The mysterious disappearance of Legio IX Hispana (the Roman ninth ‘Spanish’ legion) has captured the hearts and minds of the public for centuries. The Roman legions were one of the most effective fighting forces in history and a major reason for the Roman Empire’s longevity. The loss of even a single legion, made up of over 5000 men, is therefore a matter of considerable interest. Legions have been destroyed or disbanded for a number of different regions across the Empire’s history, but where the IXth legion stands out is that unlike almost any other legion we simply don’t know what happened to it, and we can’t even be sure when or where it was lost.
Despite having the name Hispana (meaning ‘Spanish’), the IXth legion is most well known for its time in Britain, where it took part in the AD 43 Claudian invasion, as well as playing a major part in Boudicca’s famous revolt. Britain is also the closest thing to a generally accepted site for the legion’s disappearance, with Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth popularising the idea that the legion vanished in the mists of Scotland.
The mystery of the IXth legion’s fate has fascinated historians for centuries, going all the way back to 1732, when British antiquarian John Worsley wrote his book Brittania Romana in which he described the arrival and departure of every Roman legion in Britain, but noted that he could find no record anywhere of when the IXth legion departed the province. In this article, I’ll discuss the history of the IXth legion as we know it, talk about the available evidence for their fate, and explore the fascinating wargaming potential of the lost legion.
To figure out where the IXth legion might have met their end, we’ll look at Britain, Germany, the Middle East, and even examine the tantalising possibility that they might have been destroyed in a forgotten war that never made it into the history books.
Table of Contents
What’s in a Legion?
Before we discuss the disappearance of the IXth legion itself, it’s worth talking about the structure of the legions and why they were such an effective fighting force. The first Roman armies fought in the style of their Etruscan neighbours making heavy use of phalanxes of armoured spearmen, but one of the greatest strengths of the Romans was their willingness to innovate and adapt to the tactics of their rivals, and the Roman army would go through a number of structural changes over the centuries.
The most important of these reforms was initiated by the consul Gaius Marius in 107 BC into a more self-sufficient force of professional soldiers, in which soldiers were expected to carry all of their gear including engineering equipment, reducing their reliance on baggage trains and allowing them to travel much faster as a result. This shifting of the burden onto ordinary soldiers led to the Roman legionaries being nicknamed “Marius’s mules”.
Around 27 BC the first Roman emperor Augustus introduced further military reforms, in which he reduced the number of legions down from 60 to 28, and changed the number of legionaries within each legion to 5500 compared to the Marian legion of 6000 men. The early Roman legions were organised into centuries of 100 men, hence the name, but under the Augustan system each legion was organised into ten cohorts, the first of which had five centuries of 160 men, with the rest having six centuries of 80 men each. Each century was divided into ten contubernia of eight men each, who would share a tent together while on campaign. Each legionary was a trained engineer, and their skills outside of battle were just as important to the Roman army’s success as their fighting skills were.
Each legion was led by a legate, who was assisted by a number of tribunes, and each century was led by a centurion. In addition to the signa and vexilla standards used throughout the legions, each legion also had its own aquila, a golden eagle standard carried by the legion’s aquilifer. A legion’s aquila only left camp when the entire legion went on campaign, and it had a near religious significance to the Roman soldiers. The loss of an aquila was incredibly shameful, and legions would go to great lengths to protect it and to recover the eagle if it was lost.
It’s also worth noting here that the Roman legions weren’t simply numbered in the order they were founded as you might expect. Many legions shared the same number (for example there were five IIIrd legions) and as a result each legion also had its own title (or cognomen). Titles would often be awarded to commemorate successful campaigns, or they might be named for the place they were founded or stationed. These titles could change over time as the legion became renowned for different deeds, and they weren’t exclusive to an individual legion either, for example there have been four different legions with the title Italica (indicating they were raised in Italy). Example legions include Legio I Parthica, Legio XX Valeria Victrix, and of course, Legio IX Hispana, who are the subject of this article.
At the time of the IX Legion’s disappearance around the 2nd century AD, Roman legionaries were equipped with two javelins called pila with differing weights, one heavier and one lighter. They would each be thrown as massed volleys as the legionaries approached their targets, with the heavier pilum being thrown second just prior to impact. These often had a devastating effect on the enemy, with the iron shaft of the pilum usually bending on impact, weighing down shields and making it difficult for their enemy to throw the pilum back. Their main weapon was the gladius hispaniensis, a double-edged sword of Spanish design that improved on previous Roman swords to make it equally good at cutting and thrusting. The gladius would be worn on the right hip (or the left if a centurion), and a pugio dagger would be worn on the opposite hip as a backup weapon.
The legionaries also carried their iconic curved, rectangular shield called a scutum. This was used to block blows from enemy weapons, before thrusting with the gladius, but its weight meant it could also be used as an offensive weapon to shove an opponent off balance. By standing shoulder-to-shoulder and locking their shields together, with the back ranks placing their shields over the heads, the legionaries could form their distinctive testudo (or tortoise) formation that provided excellent defence against missile weapons. For protection they wore a suit of banded iron armour known as the lorica segmentata, though chainmail was also common and would become more so during the later period of the Roman Empire until its collapse in the 5th century AD.
