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HistoryExtra podcast

History’s greatest mysteries: what happened to the Roman Ninth Legion?

HistoryExtra podcast

HistoryExtra

History

4.34.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Ninth Legion of the Roman army was last recorded in York in around AD 107. After that it simply vanished from history. To this day no-one knows what caused the destruction of this elite army unit, although many theories have been put forward. As we continue our series on history’s most puzzling events, Miles Russell explores the various possibilities and explains what he think is the most likely reason for the legion’s disappearance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:57.9

Hello and welcome to the History Greatest Mysteries.

1:02.4

I'm Rob Atar, the editor of BBC History magazine.

1:04.9

This is episode two of this series,

1:08.3

and today we'll be heading back almost 2,000 years and exploring one of the most puzzling events from Roman history,

1:12.9

the disappearance of the 9th Legion. The last record of this elite army unit is in Northern

1:19.2

England in the early 2nd century AD, after which it simply vanished. Since then, numerous theories

1:27.1

have been put forward by historians, novelists and

1:29.9

filmmakers, and to pick through those, I was joined by Miles Russell, a senior lecturer, prehistoric

1:36.5

and Roman archaeology based at Bournemouth University. I began by asking him to explain

1:43.1

the history of the Legion prior to its disappearance.

1:46.5

The Ninth Legion is one of roughly on average about 30 elite army units in the Roman Empire

1:53.7

throughout the late 1st century BC and 1st century AD. The Roman army is quite unusual in that

2:00.5

it has two grades of soldier. You've got

2:03.5

the legionaries who are the ones, which you always see on TV and film today. They're the ones with

2:08.0

the plate armour, which are really quite distinctive. And they're basically citizens. They've got

2:12.9

the full rights of citizenship in the Roman Empire. They can own land and property and so on, they're

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