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now appears to be invalid with the dating of the papyrus-document (BGU I nr. 140), which mentions the camp of the III and XXII legion in Alexandreia, to August of the year 119 (Herm. XXXVII 84ff). As II Traiana is in Egypt in February of the year 128 (see S.1489, 35ff), III Cyrenaica must have left between the years 120 and 127. A year after 127 is out of the question because of the senator Q. Voconius Saxa Fidus (consul in the year 149 or 150) as he was a military tribune at the least in the second half of his twenty-year career (Cagnat IGR III 763). He could not have been laticlavius in leg. III Cyrenaica when it still was commanded by a equestrian praefectus in Egypt. The command of the senator Ti. Claudius Quartinus in the year 119 (CIL II 2959) are perhaps in contiguity with large military displacements. After his position of iuridicus Hispaniae Citerioris, he became “iussu imp. Hadriani Aug. [pr]ae [posito? Legionum II Trai.] fortis et III Cyre[naicae….]” (CIL XIII 1802, discussed by von Trommsdorff Quaestion. Duae 35-39; see also at II Trai. S.1486, 50ff). The purpose and location of this command was certain not more applicable in the next period. Without any doubt there was a certain reason for the unification of more then one legion under the command of a senator from the praetorian class.
Whether III Cyrenaica was immediately transferred to Arabia as a lasting occupation after these operations, which could have occurred in any part of the Orient, remains a question.
Perhaps she firstly replaced one of the Syrian legions (VI Ferrata or III Gallica), which were used as a garrison of Arabia, and then was transferred, during or after the Jewish war of Hadrian, to Bostra whose garrison otherwise was claimed.
It is also uncertain whether III Cyrenaica or III Gallica was the legion which received significant reinforcements from III Augusta in the year 126 (speech from Hadrian CIL VIII 2552 A b; see also S.1500, 20ff). Her previous change of quarters from Egypt to Syria could be a reason.
Her presence in Arabia is explicitly attested, apart from the not exactly dated note from Ptolem. V 16, 4 “Βόστρα, λεγιὼν (γ’ Κυρηναιχή)” (= Bostra, leg. Cyrenaica)). The legion appears in the cod. Vatican. (see Kubitschek Jahrb. Für Altertkde. VI 1913, 206f) by means of inscriptions firstly during Marcus Aurelius in the year 162 (CIL III 96, VIII 7050). Her camp at Bostra, which she keeps until the time of the Notitio (or. XXXVII 21) is mentioned in a number of inscriptions, of which the most part is in Latin. CIL III 100 add. P.969 (LEG III C), which is mentioned in a lot of books, could be derived from a building inscription.
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