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[1707]
was reinforced by a fourth one, Legio XII Fulminata, in 69 CE when Titus took over command (Tac.Hist.V.1, Joseph.Bell. V.1.6.: “..kai to palai sun Kestiooi ptaisan doodekatov, hoper kai alloos episemon di andreian huparchon, tote kata mnemen hoon epathen eis amnan ei ei prithumoterov..”). The legion is mentioned during the siege of Jerusalem by Josephus Bell V.11.4. It does not seem to have distinguished itself in any remarkable way; it did not succeed in washing away the shame of its conduct under Cestius with this new commander: “(Titus) memnemos de tou doodekatou tagmatos, hoti Kestiou strategountos evedookan tois Ioudaiois tes men Surias auto pantapasin exelasen (en gar to palaion en Rafanaiais), eis de ten Melitenen kaloumenen apesteile, para ton Eufraten en methoriois tes Apmenias esti kai Kappadokias” (Josephus Bell. VII.1.3).
So in 70 CE Legio XII Fulminata became part of garrison of the province of Cappadocia after the reorganisation by Vespasian (Suet. Vesp.8) and stayed for centuries in Melitene. The garrison province is explicitly mentioned in the sources, for instance CIL VIII 7079 “..trib.milit leg. XII fulminatae in Kappadocia...”; Cass.Dio LV 23.5: “To doodekaton to en Kappadokiai to keraunoforon..”; Not.Dign.Or.XXXVIII, 14: “Sub dispositione..ducis Armeniae praefectus legionis duodecimae fulminatae Melitene”; Procop.De Aedif.I.7.3: “Evtautha eketio leipsana enk palaiou androon hayioon..hoi stratiootai men Roomaioi etugchavon ontes, en legeooni de duodekatei etattovto, he en polei Melitenei tes The site of the camp is described by the same author in De Aedif. III.4.15-18.
There is not a single memorial inscription testifying to the hundreds of years of presence of the legion. From the garrison province and the bordering areas only very isolated inscriptions are known: from Komana in Kataonia a dedication by a centurion (Cagnat, IGR III 1210); a vexillation under command of a centurion appears in Trapezus (CIL III 6745); another one, joint with a vexillation of Legio XV Apollinaris, set up a construction far away in inner Armenia during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (Dessau 9117). Burial inscriptions are CIL III 266 and 6800. A vexillation of the legion appears in the province of Asia, when it set up a tombstone to a deceased comrade in Amorium Phrygiae (CIL III 358). Coins from Caesarea, capital of Cappadocia, from the Hadrianic period, point to the name of the legion (Mionnet V 193, nr. 151), although the relation between community and legion is not quite clear. The same goes in higher measure for similar coins from Ancyra in the reign of Antoninus Pius.
The story of Legio XII Fulminata is poor in the way of remarkable events through the paucity of inscriptional sources. There is no evidence whatsoever for the legion taking part in Trajan’s big wars, however obvious the supposition that they did. At the end of Hadrian’s reign the larger part of the legion, although without its legate, took part in the campaign of the Cappadocian governor Flavius Arrianus against the invasion of the Alans (Arrian, Ektaxis 6.15.24).
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