50):
Just break that? Actually, it actually is, you know, especially
back in these days when you have like long lines
of communication and things like that and resupply if you're
if you're the empire, it's a really good idea to
maintain this facade of invincibility. So you definitely wanted to
suppress any bad news like that. There's a lot of
(49:10):
information suppression in the Roman Empire. I've seen things about
how the emperors didn't know what was going on, the
soldiers didn't know what was going on, but there were
certain political elite who had the fleet footed messengers that
knew and controlled all that. And it's a lot like
what in the Cold War, where there was people who
(49:32):
didn't have a clue and the people who thought they
had a clue, and then there was that guy in
the middle that had all the messengers running around, and
there was a lot of things that came out in
the wash later on. And that's what we get now
is we're able to find a bunch of that correspondence.
Our final theory of what happened to the Ninth Hispania
(49:52):
is that it was destroyed in the Parthian War between
year one sixty one to one sixties six. Are good
friend Marcus Aurelius, he uh, he didn't believe or didn't
agree with the Parthians. Actually, to be quite honest, the
Parthians of the Romans had been arguing for a good
fifty or eighty years and had had a number of wars,
(50:17):
but Aurelius had committed to the Parthian War in one
sixty one, and this is in what is for a
geographic references is Iran today. That's where it happened. Yeah,
the Persian Empire, that's yeah, exactly. The Parthian army, it
is said, surrounded, surprised, and then surrounded a Roman legion
(50:44):
and annihilated it. That legion, we don't know what it was.
Nobody can find reference specifically to what legion it was. There.
There's there's legions that we know that we're in the area.
There is the twelve Fulmonata and the fifteen Apollinaris. Those
(51:09):
were both in the area. But there are also records
of those legions as of the year two hundred, so
we know they can't be the ones that were destroyed
between one and one sixty six. Well that's actually do
we know that for sure, because there's no reason that
they couldn't have re raised, They could have repo they
(51:31):
could have basically restarted the whole thing. I mean, I
don't know. Maybe the Romans had maybe they had some
sort of the custom. It was kind of like retiring
your shirt from the NBA or something like that, where
if you were totally wiped out, they would just retire
your number and your name. That's the impression that I've
gotten from the stuff that I've read, is that if, if,
and when a legion was annihilated, they didn't reuse it.
(51:53):
It was almost an unlucky number. So the third Apollinaris
was destroyed, we don't restart the third. We go ahead
and say, well, there's twelve, so we'll make That's the
impression that I've got, and I could be completely wrong.
But back to the theory. The theory is, and by
(52:17):
the way, this this theory is really soundly based in
if you remember in the beginning I talked about the
two dates of records. One was the year one twenty
and one was the year one five. This is set
on that this one is the only one that hinges
on that one record date. And it says that, of
(52:38):
course that the the ninth Espana was the lost legion
in the Ptarthian War, and that they were moved into
that area and that then subsequently destroyed. But people who
were disagreeing with that, they also those folks which one
of you could say this again because I can't, is
that the twenty second diot in area, which I know
(53:02):
I just said wrong. I think it's yeah, that one, Uh,
that's fine, But that legion was the one that was
destroyed by the Parthians. Well, the problem is which one
was actually destroyed in which battle? Because we just said
(53:22):
that people are saying that they were destroyed in the
bar Kochba revolt, and now this is saying they were
the ones that were destroyed in the Parthian War. So
what either means that there's a chance that the ninth
Hispania was destroyed in one or the other. But it's
it's extremely unclear, and I gotta be honest with you, guys.
(53:45):
I love this story. I love historical mysteries because there's
so much stuff to die through and there's so many
interesting facts that I come across that I can't go into.
I mean, it's it's a treasure Trump. But the point
is is that it's it's a group of thousands of
men over decades. I don't know which one to pin down.
(54:08):
I I can't pick a favorite because I mean, we
just we just talked about sixty years a group that
was five thousand men a year over that time. For him,
that's a lot of people. I personally, I've never been
able to settle ones. I don't know about the pair
of you. If I tend to think that they probably
(54:29):
were cut chopped up pretty bad in England and probably
were absorbed by different units, different legions. And then because
I don't see any evidence for them appearing in all
these miscellaneous different places, Oh well, I know what happened
to them. They were conscripted to assist to the doctor
in the battle for the And which one of them was,
(54:55):
you know, the one that's the centurion the star, Yes,
oh wow. No, I don't know. I think they probably.
I think they probably were just they were just destroyed
by one of the many. I don't have a favorite
way they were destroyed. They were the only thing I
don't think that they were destroying the early time frame
(55:15):
I talked about. I get the feeling that that Hadrian
is probably the responsible party. But that guy, again, I
couldn't find death tolts, but he he threw them like
buckets of water at the Britain. And I would suspect
they're not exactly like re stalking their ranks during this time,
you know, if they're kind of just being thrown into
(55:37):
battle it's not like there's going to be five thousand.
They're going to be dwindling and even five thousand continually. Yeah,
it's probably people to that they'll just send news out. Yeah,
but it might well be that if they had some
bad luck and they got chopped up a couple of
times really bad, then the word gets out, like the
(55:57):
Caledonia War yea, yeah, where they got they almost completely
we annihilated. Yeah, yeah, and and and word gets out
and and the brass might decide, hey, you know, it's
these guys have got a reputation for bad luck or
incompetent fighting. They're always getting like massacred. So it's not
going to be easy to recruit somebody to this legion.
(56:18):
So we're just gonna phase it out whoever is less
and you know, left while they retired or moved to
in many military organizations, so it could have been you know,
that's a great idea, is that it's just phased out.
They went. This group always dies, they're not going to stop.
Guys are just bad news bears, man, They're just bad luck. Yeah,
(56:38):
and so we're just gonna just phase them out. And yeah,
so that's kind of what I think happens awesome. All right, Well,
that is all we have on the Nite Hispania. If
you are a ghost of one of those soldiers, please
email us. Have you ever met it? No? No, I'm
not even gonna go. Okay, Well, for everybody who is
(56:59):
corporeal and you want to know what we have, we
have links on our website and we have this and
all other episodes available to stream on our website. Website,
of course, is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. I did
get a great email or comment the other day on Facebook.
