Saturday 12 March 2011

Legio XX on Wikipedia

To edit or not to edit? Perhaps I will get round to it...
Somewhat of a sparse entry. Fair enough in outline, but misleading on a couple of points, most notably on the question of 'Valeria'. The 4th century province on the Danube was named for Valeria, the wife of the emperor Galerius (and daughter of Diocletian); or at least so say Ammianus Marcellinus 19.11.4 and Aurelius Victor de Caes. 40. The fact that the legion was active in that region 300 years earlier is neither here nor there. If the nomenclature is to be linked to the historical exploits of AD6 then much more likely that they received the name from their commander Valerius Messalinus than that the region was silently known as Valeria for 300 years before Galerius (perhaps this can't be entirely ruled out - classical writers could be quite partial to a bit of folk etymology when attempting explanations of this sort - but Ammianus at least was well enough connected to know).
At Colchester 'from the AD 50s'? The usual reading of Tacitus is that the colonia was founded in 48 with the legionary garrison (presumed to be the Twentieth) moved to fight in South Wales, based initially at Kingholm and then at Usk.

No comments:

Post a Comment