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This legion is probably connected to the Caesarian legion of the same serial number, although a tangible indication for this assumption has as yet not been found. Possibly the young Caesar raised it anew, as he did in the case of the VIIth and VIIIth, out of Caesarian veterans settled in Italy. On an early inscription, the legion has the nickname triumph(alis?). If this indeed dates back to 43 BC as Domaszewski suggests (Österr. Jahresh. II Beibl. 83), because it possibly took part in the victorious entry by the triumvirs (Appian, BC IV.7), then that would be the earliest known inscription of this legion. The nickname Macedonica, which was appropriate for the conquering legions of Phillipi according to Mommsen (RGDA 2 p.68) dates to the same period.
Tribunus mil. Leg. VIIII Macedonicae (CIL III 551) L. Aquilius Florus Turcianus would have served in the legion in the early Augustan age, about 25 BC. He probably occupied the post of proquaestor of Cyprus directly after the submission of this province to the senate in 22 BC. As his inscription was set up in Athens, the older nickname Macedonica cannot have been replaced by the younger Hispana yet.
But this nickname of Hispana or Hispaniensis (see CIL V 7443, Ephem. VIII nr. 530, CIL X 6098) necessarily supposes that the legions was stationed in Spain for a substantial period and was gloriously engaged in the quelling of the northern Spanish insurrections against the Roman occupation, which lasted until 19 BC.

Even if this name was not granted officially, but, as is very common in legions named after peoples and countries, was given by other soldiers at its arrival in another part of the empire, after coming from Spain, the end result cannot be refuted: this legion belonged to a Spanish army early in the Imperial Age. To a certain extent this is confirmed by the following inscription Ephem. Epigr. VIII nr.530: “M. Aemili M. f. Pob(lilia) Soteriae equities domo Oscensis…veterani leg. VIIII Hispanie(n)s(is)… The Spanish homeland of this soldier is understandable if the Legion was in Spain when he went into its service. Subsequently, certainly still under Augustus, he settled in Cales as Veteranus and or is shown to be) of the Tribus Poblilia, related to this city, and not Quirina, the Tribus of his old fatherland. (different explanation in Von Domaszewski Bonn. Jahrb. CXVII 68.9)
But a little while after the crushing of the greater part of the Spanish rebellion in 19 BC, the legion was sent to a different theatre of war, Illyricum, where we already find its nickname Hisp(ana) on an early tombstone (CIL V 911). Literary records however begin only in 14 CE (Tac., Ann. I.23 and 30) but some of its memorials surely belong to the Augustan age. A fragment (CIL III 13977) from Gardun in Dalmatia belongs in the period before the division of Illyricum, which took place during the great Dalmatian-Pannonian rebellion in 6 CE: Sex. Cornelius Sex. f. Camilia Nonanus veter[anus…], if it were certain that Nonanus here refers to a member of the VIIIIth legion. After the division of Illyricum, Leg. VIIII was allocated to the army of Illyricum inferius (=Pannonia). In Aquileia, the road junction and military support and jumping-off base for all operations in Illyricum, several early tombstones of soldiers of Leg. VIIII have been found (CIL V 911, 947, Pais Suppl. P.24 nr. 180; likewise from Histria CIL V 8197, the stone of the Centurio CIL V 906 is younger). In the period before the installation of an Imperial Province Illyricum, while only a single commandant was in command of the Exercitus Illyricus here (Arch. Epigr. Mitt. XX 1897, 1-4), Aquileia may continually have been a legionary camp as well. But later, from 11 BC onwards, all legions were transferred further inland.
In 14CE, the three Pannonian legions were together in one summer camp (Tac., Ann. I.16), but were in separate camps in winter (Ann. I.30… suis quisque hibernis redderentur) and therefore marched out of the summer camp one after another. The VIIIIth will have stood along the rivercourse of the Save, surely in Siscia, certainly no further downstream.
In 20CE the legion was transferred to Africa as reinforcements for Legio III Augusta, as the troubles with the Numidian Tacfarinas could not be repressed definitively. The legion met with Calpurnius Piso, who had been called away from Syria, on the Via Flaminia (Tac., Ann. III.9). On this episode in the legion’s history, see: Cagnat, L’Armée Rom. d’Afrique² 13.19.10f.