We always kind of joke that nobody listens on the
(57:21):
the website. Turns out a bunch of people do, so, hey,
listen to us on our website. Use up that bandwidth. Um.
We are on Facebook. We have the group and the
Facebook page which is continually busy and fantastic fun. We
are on Twitter. It is Thinking Sideways without the G
(57:44):
in the middle. You can, of course get a hold
of us on our email account. You've got questions or
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Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. By the way,
I apologize to all the people who I am spin
a bit late to reply to because they was getting
(58:04):
a little insane a lot of emails, folks. That doesn't
mean we're trying to discourage you. Please, we'd like here, No, no,
I don't want I just want everybody to yeah, exactly,
please be patient I And I'm telling people in story.
We are also letting everybody know that we are on Patreon.
That is spelled p A t R e o n
(58:28):
dot com slash thinking sideways. If you want to support show,
that's a way to do it. Go to that address.
We've put up videos and all that kind of stuff.
Everything explain the whole whole nine yards to you. That
having been said, we are at the end of this
particular episode. We're going to go ahead and get out
of here because this studio is disgustingly hot, and um,
(58:52):
I really just want to go take a shower, me
cold shower. All right, Well, this is Devin saying bye
bye for this week away, and this is Joe saying
tata
Thinking Sideways. I don't stories of things we simply don't
know the answer too well. Hey there, and welcome to
the podcast Thinking Sideways. The podcast I of course am Steve,
(00:26):
as always, joined by Gel and once again we have
another mystery for you. It's a very ancient mystery. We're
actually going to talk about a historical mystery this week,
which is a little abnormal for us. We are going
to talk about what happened to the ninth Roman Legion.
(00:48):
You might see it called the Spanish ninth Legion or
the Legion ninth Hispania goes by a bunch of names,
depending on which interpretation. But before we get in to
the story, I do want to say thank you to
Jason on Facebook because he suggested this to us. No.
(01:08):
I was really again, as always, love the listeners suggestions too,
freaking greatest thing ever. There's gonna be some explanations of
several things in a minute, but let me give you
an overview of what we're going to talk about. Somewhere
shortly after year zero, that's the transition between BC two
A D or C E and B C E B C.
(01:33):
I'm I'm gonna use B C and A D today,
but somewhere after that transition, the ninth Roman legion disappeared
from the records that were kept by the Romans. They
really did, and I've seen it. I've seen it in
two different ledgers. Essentially, I've seen it that they disappeared
(01:54):
after the records from one twenty and I've seen that
they did disappeared after the records that were kept in
the time of Marcus Aurelius in year one sive. So
that that means and that they appeared in the records
uh that were made, and they also appeared in the
records that they were they were absent from either or both. No,
(02:20):
either they were absent from the records of one twenty
or they were absent from the records of one sixty five,
not both. One well, one presumes if they were absent
in one twenty, they would have also been absent in
chronologically the set of records in which they disappeared was
(02:41):
either either or it's it's I see it called out
as both. So that's what's the hard part. There's no
evidence of specifically what are concrete events, so specifically what
happened to this legion um, you know, did they get
destroyed in battle? Were they or by another legion? Did
(03:03):
they get phased out budget cuts? We just don't know
that it was for the Romans. Did they have any superstitions?
It's like we considered thirteen to be an end an
unlucky number. In my research of the Romans and stuff
like that, I never came across that. I know that
they had superstitions, but I never saw any of that
(03:26):
impacting numbering. I mean, I've looked at the thirteen legions
and and the twenty feet legion, like none of that
seemed to apply to them like we are used to
it today. Additionally, one presumes they would have just not
ever created to begin with. To begin with, that's because
the gods would not have liked that. So why even
offend the gods by starting that, right, just like we
(03:49):
just arbitrarily saying no, there's no thirteenth floor, it's the
fourteenth play. Yeah, that's the thing we do. We do,
we really do. Okay, explanation time, because they is where
we've got to get in some historical explanation. By the way, Yeah,
the Romans were around a long time. They were the
here's the dates. Well, well, actually, you know what, I'll
(04:10):
start off to week in the dates is that it
was a very deep, very complex history, and it's divided
into brackets. There's brackets of time that denote the empires
because there was there was the republican the Empire, and
then after that. So the Roman Republic is dated between
(04:35):
five O nine b C, and it fell because of
civil wars, internal conflicts. It fell in twenty seven BC.
From twenty seven BC forward, it was known as the
Roman Empire because of the Holy Roman Empire, because it
(04:56):
was ruled by an emperor, and the Roman Empire ran
from BC to four seventy six. And by the way, everybody,
I'm I'm not going to call out a D on
all these numbers. If it's a b C, I'm gonna
call it out. If I don't call it out, it's
an a D, because otherwise it's going to get really
(05:18):
annoying me constantly calling these a D. Because there's a
most of what we deal with is from year zero forward.
That means that time from when we went to b
C to a D. So just to keep it simple
and easier for everybody, but the Roman Empire went until
four seventies six, and I know that our history buff
(05:39):
fans are gonna say, well, well, Steve, that's not when
the Empire ended. I understand that the eastern portion of
the Empire became the Byzantine Empire, which ran into the
fifteenth century. I understand that. But the important thing is
we're going to focus on year zero to ballpark. Year two.
Hun tripped the empire, the empire. It's all in the empire. Uh.
(06:04):
The other thing that you're gonna need to understand is
what is a Roman legion. It's a bunch of guys, totally,
is a bunch of guys, no ladies involved, because ladies
did not serve in a legion as a soldier. It's
not like what we have today, where it's men and women.
It was that very antiquated model of men only in battle. Well,
(06:29):
you know, it made sense because I mean, you've got
to wear a heavy armor and carry a big old
heavy sword and shield and all that stuff. That's obviously
something guys are a lot better suited to our Yeah
at the time, yeah, with the technology that was available.
But here's what you're specifically, what a Roman legion is.
The Romans broke their army up into subunits, and each
(06:51):
subunit is what we refer to as a legion. Each
legion then was made up of five thousand men accompanied
by a cavalry unit. And I can never get a
sense of the size of the cavalry unit, but they
had a cavalry unit. Then. It probably just depends on
how many horses were available, I'm sure, but you know,
(07:13):
the terrain and all that stuff. Sorry, yeah, no, yeah,
where they are, it's going to have a huge impact.
