News (Ancient) Remains of Ancient Roman Soldier Discovered in a 1,700-Year-Old Cooking Pot in Israel

 

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An enormous gate and dedicatory engraving in Latin are among the finds uncovered at the immense Roman military cantonment found at Legio, near Tel Megiddo in northern Israel. As archaeologists suggest the impressive gate led to the principia or headquarters. “The Legio camp is the only full-scale imperial Roman legionary base found so far in the eastern empire,” Matthew J. Adams, director of the W.F. Albright Institute and co-director of the dig, told Haaretz. However, he added that taken into account the vast area the Roman Empire covered, it’s just a matter of time for other major bases to be found in the east.
The base was about 300 by 500 meters in area and dates back to the second and third centuries AD. It served as a residence for the legendary Legio VI Ferrata (The Sixth Legion), also known as the "Ironclads." The Sixth Legion was raised in Cisalpine Gaul in 52 BC by Julius Caesar. It served him during his tenure as governor and fought at the Siege of Alesia, before being stationed at Cabillonum in 51 BC and then suppressing a revolt of the Carnutes at Cenabum (Orleans) in 50 BC. In 49 BC it was transferred to Spain to fight in the civil wars, where it earned the title “Hispaniensis” after fighting at Ilerda.
It continued in existence into the 4th century AD. After the legion fought in the Roman Republican civil wars of the 40s and 30s BC, it was sent to garrison the province of Judaea and remained there for the next two centuries. “The Sixth Roman Legion Ferrata had a great and bloody history going back to the days when Julius Caesar first recruited it in northern Italy," Barry Strauss, professor of History and Classics at Cornell University tells Haaretz. And adds, "The legion fought in some of Caesar’s most famous battles in what are today France, Greece and Turkey, including the victory that Caesar immortalized with the words, 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'"
The Legion was also known as “Fidelis Constans,” meaning "loyal and steadfast". It is unclear when this title was given, but several historians suggest that it may have been in the 1st century AD. The symbol for Legio VI Ferrata was the bull, while it also carried the symbolic she-wolf with Romulus and Remus.
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