Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers with me, Murray.

You can ask us a question, of course. We'd love some questions from you. You can join us via email,

telegram, send us a letter, call us up, phone number. Or, of course, you can contact us by

Patreon, Patreon 4 slash Agile Orpair podcast. There's three different levels of backer that you can be,

even getting a copy of the magazine digitally or in print. Now, the question today is from Alex,

which is, when is the last documented evidence for

one of the original Roman legions being in existence? I remember reading about Legio v. Macedonica,

being based in Egypt just before the Arab conquest in the 640s, but I am unsure if this is

factually correct. Many thanks. Love the podcast.

Don't we all?

Now, the interesting thing there, of course, is that Alex, you are correct, which is great.

The Roman legions continuing to exist, falling out of existence is a complicated issue.

A, because the number of Roman legions fluctuates, even under the Roman Empire,

there's a fluctuation of the number of soldiers in the Roman army. There are legions with the same

number but different names at various points in time. Some legions get subsumed into others. Some legions

get disbanded or disappear. Obviously, the 9th Legion,

Hispanic, disappearing into the fogs of Scotland is one of the most famous misnomer of Roman history.

There's now evidence, of course, that it existed long after that. But that idea that it disappears

in Britain

persists and gets regurgitated without taking note of new evidence.

So there's all sorts of interesting things.

There are, of course, later sources, for instance, the material on King Arthur, which talks about him having legions in

...