Can you have horses? The legions, though, they were kind
of a one stop shop. Each legion was amazingly flexible.
They were the infantry. They well they had let's see,
they they would they would fight the battles. Obviously, they
(07:36):
were the guys who swung swords and shot bows and
arrows and work, right, they did policing work. But they
built fortifications, they had their own internal command structures. I
mean they really were. They were. They were a very small,
well rounded army. Here's here's an example of what a
(07:57):
legion could do. So this this is going to jump
ahead in time and we're going to come back to
this in a moment. But if anybody has heard of
I believe you pronounced Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian was an emperor
who he came into power at one seventeen, that's when
he came into power. He became the emperor, and one
of the things that he decided to do, because Rome
(08:21):
was in Britain, was he was going to stop the
Britons because they were beating the crap out of the Romans,
and he built the wall. He decided that they would
build a wall and coast to coast wall east to west,
or I'm going to describe it west east. Actually it
(08:42):
was built from Boundness on Solway to um Wait. We
always get in trouble for how do you pronounce this one?
The same area it's got to. The actual tent it
to the town is not actually at the town of
ten Myth, but if you're zoomed out a little bit
(09:04):
on the map, it's in that area and the wall
doesn't completely exist anymore. I need to I need people
to understand this was not in the beginning a stone wall.
This was an earthen wall, which meant they dug and
created an earthen barrier. It was a wall, a ditch
and a wall. Eventually they came back and they built
(09:26):
the stone wall on top of it. But they built
that original wall in six years, they got a lot
of territory. I'm assuming they I'm assuming they pressed a
lot of locals in the work. I don't know that
for sure, Joe. From what I understood, the legions did
the work. But you know, it could be that they said, hey,
(09:46):
I'm not digging this, and they could have hired locals,
or they could have like just force them to work.
I mean there's also that. Yeah. Yeah, the whole force
labor thing could completely be plausible. I don't know for
sure because I did the base six on the wall,
but I didn't actually get into the real specifics because
this is just kind of my general example of how
effective they were. Yeah, the Romans actually left a ton
(10:10):
of a ton of ruins behind in England. I mean
the ones that I've seen personally, or the wall at
Chester that have you been to the city of Chester. Yeah, yeah,
they built that was originally their their fort their fortifications,
and then the town of Chester grew up inside that
and then eventually outside it. But the wall is still there. Well,
we've talked about when we talked about Jack the Ripper,
(10:30):
I was talking about when I was on the Ripper
tour and walking inside of the remnants of the wall
that's in London, and that was one of the things
that I know the Legions would have built. And it's
a it's a six ft thick wall of stone. Yeah,
an the one that the one in Chester is is
wide enough to walk on. Yeah, it's yeah, it's amazing.
(10:51):
These things are insane, but this is this is what
these guys were. They were the jack of all trades
and by the way, they'd kill you too. They could
do it all a lot of the If you want
to learn more about the Romans and then the Roman Army,
see Life of Brian by Monty. That's not a good reference.
Show that's not actually a viable reference, not an accurate reference,
(11:14):
I think. Okay, okay, back to the story. Yeah, my
my final thing that I need to point out before
we get into the story is the name of our legion.
We're talking about the Ninth Legion, but there's there's a
few of them. Okay, here's here's what we have. This legion,
as I had said, it is called the Ninth Hispania.
(11:39):
Well that's in a reference to Spain. That's what Romans
called Spain at the time, was Hispania. But the thing
is What gets confusing is yet, Yeah, they use that
as a training ground, which meant that every legion that
came out of modern day Spain was a number his
Spania and actually it was it was Hispania was actually
(12:03):
the Iberian Peninsula, so Spain and Portugal. Yeah, that's that's
good point. I'm generalizing. This is something by the way,
sorry to interrupt, but did they raise these legions in
in the Iberian Peninsula? So were these Spaniards that that
were in that populated this legion. I do not believe. So,
I do not believe that all of the soldiers that
(12:24):
were in the legion came from the region that they're
named for. There's there's a couple of things that we'll
get into about guys who were Roman citizens joining legions
and why they would do so and being in these
different legions. But I think it was it was it
was a training ground and it was also a place
(12:48):
to find talent at Yeah. I mean, the thing about
the Roman Empire is that the Roman Empire colonized everywhere
that it was. It was freaking here. So locals is
kind of a loose term at some point in the
way that you know, you say, there's um, well, or
like you know, in South Africa, people who were originally
(13:10):
British citizens whose family have lived there for a while,
our locals. But they're not you know, they're not they're
not like they're not indigenous. Yeah, I guess is the
word that I'm looking for. So, you know, it's it's
kind of a hard question to answer. You had to
be a Roman citizen to be in the legion. You
(13:31):
had to be a Roman citizen to be in the legion.
It was a way to become a citizen. It was
a way to become a citil. But you had to
be a Roman citizen to be in the legion. But
how if it was a way to become a citizen,
that's kind of kind of sign up and you would
become eventually a citizen. Yeah, got it? Okay, Yeah, it's
it's not be getting into the legion didn't require citizenship.
(13:56):
Being in the legion required it. Not getting into it.
That makes sense. So you a citizen immediately upon joining
that that was always my understanding. That was not my
understanding is that it was a stepping stone to citizenship.
You had to prove your service to the Empire. And okay,
and here's something to point out. Becoming a citizen in
(14:19):
Rome is a hard thing to pin down because in
the thousand year actual Roman Empire rule, it changed constantly
what a citizen was and how to become a citizen.
So these things that is abb and flow. It's flexed
(14:40):
around a lot between the Republic and the Empire. We're
talking about thousand years and it's it's hard. It's hard
to imagine that the definition is staying the same year time. Yeah. No,
but so we could both be right. No, I think
we're actually I think we are both right to think
at the beginning it was one, in the end it
was the other. But I do Yeah, it's okay, we're
way off track. Where does Russell Russell Crowe falls in
(15:05):
about two minutes after the episode ends. Okay, What I
was getting at though, when I was talking about the
ninth Hispania is that the Hispania part of the name
dictates where they come from. The ninth obviously is legion number.
