The Eagle – The History Behind The Film of The Ninth Legion
by The Missing Ninth Legion Mystery.
Roman shields similar to those of the Legio IX Hispania: Image via Wikipedia
This February and March 2011, the film The Eagle is released. It is the tale of a man searching to find out the fate of his father who had been one of the Ninth Legion that disappeared north of Hadrian’s Wall. He wants to recover the Ninth Legion’s eagle emblem and restore his father’s reputation. The film is based on the novel The Eagle of the Ninthby Rosemary Sutcliffe.
In the year 117, the Ninth Legion, Legio IX Hispania, disappeared from the records on the Roman Army in occupied Britain, Britannia, after they went north of Hadrian’s Wall into Caledonia. Caledonia, outside the Roman world, was a land of Picts, a red-haired Scottish/Gaelic tribe noted for their use of blue body paint. Was the legion wiped out by the Picts or did they relocate?
The Legio Nona Hispania was one of the units raised in Spain (Hispania) by General Pompey in 65 BC during the time of Julius Caesar, who commanded them in France and Africa. After their dissolution and Caesar’s assassination, Octavian reassembled the legion and sent them to Sicily, Macedonia, and Greece, where they fought with Octavian against Cleopatra and Mark Anthony in the Battle of Actium, and along the River Rhine and then back to Spain.
In 43, Emperor Claudius invaded the island of Britain; he was accompanied by the Ninth. The Ninth put down a rebellion of Venutius in the 50s but was decimated by Boudicca, the Warrior Queen, in 60/61. Around 71, they assisted in the construction of Eboracum, in the north, on the River Ouse, and replaced the Adiutrix II in guarding the frontier. Eboracum is now the bustling and historical city of York. In 78, the Legion, along with the XX Valeria Victrix, crushed another revolt by Venutius and the Brigantes in the North.
Legend has it that the Ninth disappeared from the historical record around 117 and therefore from life. However, some of its high-ranking officers are chronicled after 117, like Lucius Aemilius Karus, governor of Arabia in the early 140s. It is known that a sub-unit of the Ninth was sent to the Netherlands and Germany in the 80s. The Ninth’s last documented activity in Britain is the rebuilding of the wooden Eboracum fortress in stone in 108. Some think the legion was destroyed in the early 120s in the UK, around the time of the construction of Hadrian’s Wall, when there was such a rebellion that the Emperor Hadrian came to the province of Britannia. Others say it was the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-6) in Judea that was their undoing. An inventory of legions complied under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180), does not mention the Ninth.
Was the Legio IX disbanded by the Roman Emperor or dismembered, so to speak, by Picts or Judeans? Unless further documentation or an artefact, such as a tombstone or tile, is discovered, the mystery will remain.
For further information: http://www.livius.org/le-lh/legio/ix_hispana.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/iloveny/romans/2004/spanish_legion/index.shtml
Hadrian’s Wall by William Bell Scott
See also: http://socyberty.com/lifestyle-choices/the-grub-of-gladiators-and-roman-legions/
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Post CommentCatriona
On February 24, 2011 at 3:45 pm
According to author Rosemary Sutcliffe, on whose novel the movie is based, there IS an artefact — it’s what led her to write the book. A wingless Roman legionary eagle was discovered under the floor of a Roman villa excavated in the south of England. There is no indication of how it got there, or what legion it belonged to. She postulated that it may have belonged to the Ninth, because other legions which were transferred out of Britannia would have taken their eagles with them. The Ninth is the only one that is said to have disappeared.