Ksar el Birsgaun

This really arises out of mapping and the production of my Legio XX inscriptions map, so perhaps an issue really for my other blog, but it does point up a more general problem with some older records of discoveries, to whit, where on earth is Ksar el Birsgaun?

This is the recorded provenance of the tombstone set up by Julius Victor for his sister according to CIL VIII 2080. Unfortunately the place seems to have ceased to exist...

The main problem seems to be that these minor places in what is now Algeria are either no longer occupied or no longer bear the names recorded by French geographers in the 19th century. What I really need is a detailed 19th century gazeteer (and possibly a French one at that).

From somewhere I have Ksar el Birsgaun = Berzegan. But Berzegan proves very elusive itself. Soumat el Kheneg is apparently 9km south of Berzegan (which might be a place or might just be a valley) and Soumat el Kheneg appears in the Barrington Atlas (hurrah!) so I can at least take a reasonable guess

Mapping legio XX Valeria Victrix

I seem to remember promising something along these lines a while back (probably quite a while back). Inscriptions searchable through the EDH and Clauss-Slaby databases have for some time been geolocated. In this era of easily accessible online global mapping it has to be the way forward. Updating my database of inscriptions with latitude and longitude was the easy part, but I never quite found the right way to present them (it still might not be quite right way, but here we go). However, I do rather like the Imperium tile set created by the Pelagios Project, so here is a first attempt at putting some of this information on a map (or use the link in the sidebar).

Too many coincident points at some places (eg Chester!) for this to truly work; some inscriptions refer to people known from other sources to have served with the legion and are not particularly informative in themselves; I will find a better marker symbol eventually (or revert to something stansdardised)... The list of what is wrong with this goes on, but for now I hope it demonstrates the geographical range of the dataset reasonably well.

[NB If you're accessing this through the lexioxx.org.uk website then you may need to clear your cache, or refresh the sidebar (if your browser allows). And, yes I know, nobody uses frames anymore... given that I only really update this through blog entries these days, I'm afraid I have felt little impetus to rebuild the site from the ground up.]

A legion at Thebes

Was there a legionary fortress at Thebes? I rather doubted Farnum's assertion (Positioning of the Roman Legions 2006) but his spare approach to referencing made it difficult to see on what basis he came to this conclusion (perhaps Speidel 1982 'Augustus' deployment of the legions in Egypt', ultimately). The argument is from Strabo 17.12 who says that there were three legions in Egypt (in the early Augustan period; one in the city (Alexandria) and two in the countryside). That one was in the south of the country is supposition. That is was based in a fortress at Thebes is more supposition. Yes, several centurions of leg XXII inscribed their names on the statue of Amenhotep III; yes, the legion III Diocletiana is listed there, very much later, in the Notitia Dignitatum; but no, there is no evidence of a full scale imperial legionary fortress (or at least if there is I'd love to hear about it).


Strabo goes on

17.30 at Babylon (Cairo) 'is an encampment of one of the three legions that guard Aegypt'

17.41 'One comes next to the Hermopolitic garrison, a kind of toll-station for goods brought down from the Thebaïs...and then to the Thebaïc garrison'

This does leave us needing to find a place for a third legion, but I'm not sure talk of a 'garrison' at Thebes is enough to assume a legionary fortress (but I ought really to look at the Greek text before drawing too many conclusions from precise terminology) .

Reading further, 17.53-4 would imply no more than three cohorts in the Thebaid (Syene) and when there is talk of a 'fortress' at Premnis this is to hold only 400 men. It would seem that an auxiliary garrison was considered enough to meet any external threat from this quarter.

Later legends of a Theban legion "legio militum, qui Thebaei appellabantur" converting en masse to Christianity are another thing entirely...