Numbering the legions is a very common practice. We see
(15:27):
it in military practices now where they'll name the number battalions.
You know, your battalion one to three, blah blah blah blah. Blah,
and then there's some naming convention after that to say
that you're from a certain area. This is very common.
What makes it all confusing is two bits of information. One,
(15:49):
how the ninth was written, because it's all by the way,
if you haven't figured this out, because it's Romans. All
in Romaneum roles, it is either I X, which would
be nine, or V I I I I, which is nine,
which is obviously a less easy way to say. It's
a very long way of saying it still works. But
(16:16):
what's also confusing is that legions operated on There was
numbers of legions, and they had different naming conventions based
on where they were from or who founded the legions.
So you could have the ninth legion, which would be
the ninth his Spania, or you could have another legion
(16:40):
which was the ninth Augusta, the ninth legion founded by Augusta.
So there Augustus, thank you. So there were there could be,
based on my research of that specific time, somewhere between
five six legions with the same name or different names,
(17:04):
but the same number. So the ninth, So there were
other Nights, the Talent, or there were other ninth legions
that didn't get lost, right, correct, So we could say
that there are ninth legion A, BC, D, E, and F.
That's a way to look at it. But we're only
talking about one of that uh that numeral set that
(17:26):
I just ran off, So that makes it even more confusing.
And when we get into the things that are dug up,
the things that obviously have been excavated about them, that's
that's going to be an important thing to remember. Yeah,
Unfortunately it's a little bit fragmentary and stuff that's been
dug up about them. Yeah, fragmentary. That was not a pun, right,
(17:47):
because these things are broken up. Yeah? Okay, Uh well, okay, no,
what we I think we've got enough jas I think
any other details you guys, okay, thank goodness. Do you
know anything about their history and when we when it began?
I do not. Actually, we don't know. We don't know
(18:08):
exactly when the ninth Hispania was created, the seventh and
tenth of what really Joe ever the death of what? Uh? No,
we do have We've got some dates that we can
nail down which help us figure out how old it is.
(18:29):
We know that they were they participated in the Social War,
which was a war between Rome and its allies in Italy,
which was in ninety b C. We also know that
around sixty BC they were involved in battles that were
overseen by Pompey Volcano. The Many. Yeah, of course it
(18:55):
was totally the volcano was in charge, worst general ever
and it took over Um. And then we also know
that they were they served with Julius Caesar when he
was bad invaded Gaul, which would have been in fifty
(19:16):
eight BC. So we've got some France France, Yes, that
is correct. So we've got some before that year zero
time frame that I keep referencing, so we know that
there at least a hundred years old before that happens.
I've got to guess they're older than that, but it's
really it's hard to pin down. Scholars have figured out
(19:38):
that the Ninth Hispania was in Pannonia, which is modern
day Sitia, which is in Croatia. So they were in
Croatia between the year nine to the year forty three.
So if they were there that long, they were probably
kind of like doing garrison duty. I assume I would.
(19:59):
I would guess that, And I've got to think that
if they were in that same spot for thirty plus years.
That is a that's a serious way point, you know,
of cycling soldiers through. I can't imagine that it's so
much a Spanish group anymore. If we're going to talk
about that, well, maybe they requisitioned all their men from
(20:23):
where it originally started from, unless they're feeding them in,
unless it's a trained ship, trained ship, I don't know. Yeah,
you know, it's like it's it's probably they would just
get him from anywhere. And there's no particular reason that
the original the original name is still there. But it's
kind of like it's kind of like George Washington's acts,
you know, yeah, you know, um, so probably there were
(20:45):
not that many systems, you know, Iberians in there anymore.
It's true. But but after after about the year forty three,
it is believed that this legion was transferred. They went
some where. We don't know where, we don't know why,
and we really don't know what happened after that point.
(21:07):
So from there is when we start stepping into our
theories about this specific Roman legion. There are some there's
a number of theories and let me look through here, uh,
not seeing any cabros, not seeing any aliens. That's because
it predates both upbras and aliens. Joseph doesn't actually predate aliens,
(21:30):
but that's a different story. It predates Roman aliens space. Honestly,
aliens have been visiting us for like a million years. Okay,
now that we're done with that, I'm gonna give everybody
a heads up that what we're doing with our theories
is we're taking them in chronological order. I'm going to
go from oldest to newest. And that's the oldest in
(21:52):
terms of when and what happened, or in terms of
when somebody came up with the theory, oldest in terms
of date that occur. So, for example, our first theory
is centered in England between the years of one oh
eight and one nineteen because it does appear that they
(22:12):
were in England for a little while. It does, And
that's that's exactly right. Because in eighteen fifty four York, England,
these poor slubs is a bunch of workers, I think,
I don't remember what they were digging, but they dug
up a stone slab turned out to be a meter
square or not square, was a meter rectangle. I don't
(22:33):
think it was a meter thick yeah, but they they
dug up a slab that turned out to be inscribed
within the Roman language. I guess the Roman language would
be Latin. You're right, Steve doesn't know what languages watched.
Everything is Roman. To me, I really don't know what
(22:56):
I'm doing. You wouldn't think I've been reading about this
for weeks on end. Okay, Well that specific stone, now
that we're ignoring my stupidity. Uh. It talks about the
emperor Trajan. Trajan was a emperor and he was in
that time frame he ruled God. Let's say Trajan was
(23:17):
from he was eight to one seventeen year ninety eight
to one seventeen, so we had almost twenty year rule,
which was long for a Roman empire. It really was
because emperor's got assassinated. Yeah, they were. They were prime targets.
A lot of poisoning going on. But it talks about
(23:38):
the fact that they were in They were in Britannia.
I believe is is it Britannia or Britannia Britannia. I'm
gonna say Britannia, Britain. They were in Britain. They were
in Britain. And the key point is is that we
know it's Trajan, which means we know that the time
frame is in his is the act. And they had
(24:02):
a date on the slab. They had a date on
the slab and they yeah, exactly, they do mention themselves.
