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Page 2 of 8 [1507]
C. Sossius C. f. Pol. Pompeiop(oli), which is mentioned here in Col. I v.13, returns to all probability in the inscription CIL III 6591 as C. Sossius optio in leg. III. These inscriptions from Koptos prove that the Egyptian army was already reduced to two legions. Because the third legion was probably withdrawn and transferred to Syria during the reign of Augustus (see also 1236), the time of this work set at the first half of the reign of Tiberius or the last years of Augustus. Leg. III Cyrenaica was probably at that time already transferred to Alexandreia and united with leg. XXII Deiot. at the camp at Nikopolis. This was certainly the case some time later when the soldier C. Sossius from a vexillation of Koptos, in the mean time promoted to optio, erected a tombstone in the camp at Nikopolis for a deceased comrade (CIL III 6591). The union of both legions in their joint camp seems to have been implemented in the first years of the reign of Caligula and many think that also was the case many years before that.
The legion stayed at this camp at Alexandreia until their removal from Egypt during Hadrian. This double camp is specifically mentioned in a papyrus script that forms at the same time the youngest evidence of the legions’ stay in Egypt, (has been dated at AD 119 by the lecture of Wilkens Herm. XXXVII 84ff): “ὲν τη̃ παρεμβολη̃ τη̃ς χειμασίας λεγιω̃νος τρίτης Κυρηναιχη̃ς χαὶ λεγιω̃νος β’ χαὶεὶχοστη̃ς Δηιοτεριανη̃ς, πρίδιε νόνας Αὺγούστας ….. ὲν πρινχεπίοις” (="In the barracks of the winter-quarters of the Third Legion Cyrenaica and the {Twenty-Second} Deioteriana, on the day before the Nones of August (=12th August)... in the principia") (BGU I 140). Two columns with lists of soldiers from III Cyr. and XXII Deiot. have been found on a papyrus scroll in the Rainer collection. These soldiers must come from the time of Trajan or early Hadrian because several of the soldiers carry the gentile Ulpius (‘Upis’) (Wessely Schrifttafeln zur ält. Lat. Paläographie, Vienna 1898 nr.8).
Tombstones of or for legionnaires have also been erected at this camp. CIL III 6591 and 6607 probably from the time of Tiberius or Caligula; 6602, 141383, 141385 from the time of Nero or the Flavian period; CIL III 6603 traceable to the year 101/ 2 (see Ritterling Rh. Mus. LVIII 176f) and somewhat later or earlier as the same Centurio Iulius Saturninus returns (CIL III 6599).
A monument (CIL III 6024) from the year 47/ 48, which was erected by the garrison of Alexandreia, has been found outside the camp in Aqfahas in Lower-Egypt. It probably concerns an official inscription of a large scale traffic- or culture concerning activity, carried out by both legions, in which the emperor himself appears as the initiator in the nominative.
The centurions and troops of the legion, whose traces have been found dispersed across the country, where probably all officially posted, without exception. They usually appear as the leader or kinsman of a detachment which was active in the numerous quarries in Lower-Egypt. For example in Caenopolis on the Nile C. Papirius Aequos (CIL III 6628) endowed by testament a statue of Vespesian and his son in Rome as a centurion of leg. III Aug. in the year 72 (CIL VI 932).
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