[1666]
In the overview on the placement of the legions in the various provinces in 23 CE, Legio VIIII is therefore counted as one of the two African legions (Tac., Ann. IV.5). Its legate, P.Cornelius Scipio, was in command of one of the columns operating in the war against Tacfarinas (Tac.Ann. III.74). After the successes in the following years under command of Proconsul Iunius Blaesus, the danger of Tacfarinas seemed eliminated. The emperor therefore ordered the legion moved back in 24 CE (Tac. Ann. IV.23: reportari nonam legionem iusserat). Pfitzner’s guess that the legion was posted to Spain, is supported by no evidence whatsoever, and is refuted by the linguistic expression ‘reportari’ alone. This can only mean that the legion was called back to the province from which it had been sent away, so that means Pannonia (see also Cagnat, L’Armée Rom.¹ 100, 4). The legion probably settled back in its old winter camp (Siscia?).
To that period in Illyricum, starting with the Augustan age, belong the inscriptions from veterans buried in their homeland (CIL V 5218, 5818, 7443). The miles leg. VIIII signifer who was distinguished with “palarae, torques and armillae’, surely belonging to the Augustan period (CIL V 7495), would have been allowed to go back to his homeland, judging from the findspot of his tombstone. Before Claudius’ reign we know the following primipili of this legion: ….urius C. f. Gallus (CIL X 6098, following v. Domaszewski’s addition) and …I]ulius C. f. (CIL XII 261).
Legio VIIII departed from Pannonia when the army for the conquest of Britain was collected during 42/43 CE. The designated commander in chief, the consular Aulus Plautius, until that time governor of Pannonia (Ritterling, Arch. Epigr. Mitt. XX 8f.), brought a trusted familiar legion from his own province with him to the island, precisely the VIIIIth, perhaps together with vexillations from both other legions. It is however only mentioned in 61 CE for the first time·, when it was resoundingly defeated (Tac. Ann. XIV 32), while it was trying to come to the aid of the threated colony of Camulodunum during the British rebellion. It was at that time under command of the legate Petilius Cerialis. Inscriptions however point back to the start of the occupation and allow an insight into the participation of the legion in the conquest and occupation of the island. These questions have been carefully tackled and answered by Hübner. Herm. 535ff and Panzer Histor. Unters. für A. Schäfer 174f. and most recent by G. Teuber, Beitr. zur Gesch. der Eroberung Britanniens (Breslauer Stud. zur Gesch. III 1909).
1667

According to this (study), the legion operated out of Londinium in a northerly direction and pacified the British tribes. Possibly still under A. Plautius, at the latest under his successor Ostorius, the legion marched north to the borders of the realm of the powerful Brigantes. There its basecamp became Lindum starting 48CE, as four tombstones show without any doubt. Three of these soldiers (CIL VII 183, 188 + 196 = Ephem. IX p.557 and nr. 1111) have no cognomen as yet, so were surely buried during Claudius’ reign, which corresponds to the style and form of the inscriptions. The fourth memorial, set up for a born Spaniard, belongs probably to Nero’s reign (CIL VII 184 and Ephem. Epigr. IX p.556). Here the legion had its winter camp during the revolt in 61 CE and it was to this camp that its legate Cerialis retreated with the survivors of the defeat – according to Tacitus only the legionary cavalry -, staying there until the victory of the XIIIIth and XXth legion eliminated the danger and a strong contingent from the German legions brought the legion back up to strength (Tac. Ann. XIV 38). Probably the troubles of 68/69 also found the legion in its old camp, from which a vexillatio left to escort Vitellius, recognized as emperor by the British army, to Italia and Rome· and shared in his defeat at Cremona (Tac. Hist. II.57; 100; III.1; 22).