And it wasn't the nicest time. Well, to be honest,
for the Romans, it was never a nice time to
be in Britain. They paid hell the entire time that
they were in Britain. That's one of the reasons that
(24:22):
that Hadrian's Wall was built, and were not particularly grateful
for all the cool stuff that Romans did for they
really didn't like them. Uh yeah, not a good thing, well,
the Brits and uh, eventually the Picks because when we
get into the Ireland, that's where the Picks were at,
and they hated him even more. And it's was a
(24:45):
lot of people died, lots and lots of people died
because of this invasion. And you know what the stupid
thing is, I've read a lot of accounts. It made
sense why the Romans conquered where they conquered around the Mediterranean.
Do you know why they appear to have invaded Britain. No,
they like the food, nobody really does it just seems
(25:07):
to have been kind of a political I'm going to
expand the empire move because Caesar was one of the
ones who did it, Julius Caesar. Well, they you know,
that's that's the more territory and people you rule over,
and the more you can collect in taxes. And that's
a great point. Typically the empires back in those days,
like the Ottomans very good example, they didn't actually exercise
(25:29):
that much, nearly as much control as like the Romans did.
They usually just like set up set up a government
or whatever, and then just collected taxes and then the
people out of the provinces could really kind of semi
govern themselves, and but as long as they send in
their tribute and it was all fine. Yeah, it's a
great point. So we've we've got that stone slab. We
(25:49):
also have another bit of evidence that says there shows
that the Ninth Hispania was in Britain at this time.
It does appear that they were were actually well, we
do have one good piece of evidence that shows that
the Ninth Hispania was in that area in that time
(26:10):
frame the one oh eight forward, the year one o
eight forward, and that is a guy who would eventually
become a Roman senator. Um and Devin, you are better
with this than and when it comes to Latin Roman Italian. Yeah,
Joe and I were talking about this. I think it
is Lucia Lucius Barbulus Legionarius. Okay, so what's his first name?
(26:38):
Lucius Lucius. Okay, We're gonna stick with Lucius because that's
easier to say. He is believed to as a young man,
have served with the ninth Hispania as of the year
one fifty. There was a practice among young men who
(27:00):
wanted to move up the political ladder to serve with
the legion because that got you kind of some street credit.
It got you, you know, you you put your time
and you proved your service to the empire. That would
then allow you to move forward. And and there's some
problems with this because some men would serve with more
than one legion. But what he did specifically is he
(27:26):
was part of the military tribune, which is it tribune
or tribune? Tribune, tribune? Thank you? What this did? You
can almost think about this in the United States. We've
got the House in the Senate and they're theoretically supposed
to balance each other. This was this military tribune was
(27:46):
supposed to help balance the Senate. Yeah, you know, Rome
was a pretty militarized society, so it makes sense that
there would be a military component to their civilian senate. Okay,
well the thing is, of course then he uh, he serves.
(28:06):
But like I said, there are times where a guy
would serve with a couple of the different numbered legions,
So it's possible this is gonna get messy when I
explained it, so I apologize. He could have served with
the ninth Hispania, he could have served with the ninth
something else, or he could have served with another numbered
(28:31):
his Spania. So we've got three possible combinations going on here,
which makes it really tough. I I don't know, I
don't know which it is, but but I did. I
want to I want to explain something, or I want
to I want to share with something that I came
across that I found amazingly interesting. And I'm really kind
(28:53):
of peeved at my history teachers for not explaining to
me about Rome. We all know that Rome was the
big deal. They were the hot shots. It was an
amazingly impressive bunch of guys, and when you think about it,
and you take a look at a map of Rome. Say,
(29:15):
in the year one hundred they owned the Mediterranean, and
I mean literally owned the Mediterranean north to south. They
went from Egypt to England and west to east. They
went from Spain to Iraq, all of North Africa. They
(29:36):
held it all, and they did it in an insanely
short amount of time. The Romans, roughly this is a
rough date. They started expanding from Italy around fifty b C.
As of about the year one hundred, they owned pretty
much all of it. That's an amazing rate of progress,
(29:57):
especially when you figure ships and horseback that's how you
get around other than your own two feet. I just
looked up the interesting fact it was fifty four countries
that they owned at the height of their's Here's the
great thing that I found, and I love the article
(30:17):
that I found that pointed this out because this is
what I never understood. How they made it so rapidly
through places. Rome was conquering other city states or civilizations.
They weren't settling or taking over small areas. They were
taking over nations. So let's take Macedonia for example. Okay,
(30:44):
Macedonia had a pretty big, you know, footprint. They went
in they conquered the Macedonians. Well, they conquered the central
power structure of Macedonia. Therefore they owned all of the air.
Is that it owned. Those people are as civilized people.
They're used to dealing with the laws of a governance.
(31:07):
They're used to paying taxes, they have to follow rules
like they're used to. How it works. This all is
kind of, you know, status quo for them. They may
not like the Romans, but that's not the point. The
Romans once they won, they took it all. Well, now
let's contrast that too. When they expanded past that point
(31:32):
to say Britain or Ireland or Germany. We first tribes,
exact warlike tribes who were loosely connected but not centrally organized.
So the Romans run in and they think, well, we're
going to take over the central government, We're going to
own it all. But none of those tribes rule the others.
(31:54):
And by the way, none of them, none of them
like the Romans. So they all fight back, they all revolt.
It's constant guerrilla warfare. The poor, the legionnaires, the legions,
they're used to one style of fighting, which is your
army is over there, my army is over here, and
we say one, two, three, and we run at each other,
(32:18):
and whoever standing at the end winds. But gorilla warfare
doesn't work like that. That's sneakier in that much sneakier.
But having gotten used to that way, I mean, the
Romans got a little, a little comfortable. I'm not saying
that the wars that they fought reasy, but they got
used to this is how it works. We go into
(32:38):
the big city, we conquered the city, and for the
most part, things are easy at them. It was a
bit of rule of war, right. It was kind of like, well,
these are the rules of the war, so we're gonna
play by it. And well, you know, fair, you're not
playing by the rules. Hey, oh, I guess there isn't
a referee. Never mind. For the Romans, the rule of
war was that in the spring you got ready and
(33:00):
you marched out for war. In the summer, you fought.
In the fall, you finished the battle, and then you
went home because you rested in the winter, because nobody
fought in the winter. That just is how it happened.
For all these other tribes or these other these rougher
than the savages or the barbarians the Romans called them.
