A Roman Legion Went Missing In The Second Century, And What Happened To Them Is Still a Mystery To This Day
One of the biggest mysteries of Roman Britain is the disappearance of the Ninth Legion. As 5,000 of Rome’s finest soldiers marched north to quell a rebellion, they suddenly realized they were surrounded by the enemy with no hope of escape.
They put up a fight, of course, but were ultimately defeated. The last ones remaining were slaughtered right where they stood.
The story is entirely fictional, but the idea of a group of British warriors taking down a trained professional army holds great appeal.
What actually happened to the Ninth Legion is unclear. Popular theory is that they were annihilated somewhere in the remote Highlands of northern Britain at the edge of the empire in the second century A.D.
The Ninth Legion was an elite military unit that began operating in Britain after the Roman invasion of A.D. 43. They were critical in combating resistance in northern England and were on the front lines during the revolt of Queen Boudica in A.D. 60. They suffered heavy losses.
In the early A.D. 70s, they established a base in York. A decade later, they were campaigning across the Scottish Highlands.
By A.D. 100, they were back in northern England, and then in the early 120s, they vanished. They were replaced at York by the Sixth Legion.
The only certain piece of evidence relating to the Ninth Legion’s existence comes from York in the form of an inscription.
It dates to A.D. 108 and credits the Ninth with rebuilding the stone fortress. Sometime between then and the middle of the second century, they ceased to exist.
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During the early years of the second century, many Roman soldiers were killed by the British. The exact number of losses remains unknown, but they were definitely significant.
In A.D. 122, the Sixth Legion took up residence at the fortress in York, suggesting that the Ninth Legion had suffered great losses.
The Ninth was the most exposed legion in all of Britain. They endured the worst of the uprising. So, the most plausible conclusion to their disappearance is that they fought and died in Britain during the turmoil. The loss of the Ninth Legion caused Emperor Hadrian to intervene and restore order.
He realized that the only way to ensure stability was to build a wall. Hadrian’s Wall was designed to keep invaders out of Roman territory and to prevent the British troops from receiving support from the allies to the north. From then on, cultures on either side of the wall developed in very different ways.
The loss of the unlucky Ninth Legion led to the creation of a permanent border that divided Britain, which eventually resulted in the independent kingdoms of England and Scotland.
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