The Mystery of the Ninth Legion

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The legions of Rome were the nucleus of Rome’s military might for centuries. From campaigning in northern Scotland to the Persian Gulf, these devastating battalions extended and cemented Roman power. Yet of these legions there was one whose end is shrouded in mystery: the Ninth Legion. So what might have happened to this legion? Joining me to talk through the theories surrounding the Ninth's disappearance is Dr Simon Elliott. Simon has recently written a book all about the Ninth's disappearance, and in this podcast he takes us through the various theories and evidence surrounding this mystery.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast
0:08.4	we are talking about one of the great mysteries of ancient history. Now in the early second
0:13.7	century AD, a Roman Legion vanishes. It disappears from all records. This was legion 9 his
0:22.0	spanner, the 9th Legion. Over the years, over the decades, over the centuries there have been
0:27.4	various theories put forwards as to what happened to the 9th. Indeed, the story has become immortalised
0:33.9	in famous works such as Rosemary Sutclist Brilliant Novel, The Eagle of the 9th and more recently
0:39.6	Hollywood blockbusters such as Centurion and The Eagle. Now in today's podcast, I was delighted
0:45.8	to be joined by Dr Simon Elliott. Simon has come on the podcast before to talk about Old Testament
0:52.4	warriors and he has recently released a book all about the fate of the 9th Legion, all about
0:58.8	the theories surrounding what might have happened to the 9th. So I was great to get him on the show
1:03.6	to talk through this absolutely fascinating ancient mystery. Here's Simon.
1:13.9	Simon Elliott's great to have you back on the show. Tristan, history hit, I love working with you
1:18.7	guys. Thank you so much for having me back. Now we are talking about one of the great detective
1:24.7	stories of history. Well, you know what, that is absolutely spot on. I decided to put myself in
1:30.8	the position of being the Hercule Poro of historians or maybe the Miss Marple to look at this amazing,
1:36.8	amazing mystery because we know the fate of nearly every Roman Legion, right? There may have been
1:42.5	up to 60 legions that we know the name of at any one time in the Prinky Pay 10 pie of 30, maybe 32
1:48.6	under Septimia Severus. But the one Legion we don't know what happened to it was the 9th Legion.
1:54.1	And to me, this was a sort of a question which I really wanted to actually address. I wanted to
2:00.0	follow their historical thread, the historical detective story and see if I could actually come up with
2:05.1	some solutions to this question which has been dominating thinking about Roman Legion in Britain
2:10.8	probably since the antiquarian period. I love that comparison of yourself to Miss Marple,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.