(33:23):
That didn't apply. They didn't care. It was December and
they would launch raids and they would attack, and so
the Romans were really scrambling the whole time. They they
got themselves nothing but pain for those later expansions that
went into those areas. Yeah, and uh, you know, I
(33:44):
mean kind of a waste of their time. They lost
a lot of men and what they left behind some
cool artifacts, huge casualties, but they did they did build
some kind of decent or decent would be the aqueducts
and the roads that you're referring to, or just anything
in general that they built up. The stone, the walled
cities that they build, Adrian's walls, the baths at Bath
and into those it was pretty cool. You can't bathe
(34:07):
in those though, you can't really know, they won't let
you there, an historical kind of thing. Didn't quite Yeah,
I didn't get that, fine, Yeah, okay, well let's yeah.
So anyway, so because they were stationed in England, I know,
this is one of the theories is and they were
confronted with these these you know, savages Britain, the Brits
(34:30):
to be you know, yeah, the Britain's the Britain's destroyed them.
Is this theory is that they were there, they were
destroyed and they just never got reconstituted. Correct. Yeah, So anyway,
that's a popular theory. It was popularized some woman whose
name escapes me right now. I wrote a book novel
like back in the fifties about is that the one
that was turned into that movie The Eagle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes.
(34:51):
Then it's uh, it's a very popular theory in Britain.
And I don't know that it's true, you know. I
I put that in. I put the movie The Eagle
in my queue and I'm is gonna watch it? And
then I noticed that it was rated at at two stars,
which really kind of told me something about how a
good the movie was and possibly how good the story was.
(35:11):
And so I never went through. I can understand why
it would be popular. And uh, well, yeah in the
UK is the we triumphed over the giant Roman Empire.
We beat them back. I get them totally. The reason
kind the reason that Braveheart is so popular in Scotland.
(35:31):
It's true. It's definitely not Mel Gibson. It's moved to
our next theory. Yeah, we're now going to move to
the year one seventeen to one thirty. This is a
bit of an extension the previous theory. We've talked about
Hadrian or Hadrian before. I still can't figure out which
(35:52):
way I'm going to say it. I go both ways.
But Hadrian, that guy through the Roman armies or agents
at the Brits, and he killed a lot of men
because he just continually just threw him into the grinder. Well,
it's known that he was constantly having this battle. Obviously,
(36:13):
we talked about the wall he had, which was a
fortification that he had constructed. It's then plausible that maybe
the Ninth was there, and there's actually some historical record
that may support that the Ninth was there during his reign,
that specifically being some tiles and plates that were found.
(36:35):
There was a tile that was found, a roofing tile
that was found, a ceramic tile found in the Netherlands,
and then followed by that there was a roofing tile
and then a plate found in Northern England. The tile
from Northern England has a stamp in the back of it,
(36:57):
and by the way, that was found in n and
that stamp in that ceramic says al E g V
I I I I H. And that's it. Then we've
got the plate from which is also ceramic, that has
a stamp and it found thank you. That's good clarification.
(37:21):
And that's the one that was found in Britain or
in the North Britain. We're ignoring the Netherlands for the moment.
We're only talking about Britain. The one, the plate that
was found in Britain has a very similar stamp. It's
has l E g v I I I I H
I sp both of which are interpreted to mean Leggio
(37:44):
ninth Hispania, the ninth legion of Spain. The one that
the roofing tile that was found in the Netherlands, though,
is not so conclusive. And the reason is is that
the end of it is broken. The end of it
where the you know, we've got up through the numerals
and then we should get into the characters, the letter characters.
(38:06):
That's where it's broken. And the first character that can
be read, that first line of it is actually at
an angle. So if we think about this, an H
is straight up. The first line of the letter H
would be a vertical line. Yeah, this one is at
an angle diagonal, Yes, which suggests that would be an A,
(38:32):
which would mean it was the ninth AUGUSTA, a different legion. Yeah.
And actually, to explain to our listeners, one of the
theories that was out there is that they were they
didn't disappear from England. They were they were just transferred
out and sent somewhere else by the Netherlands and so
yes and yeah, And the discovery of this stuff like
gave gave rise to this theory. But it appears that
(38:54):
they probably didn't get relocated to the Netherlands. Well no,
I see. The problem is is that we don't know
a if it was the entire legion that went there,
or if it was just a company or a part
of the legion that got transferred there. That's the problem is. Okay,
the legions would do this, They would send detachments to
(39:16):
support another legion. So Legion A is getting its butt
kicked and it's lost a bunch of men. So we say, hey,
the the Emperor says we have to send you a
thousand men. We send you a thousand men. Those thousand
men still consider themselves part of the ninth Legion, yea,
even though there with the seventh Legion. So that is
(39:38):
where he gets weird, because they would still leave record
of their group, regardless of the whole that they were
officially according the empire. So it's not clear if the
legion itself was maybe stationed at, say the Netherlands, and
that they just sent five thousand men over to help
in Britain, or a thousand men because the legion is
(40:01):
five thousand Sorry, I meant um, or you know, if
the actual legion was in Britain and they sent a
contingent to the Netherlands. Correct, yeah, we or or you
know I mean or they all went both places. Yes,
it could have been that they can been divided up
(40:22):
into several areas. Because here's the thing. Yes, Rome took
over and for the most part, in general things were good,
but they use the legions as their police force because
not everybody was happy with Roman rule. Of course, it
never is you come in and you take over the
(40:44):
people and they welcome you and everybody loves you. That
just doesn't happen. So what would happen is and they
would send small detachments. That is because later emperors learned
from the mistakes of their emperors, where there would be
a battle or an uprising in one area. They would
(41:07):
take a legion from another place and they would move
it there to support what was going on. But the
place that they had just now left unguarded would rise
up or somebody would try to invade because they didn't
have that supporting policing force anymore. So the smart thing is,
don't move all of it. All your eggs in one basket.
