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Page 2 of 7
[1823]
All western troops returned to their garrisons after the end of the Parthian wars and Marcius Turbo was probably still holding the supreme command over leg. XXX in his hands, as he was provided with a greater command of the provinces Dacia and Pannonia in the year 118 (Weber: Hadrian 71f. Premerstein: Das Attentat der Konsulare auf Hadrian 16ff). When the hostile peoples near the border were finally defeated, Turbo had to carry through the new ideas of emperor Hadrian, his long-standing friend. These reformations concerned the border police and the whole organisation of the two regions.
However in the following year a breech in the line of the Lower Germanic army had to be filled out. It was clear that it now had to be a legion of the closest army from the Danubian provinces (Upper Pannonia), since the Rhineland-troops were ordered to do the same under Traian’s rule. And so Legio XXX was sent to Vetera, the former winter-camp of VI Victrix, and it stayed there for more than two centuries.
It was explicitly mentioned as a part of the Lower Germanic vexillations in the time of Septimus Severus (CIL III 10471 – 10473) on the inscriptions from two of their officers, trib. mil. leg. XXX Ulp(iae) Germ(aniae) infer(ioris), CIL III 15188², and ... trib.] la[ticlavio .... item Germ[aniae infer(ioris) leg.] XXX V. V., (CIL XIV 4178b). Ptolemaeus (II 9, 8: Oueterra…legioon L'ouppia (instead of oulpia)) names its garrison. The name of the town is replaced by the legion’s name in (Itin. Anton. p. 241, 1): ... per ripam Pannonia a Tauruno in Gallias ad leg(ionem) XXX usque, compare p. 241, 6: ad leg(ionem) XXX.
We still don’t know where the camp of XXX Ulpia and its predecessors since the reign of Vespasian was actually situated. We should look for it in the neighbourhood of the pre-Flavian double-camp on a hill called Fürstenberg – either situated on a different part of this elevation or somewhere inside a town called Xanten. The brick-kilns of the legion functioned at almost the same place like their forerunners, which can be traced back to the time of Claudius. The exposure of a part of the brickyard at the so called “Hoher Steg”, in the south of today’s Xanten-Birten is mentioned in J. Steiner, Bonner Jahrb. CX 70ff., (compare P. Steiner Katalog des Xant. Altert. Mus. 1911, 44ff.; where you are also able to see pictures of all brick-stamps that were found in Vetera (table 24 nr. 142-156. 25, 157-245, and belonging to it: p. 61-68).
Besides this multitude of bricks, relicts from other monuments at the site of the camp are rather small in number but not very important, too. They all have, apart from CIL XIII 8607 (from the year 223) and 8620 (from the year 243), a non-public status (CIL XIII 8609. 8616. 8619. 8622. 8625. 8626. 8629. 8631. 8632. 8634. 8638. 8639. 8610 [from the year 189]. 8641. 8654).
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