History of the Ninth
The story of the IXth legion’s foundation is as shrouded in mystery as that of its destruction. Our earliest record of them has them fighting in the Siege of Asculum in 90 BC during the Social War between the Roman Republic and its Italian allies. However, they become more notable when Julius Caesar becomes governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 58 BC, gaining control over the IXth legion along with the VIIth, VIIIth, Xth and the newly created XIth and XIIth.
They participated in Caesar’s famous Gallic Wars, including the 55 and 54 BC invasions of Britain, and later fought in the civil war against Caesar’s hated rival Pompey at the battles of Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus in Macedonia. They were disbanded shortly afterwards and the veterans settled, but a new IXth legion was raised by Caesar’s nephew and adopted son Octavian (the future first emperor Augustus). This IXth legion earned a strong reputation fighting against Caesar’s assassins at the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, after which it earned the cognomen Macedonia.
Our next record of the legion sees it fighting in the Cantabrian Wars in northern Spain between around 27 and 19 BC, among the eight full legions and auxiliaries totalling over 50,000 men that fought in that brutal conflict. The legion’s actions in this war were obviously sufficiently heroic to earn it a new cognomen that would remain with it for the rest of its existence, Hispaniensis (later shortened to Hispana) meaning ‘stationed in Spain’. When the war was over, the number of legions stationed there was reduced, and the IXth legion was redeployed to Aquileia in north-eastern Italy.
Around the time of Augustus’ death in AD 14, the IXth legion’s previously stellar reputation begins to take a turn for the worse. Stationed in the province of Pannonia by the River Danube, the IXth was one of three legions stationed in the same fortress, and the change of Emperor combined with poor living conditions led to a mutiny that eventually saw the ringleaders executed, and the legions redeployed to separate quarters under new leadership. The legion later saw action in North Africa around AD 22, before returning to Pannonia where it was stationed in the legionary fortress at Sisak in modern day Croatia.
The Ninth Legion in Britain
Under the command of Aulus Plautius, the governor of Pannonia, the IXth legion was heavily involved in Emperor Claudius’ AD 43 invasion of Britain, alongside three other legions. This invasion initially brought only the south-east of England under Roman control, with the final battle taking place in modern day Colchester. The legions split up, with the IXth heading north, and over the next few decades they would add even more territory to the new province of Britannia.
Then, in AD 60, the IXth legion was almost wiped out fifty years before its mysterious disappearance, when they found themselves in Colchester right at the beginning of probably the most famous conflict in the history of Roman Britain; Boudicca’s Revolt.
Boudicca was queen of the Iceni, allies of Rome who were nominally independent, though disarmed, inhabiting roughly the area of modern day Norfolk. Her husband King Prasutagus had no male heirs, so he named his daughters as co-heirs alongside the emperor of Rome. When he died, Rome used this as an excuse to annex his kingdom, combined with Roman moneylenders suddenly calling in their loans. Boudicca and her daughters were treated brutally by the Romans, and she made plans for a revolt.
While Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the governor of Britain, was leading a campaign against the druids on the isle of Anglesey in Wales, Boudicca rallied an army around 100,000 strong and marched against the provincial capital of Colchester (Camulodunum to the Romans). The IXth legion were the closest, but arrived too late to save Colchester, and their infantry was wiped out when they met the enemy as their commander fled alongside their cavalry.
When Paulinus heard the news, he abandoned his assault on the druids, and made his way to London alongside most of Legio XIV Gemina, some detachments from Legio XX Valeria Victrix, and a few stragglers from the IXth. The Exeter-based Legio II Augusta refused his summons, leaving Paulinus with only around 6000 legionaries and 5000 auxiliaries (1000 of which were mounted). Paulinus reached London, but saw he could not hold it, instead taking with him any refugees willing to leave and leaving the rest to burn with the city when Boudicca’s forces arrived. With the destruction of Verulamium (now St Albans) shortly afterwards, that brought the estimated civilian dead to around 80,000.
Boudicca now had a force roughly 230,000 strong, though much of it was made up of camp followers, and perhaps only 100,000 were warriors. Believing the Romans would abandon the province if she could defeat the governor, Boudicca pursued Paulinus and in so doing allowed him to pick the site of their final battle. Despite being outnumbered more than ten-to-one, this battle showed exactly what the Roman legions were capable of when given the time to prepare and with a proper strategy.
Paulinus deployed his men in a narrow pass with woods at his back and his cavalry covering his flanks. The exact location is unknown, but generally believed to be somewhere along the Roman road known as Watling Street. Boudicca’s army was forced into a denser formation as a result, with chariots in the front and the baggage train at the rear of the army so the warriors’ families could watch the Britons’ apparently certain victory.