(41:29):
You shift bits and pieces round. Yeah, yeah, but still,
and so they might have sent some forces over to
the nither ones there there maybe somebody like somebody from
the ninth and rejoined joined some other legion and just
took some souvenirs along with them. Could have been as
as simple as that a roofing tile is in A
plate is a weird okay, A plate I get. A
(41:50):
roofing tile is a weird souvenir because usually you make it,
you stamp it, and you use it. Tearing it then
off of the roof and taking it with you would
to me be the equivalent of taking the light switch
plate off of my apartment and taking it to my
new apartment. That you've never done that, I don't know.
(42:14):
For me, it's more of a Hey, my house got destroyed,
and now I got transferred. I'm going to take a
piece of my house and make it a part of
my new house. I mean that it's possible. It's not
as though things weren't getting destroyed. It's absolutely possible. I'm
not going to discount any of that. I just yeah,
but again, the only one you have, the only the
only real evidence that they got transferred to the Netherlands
(42:35):
is basically a thing that could have been a different
Ninth Legion anyway, right, Yeah, and that's about it. Yeah,
we don't know. Yeah, but let's let's move to the
third theory, which is that the Ninth Legion, which is
this is a little bit again these kind of fall
in line was absorbed and or relocated. And this says
(42:57):
that they were moved, moved to a stronger legion and
then absorbed by it. And the specific instance that we
can point to is the fact that in Caledonia, which
is modern day Scotland, the Ninth Legion was almost completely
(43:19):
wiped out. This would have been the year eighty two
to eight three. By the way, they absolutely got their
butts kicked. It was another group that came in that
barely saved him, and there wasn't a whole lot left.
There's also evidence that the sixth Legion, and I don't
know which sixth legion, I couldn't see it called out,
(43:43):
was also transferred to northern England, and it also then disappeared.
So it's been debated whether those two were combined into
a new number legion. So the sixth and the ninth
were then com me angled into not probably not the fifteen.
(44:03):
Probably not math unfortunately it's not basic math, but we'll
go with that they were co mingled into a completely
different number and then subsequently they were destroyed. Is kind
of triangle, the perm triangle the Roman legions. The the
only thing that I will say when we talk about
(44:26):
we talked about the transfer thing. The only thing I
can think of that might substantiate that is if there's
an officer from the ninth Hispania they get wiped out
or transferred absorbed, he's still loyal to his group. Then
they're making these tiles or plates and he goes ahead
and says, you know what, I'm gonna stamp it in
(44:46):
their name in remembrance of my fallen brothers. That's the
only instance where if this is right, This would make
sense the evidence that we picked up. Um. Then the
next two theories are really all about destruction, and it
is absolutely the destruction of the Ninth Hispania. They're all
(45:09):
kind of about destruction, aren't they. These ones more so
than others, because the other ones could be they just
they kind of maybe got disbanded or petered out. I
don't know. These ones are all pure kill, straight up kill.
Second last theory here is that in the year one
thirty two, there was a uprising in what is now
(45:31):
known as in modern day times it is Israel Palestines. Yeah,
it's it's kind of gray areum, Okay, So that little
country at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean right there.
This uprising was known as the Bar Kochba revolt, and
that was the revolt where the Jewish people of the
(45:53):
area they totally rose up against Romans with absolutely justifiable
reasons because there was huge religious persecution going on, and
they they inflicted huge damage on the Romans. But but
this theory says that the Ninth was sent to that
(46:13):
area to reinforce the legions that were already stationed there,
but they were defeated through heavy casualties. The entire legion
was killed by the local forces, and the men that
remained of the Ninth were then disbanded. There wasn't enough
of them to even matter, so they just, you know,
(46:36):
go home. What sort of evidence for this one, Well,
there's evidence that, I mean, the uprising happened, and they
it's it's called the Second Jewish Uprising. There was one
prior and this one is where they really they they
boxed them about the years. They really kind of did
(46:58):
them in. But and there's a lot of deaths on
the Roman side. Yeah, but did they find any actual
evidence that the Ninth Legion was actually there? Did they
find any remnants of tiles or plates or anything else. See,
this is the reason I don't believe this one is
because they owned the whole Mediterranean. They had lots of
forces much closer to Palestine than England. You know, specifically
(47:21):
which one that would be. I'm gonna butcher this unless
you can help me out with a devon. I'm gonna
say it's the Dio Tariana. That's close enough, sweet, because
I have to say it one more time later on
Tario Tariana Tariana. The twenty second mort Or Division was
(47:44):
based in Egypt, and it was documented in the Roman
records as being in the area at that time. Here's
the key point. The twenty second legion, who we're talking about,
they disappear from the record books, just like the ninth,
(48:06):
so we don't know whether it was the ninth or
the twenty second or both. And I have to say
that if it was both of them, that is one
of the largest Roman defeats in history. Two legions decimated
is unheard of, and there's only one other defeat that
(48:29):
was worse. So you think that would be better recorded
and well known, unless they were trying to, you know,
hide the casualties, you know, trying to play it cool
and say no we did I mean, yeah, we got defeated,
but it wasn't that bad. Let's just hey, hey, you
wrote out all that on that stone, right, throw that
over the hill. What is it going to break those
(48:50):
Just break that? Actually, it actually is, you know, especially
back in these days when you have like long lines
of communication and things like that and resupply if you're
if you're the empire, it's a really good idea to
maintain this facade of invincibility. So you definitely wanted to
suppress any bad news like that. There's a lot of
(49:10):
information suppression in the Roman Empire. I've seen things about
how the emperors didn't know what was going on, the
soldiers didn't know what was going on, but there were
certain political elite who had the fleet footed messengers that
knew and controlled all that. And it's a lot like
what in the Cold War, where there was people who
(49:32):
didn't have a clue and the people who thought they
had a clue, and then there was that guy in
the middle that had all the messengers running around, and
there was a lot of things that came out in
the wash later on. And that's what we get now
is we're able to find a bunch of that correspondence.
Our final theory of what happened to the Ninth Hispania
(49:52):
is that it was destroyed in the Parthian War between
year one sixty one to one sixties six. Are good
friend Marcus Aurelius, he uh, he didn't believe or didn't
agree with the Parthians. Actually, to be quite honest, the
Parthians of the Romans had been arguing for a good
fifty or eighty years and had had a number of wars,
(50:17):
but Aurelius had committed to the Parthian War in one
sixty one, and this is in what is for a
geographic references is Iran today. That's where it happened. Yeah,
the Persian Empire, that's yeah, exactly. The Parthian army, it
is said, surrounded, surprised, and then surrounded a Roman legion
(50:44):
and annihilated it. That legion, we don't know what it was.