When in 71 CE Petilius Cerialis, the legion’s former legate, returned to the island as its governor by Vespasian’s command and started an energetic offensive to the north and west of the occupied areas, Legio VIIII Hispana left its camp at Lindum, which it had occupied for about 25 years, for a new one at Eburacum. The inscriptions and other finds here seem to be no earlier than the Flavian period. The only accurately dated inscription, coincidentally the youngest one as well, is the inscription announcing the legion’s building activities under Trajan in 108/109 (CIL VII 241) (also known as RIB 665 as seen on my website, SM). Tiles with the legionary stamp are rare (VII 1224 a, b and e; Ephem. VII nr. 1123). One altar has been set up by a corni(cen) belonging to the legion (Ephem VII nr. 928); two tombstones of soldiers are CIL VII 243, 244. Outside of the main camp, tiles have been very infrequently found (VII 1224 c and d), and north of Hadrian’s wall in Carlisle (Luguvallium?): Ephem. Epigr. IX p.646 nr. 1270 = Arch. Journ. XLIX 1881 p.199f.; up till now it’s not yet proven if the legion was one of the units building the wall. Vespasian discharged some veterans of the VIIIIth legion back to his own birthplace, Reate (CIL IX 4685, 4689).
1668

In the second half of Vespasian’s reign, the legion was commanded by C. Caristanius C.f. Ser(gia) Fronto, who is attested in an honorary inscription found in the native city of his family, Antiochia Pisidiae, “leg. Imp. divi Vespasiani Aug. leg. IX Hispanae in Britann(ia)” (Journ. Rom. Stud. III 1913 p.260 nr. 4). Since he got his next appointment, the governorship of Lycia Pamphylia, from Titus, he will have held this command till the last years of Vespasian’s reign, and therefore was in command of the legion under Iulius Agricola in his first campaigns. During the later years of Agricola’s governorship, the legion gave up a strong vexillatio under command of the legion’s tribunus laticlavius, L. Roscius Aelianus, for the war against the Chatti in 83 CE (CIL XIV 3612). A trace of this vexillatio is found on the tilestamps of Mirebeau, from which we learn that the other British legions also sent vexillations, albeit smaller ones, together with the VIIIIth (Ritterling, Österr. Jahresh. VII Beibl. 26). Shortly after 83 CE, these units took part in large building projects in the land of the Lingones together with vexillations of the five legions from Germania Superior under command of the primuspilus C. Velius Rufus (see the inscription ILS 9200). That the VIIIIth legion sent an especially large detachment of 1000 men, is confirmed both by the senatorial rank of its commander and by Tacitus’ description in Agricola 26: in the sixth year of Agricola’s governorship, thus in 83/84 CE, the enemy, appraised of the plan to operate in three columns, attacked Legio VIIII Hispana, because it was the weakest (universi nonam legionem ut maxime invalidam adgressi…); only Agricola’s personal appearance prevented a grave defeat and drove out the enemy troops that already entered the campsite.
Very little is known about the legion for the next 40 years. There isn’t even any indication if the legion took part in the Danube campaigns of Domitian and Trajan or the latter’s Parthian war.
Soon after, the legion must have been destroyed. From the last parts of Fronto’s words (p. 218 N. Hadriano imperium optinente quantum militum a Iudacis, quantum a Britannia caesum) it has rightly been concluded that the legion was destroyed in Hadrian’s reign. It is generally thought that the dangerous British revolt which had to be put down in 119/120, was the cause (see also Weber, Hadrian 110f); the destruction of the legion would have had as a direct consequence the transfer from Germania of Legio VI Victrix. That can however on other grounds also be dated to 121/122. Against this perceptive conclusion, however, the following facts are pertinent. Looking at their later careers, several tribunes of senatorial rank cannot have served in the legion before 120. This is not valid for L. Burbulcius Optatus Ligarianus, who was governor of Cappadocia at Hadrian’s death, and therefore was consul under Hadrian. He may have been trib. Laticlav. IX Hispan. in Trajan’s later years (CIL X 6006). But L. Aemilius Karus, who governed Arabia as praetor seemingly in 142/143 under Antoninus Pius (inscription from Gerasa, AE 1909, 236), must have advanced very slowly in his career if he was tribune in Leg. VIIII Hispana before 120 CE. The tribunate wasn’t even the beginning of a career. And highly improbably seems the possibility of L. Novius Crispinus Martialis Saturninus, who commanded Legio III Augusta in Africa in 147-149 and reached the consulate at the earliest in 150 or 151 (CIL VIII 2747, 18273. Prosopogr. II 447 nr. 144). If he were trib. mil. leg. VIIII Hispan. before 119 CE, at that time about 20 years old, then he would have needed over 30 years to reach the consulate, a period that was very uncommon of all times in this period. So we must take into account the possibility that a second British revolt took place in the middle or latter part of the 120’s, in which the legion was destroyed.