The Britons charged uphill, letting out fierce battle-cries backed by war-horns, dismounting from chariots as they neared the Roman lines to fight on foot. It would have been a terrifying sight, but the Romans stood steadfast under Paulinus’ leadership, and waited until the enemy was close enough for them to launch two powerful volleys of missiles that halted the Britons’ charge. With a great many of the unarmoured Britons dead from missiles alone, the Romans advanced downhill in a series of wedge formations, slaughtering the Britons who were now so closely pressed together that they didn’t even have enough room to swing their weapons. The Britons broke and ran, but their escape was blocked by their own baggage train. The Romans gave no quarter, killing men, women and animals alike, not even stopping to take slaves. Tacitus puts the dead at around 80,000 Britons to only 400 Romans, with another 400 or so wounded. The battle as a whole stands as a clear reminder of the sheer power of the Roman legions when wielded correctly.
With the battle lost, Boudicca is said to have committed suicide, and the Romans re-exerted control over the island. The IXth legion was reinforced with legionaries from the German provinces, and a decade later they participated in a successful campaign against the Brigantes tribe, constructing a new fortress at York that would become their base for the rest of their recorded existence. The conquest of Britain continued slowly but surely over the following years, with the landscape of the island forever changed by the roads and fortresses built to ensure continued Roman domination.
In AD 82, the IXth legion faced one more disaster, and it is their last appearance in contemporary writing that we know of. At one point during Agricola’s campaign in Scotland, the native Caledonians launched a surprise attack against the IXth legion’s camp at night, killing a great number of them before Agricola was able to gather his other legions to attack the Caledonians’ rear and drive them off. Interestingly, Tacitus notes that the Caledonians chose the IXth legion as their target because they seemed to be the weakest, which implies they might still have been recovering from previous losses.
We also know they were likely present at the Battle of Mons Graupius in AD 83, the final battle of Agricola’s campaign in the far north of Britain, though only the auxiliaries took part in the actual fighting, but after that their fate becomes unclear.
Losing a Legion
After looking at the IXth legion’s history, we’re left with an interesting question. If the IXth legion could recover after multiple disasters, from a mutiny to a Caledonian ambush, not to mention the loss of their entire infantry contingent, what could have caused their disappearance in the 2nd century AD after surviving so much hardship earlier on?
Our first piece of evidence for investigating the IXth legion’s fate is a pair of independent but identical lists of the 33 Roman legions active at the beginning of the 3rd century AD. Both these lists include the three Parthica legions founded by Septimius Severus in AD 197, but neither includes Legio IX Hispana. The IXth legion also fails to appear on a list of the legions on the Collonetta Maffei pillar in Rome, dated to AD 168. This gives us a probable date by which the IXth legion would have been destroyed or disbanded, and if we consider the fates of other legions missing from this list, we can begin to figure out what kind of circumstances might have led to the IXth legion’s disappearance from the record.
The three most famous lost legions are Legios XVII, XVIII, and XIX, lost in AD 9 during the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. This battle is considered one of the worst military disasters in military history, as Publius Quintilius Varus, the governor of Germania, led three legions into a trap set by his erstwhile ally Arminius. Spread out across a marching line almost 20 kilometres from end-to-end, the Romans were set upon on all sides and betrayed by many of their auxiliaries. Even their attempt to escape with a night march led them into yet another carefully laid trap, and Varus and many of his officers killed themselves in shame. All three legions were utterly wiped out, with an estimated 15,000-20,000 casualties. The defeat was so great that it single-handedly ended the Roman Empire’s period of expansion under Augustus, and the Romans would make no major incursions into Germania for over a hundred years.
The shame of the defeat (and the associated loss of the three legions’ Aquila standards) was so great that the legions were never rebuilt, their numbers were never reused, and even their titles were stricken from the record. This was unusually severe when compared to the fates of other destroyed legions, though given the sheer scope of the defeat it is understandable.
Other disbanded legions include Legio IV Macedonia, disbanded by Vespasian after they sided with his enemies during the ‘Year of Four Emperors’ in AD 69, Legio XVI Gallica, disbanded by Vespasian when they surrendered to the rebels during the Batavian Revolt in AD 70, and Legio XV Primigenia, disbanded after being wiped out fighting in that same revolt. In all of these cases, however, the legions kept their titles in the records and their numbers were able to be reused, and in some the legions were even reformed from the surviving veterans, as in the case of Legio XVI Flavia Firma formed from the remains of the aforementioned Legio XVI Gallica.
However the key difference here is that in all of these cases we know what caused the legion to be disbanded, while the fate of the IXth is completely unknown to us. If it was lost in a single great battle, we would expect that to be recorded in contemporary histories, and we’d expect a similar record if they were disbanded due to treachery. Even if the shame of their fate was as great as that of Varus’ three legions, we would expect some mention of them in the histories, though perhaps with their title of Hispana removed.
Instead, we find no mention of them at all. What could have happened to them, then? Was their ultimate fate so mundane that it wasn’t even worth recording, or so shameful that it was never spoken of again?
Before we get too much deeper into rampant speculation, it’s probably best to figure out a set of plausible locations, times and enemies that could have seen the IXth legion’s end. In my mind there are three main possibilities worth discussing, as well as an intriguing, but unlikely, fourth.
Check back shortly for part two of this article – where we really get to what may have happened to the Lost Legion, and how to wargame with them!
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