Nobody can find reference specifically to what legion it was. There.
There's there's legions that we know that we're in the area.
There is the twelve Fulmonata and the fifteen Apollinaris. Those
(51:09):
were both in the area. But there are also records
of those legions as of the year two hundred, so
we know they can't be the ones that were destroyed
between one and one sixty six. Well that's actually do
we know that for sure, because there's no reason that
they couldn't have re raised, They could have repo they
(51:31):
could have basically restarted the whole thing. I mean, I
don't know. Maybe the Romans had maybe they had some
sort of the custom. It was kind of like retiring
your shirt from the NBA or something like that, where
if you were totally wiped out, they would just retire
your number and your name. That's the impression that I've
gotten from the stuff that I've read, is that if, if,
and when a legion was annihilated, they didn't reuse it.
(51:53):
It was almost an unlucky number. So the third Apollinaris
was destroyed, we don't restart the third. We go ahead
and say, well, there's twelve, so we'll make That's the
impression that I've got, and I could be completely wrong.
But back to the theory. The theory is, and by
(52:17):
the way, this this theory is really soundly based in
if you remember in the beginning I talked about the
two dates of records. One was the year one twenty
and one was the year one five. This is set
on that this one is the only one that hinges
on that one record date. And it says that, of
(52:38):
course that the the ninth Espana was the lost legion
in the Ptarthian War, and that they were moved into
that area and that then subsequently destroyed. But people who
were disagreeing with that, they also those folks which one
of you could say this again because I can't, is
that the twenty second diot in area, which I know
(53:02):
I just said wrong. I think it's yeah, that one, Uh,
that's fine, But that legion was the one that was
destroyed by the Parthians. Well, the problem is which one
was actually destroyed in which battle? Because we just said
(53:22):
that people are saying that they were destroyed in the
bar Kochba revolt, and now this is saying they were
the ones that were destroyed in the Parthian War. So
what either means that there's a chance that the ninth
Hispania was destroyed in one or the other. But it's
it's extremely unclear, and I gotta be honest with you, guys.
(53:45):
I love this story. I love historical mysteries because there's
so much stuff to die through and there's so many
interesting facts that I come across that I can't go into.
I mean, it's it's a treasure Trump. But the point
is is that it's it's a group of thousands of
men over decades. I don't know which one to pin down.
(54:08):
I I can't pick a favorite because I mean, we
just we just talked about sixty years a group that
was five thousand men a year over that time. For him,
that's a lot of people. I personally, I've never been
able to settle ones. I don't know about the pair
of you. If I tend to think that they probably
(54:29):
were cut chopped up pretty bad in England and probably
were absorbed by different units, different legions. And then because
I don't see any evidence for them appearing in all
these miscellaneous different places, Oh well, I know what happened
to them. They were conscripted to assist to the doctor
in the battle for the And which one of them was,
(54:55):
you know, the one that's the centurion the star, Yes,
oh wow. No, I don't know. I think they probably.
I think they probably were just they were just destroyed
by one of the many. I don't have a favorite
way they were destroyed. They were the only thing I
don't think that they were destroying the early time frame
(55:15):
I talked about. I get the feeling that that Hadrian
is probably the responsible party. But that guy, again, I
couldn't find death tolts, but he he threw them like
buckets of water at the Britain. And I would suspect
they're not exactly like re stalking their ranks during this time,
you know, if they're kind of just being thrown into
(55:37):
battle it's not like there's going to be five thousand.
They're going to be dwindling and even five thousand continually. Yeah,
it's probably people to that they'll just send news out. Yeah,
but it might well be that if they had some
bad luck and they got chopped up a couple of
times really bad, then the word gets out, like the
(55:57):
Caledonia War yea, yeah, where they got they almost completely
we annihilated. Yeah, yeah, and and and word gets out
and and the brass might decide, hey, you know, it's
these guys have got a reputation for bad luck or
incompetent fighting. They're always getting like massacred. So it's not
going to be easy to recruit somebody to this legion.
(56:18):
So we're just gonna phase it out whoever is less
and you know, left while they retired or moved to
in many military organizations, so it could have been you know,
that's a great idea, is that it's just phased out.
They went. This group always dies, they're not going to stop.
Guys are just bad news bears, man, They're just bad luck. Yeah,
(56:38):
and so we're just gonna just phase them out. And yeah,
so that's kind of what I think happens awesome. All right, Well,
that is all we have on the Nite Hispania. If
you are a ghost of one of those soldiers, please
email us. Have you ever met it? No? No, I'm
not even gonna go. Okay, Well, for everybody who is
(56:59):
corporeal and you want to know what we have, we
have links on our website and we have this and
all other episodes available to stream on our website. Website,
of course, is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. I did
get a great email or comment the other day on Facebook.
We always kind of joke that nobody listens on the
(57:21):
the website. Turns out a bunch of people do, so, hey,
listen to us on our website. Use up that bandwidth. Um.
We are on Facebook. We have the group and the
Facebook page which is continually busy and fantastic fun. We
are on Twitter. It is Thinking Sideways without the G
(57:44):
in the middle. You can, of course get a hold
of us on our email account. You've got questions or
suggestions for future episodes, get a hold of us at
Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. By the way,
I apologize to all the people who I am spin
a bit late to reply to because they was getting
(58:04):
a little insane a lot of emails, folks. That doesn't
mean we're trying to discourage you. Please, we'd like here, No, no,
I don't want I just want everybody to yeah, exactly,
please be patient I And I'm telling people in story.
We are also letting everybody know that we are on Patreon.
That is spelled p A t R e o n
(58:28):
dot com slash thinking sideways. If you want to support show,
that's a way to do it. Go to that address.
We've put up videos and all that kind of stuff.
Everything explain the whole whole nine yards to you. That
having been said, we are at the end of this
particular episode. We're going to go ahead and get out
of here because this studio is disgustingly hot, and um,
(58:52):
I really just want to go take a shower, me
cold shower. All right, Well, this is Devin saying bye
bye for this week away, and this is Joe saying
tata
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