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Page 6 of 8 [1569]
in Italy was the same as of the other Rhine legions; leg. V is directly mentioned by Tac. hist. II 43. 68. 100. III 14 and 22. On the departure of Vitellian troops from Rome in the late summer of 69 the legio quinta with its eagle and legionary legate (Fabius Fabullus, hist. III 14) was compared in a very typical way with vexilla primae, quartae, quintaedecumae, sextaedecumae legionum (hist. II 100). The rest of the legion, left in Vetera, fought against Civilis (hist. IV 18. 35) and was massacred in an ambush by the Germans, after it surrendered and left the camp (hist. IV 60).
The eagle of leg. V did not return to the Rhine after the capitulation at Cremona (hist. III 35): among other defeated legions (per Illyricum dispersae) it received an order to march to Moesia (hist. III 35), which was almost devoid of legionary presence, and was constantly threatened by attacks from Sarmatians and Dacians (see also Filow Legionen Mösiens 34f.). The disbandment of the legion by Vespasian, which has formerly often been supposed (Mommesen Ephem. epigr. V p. 214), is unthinkable (Filow 33, 2), for neither any military lapse nor religous disgrace of the eagle, which could justify such a disbandment, had occurred (De leg. X gem. 66 adn. 1). It is less probable that the legion had already been annihilated in 70 CE in Moesia in the defeat of Fonteius Agrippa (see above p. 1271), for Vespasian would not have omitted to fill in the gap created by such a loss in the weakened strength of his army, already depleted by the civil wars. Although we still lack any evidence for the existence of leg. V after the year 70 CE and for its presence in Moesia after 70 CE, it has been asserted (Ritterling idem and Westd. Ztschr. XII 233. Pfitzner 237, v. Domaszewski Arch.-epigr. Mitteil. XV 190, 40. Schilling Diss. 20ff. Tromsdorff Diss. 70ff. Filow 37ff. and 46; see paragraph A above p. 1278), that the legion formed part of the army in Moesia under Vespasian and in the first years of Domitian's reign, and that it could have been annihilated in the defeat of Cornelius Fuscus in 86 CE by the Dacians. The scanty remains of an inscription from a large gravestone in Dobruja (CIL III 14214 = Dessau 9107, with some unpublished fragments) offer, as well as the names of praetorians and auxiliaries, the names of men of a legion. That the preserved parts contain one legion only is certain from the integrity of the list, as emphasized by Tocilescu. In the light of known data about the origin of soldiers (see below), this legion must have previously belonged to the army on the Rhine, and can hardly be any other than V Alaudae, which had replenished itself by exceptional levies in Gallia and on the Rhine (Tac. hist. II 57) by the outbreak of the civil wars in 69 CE; seventeen years later the composition of a legion of the Rhine army before the
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