|
Page 4 of 8 [1509]
By this, the idea of an immense military preparation, created by the words of history (Suet. Calig.43 “legionibus et auxiliis undique excites…”; Galb.6 “inter innumeras contractasque ex omnibus provinciis copias” with which the by Galba organized Upper-Rhine army distinguishes itself), really comes to life. Also T. Laelius T. F. Severus/ leg. III Cyr. (CIL III 2038), found in on a monument in Salonae which comes from the first century (certainly not from the time of the Marcomannic wars, as Meyer Heerwesen 162 suspects), could be sent to Illyria though this military disposition.
For the Armenian-Parthian wars during Nero, besides other reinforcements, a vexilla delectorum ex Illyrico et Aegypto was placed at the disposal of Corbulo (Tac. Ann. XV 26). Troops of III Cyrenaica could be found in the latter part.
After the legion, along with leg. XXII, had bloody put down the Jewish rebellion in Alexandreia (Joseph. Bell. Iud. II 18, 8) and supported the Vespasian claim to the throne by means of their Praefectus Aegypti Iulius Alexander on 1 July 69 (Suet. Vesp.6; Tact. Hist. II 79), she must have sent a vexillatio milliaria under the command of their praefectus exercitus to the army of Titus in Iudaea (Tac. Hist. V 1; Joseph. Bell. Iud. V 1, 6. 4, 3). That a second detachment of equal strength was among the army of Mucianus which left for Europe (as Pfitzner 228 suggests), is not recorded, nor even probable. Against all expectations, the Egyptian vexillation showed a lot of courage at the siege of Jerusalem. It is highly unlikely that an officer, [Ti. Claudius?] Quir(ina) Hera, who served as a trib. militum in successively leg. XII Fulm. and III Cyrenaica, received his military decorations with the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus (see Meyer Heerwesen 152, 537). The inscription firstly belongs to the second century and secondly, the Σεβαστοί, who gave the dona, refers to Marcus and Verus.
About 40 years later, the legion sent another vexillatio to Judaea to again put down a Jewish rebellion (CIL III 13587, about the year 116). After that, she also took part in the Parthian war of Trajan at which C. Nummius Constans got his decoration not as a centurion of III Cyrenaica, but during his service in the Praetorium (CIL X 3733). It is certain that the legion sent this vexillatio from its camp at Alexandreia and not from Arabia as Trommsdorff Quastiones duae 19 thinks.
When leg. III Cyrenaica left her camp at Alexandreia and Egypt for good, is not known for certain. The previously accepted view that the legion was transferred to the province Arabia in the year 106 or 108 (see Meyer Heerwesen 160f),
|