The oldest traces of the legion after the organisation of the unified imperial army by Augustus suggest that Spain was the province where it was stationed. The veterans of legiones V and X were settled in the colony Augusta Emerita in Hispania Ulterior, which was re-established in 729 = 25 BC by Augustus‘ governor P. Carisius, as the coins of the town prove (Cohen I2 p. 149 no. 594. 595), and since the settlers came from the army which had successfully battled the Spanish tribes (Cass. Dio LIII 26, 1), we may assume that the Vth was already deployed in Spain at the time of the redistribution of troops in 30 BC. The representation of a helmet decorated with a peculiar crest, which can be found on coins from Emerita (so Hübner o. vol. V p. 2493, see also CIL II Suppl. p. LXXXVIII) could be regarded as a hint at the title of the legion Alaudae. The veterans of the Vth were settled also in Corduba (Cohen I2 p. 150 no. 605) and perhaps in Hispalis (CIL II 1176) (see also De leg. X gem. p. 23 adn. 6. Pfitzner 102). There is absolutely no other evidence for the presence of the legion in Spain; where the permanent camp of the legion was situated is unknown. The only thing we know for sure is that the legion also belonged to the army of Hispania ulterior after the assignment of X gem., the legion hitherto closely linked with V Alaudae, to the army of Hispania citerior (see below leg. X gem.). The centurion Sabidius, who served under Augustus in the Spanish legion  (CIL IX 4122. v. Domaszewski Arch. epigr. Mitt. XV 186 comment 38), probably had to change Hispania ulterior for Hispania citerior when he was transferred from legio V to legio VI. The total lack of inscriptions of the legion in Spain (the military tribune of CIL II 4188 falls into the period when the legion had already long been out of the province) leads to the conclusion that the legion stayed in the province only for a short time.
    The date when the legion was assigned to the Gallo-German

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army is still fairly uncertain. If we view it, as is mostly accepted, as the legio quinta which lost its eagle in the defeat of Lollius in 737 = 17 BC (Vellei. II 97, 1: accepta in Germania clades sub M. Lollio … amissaque legionis quintae aquila vocavit ab urbe in Gallias Caesarem), then the legion abandoned its Spanish posting shortly after the end of the Spanish wars. However if the one which lost its eagle was another Vth legion (V Gallica according to v. Domaszewski Arch. epigr. Mitt. XV 189, see below leg. V Gallica no. XLVIII), then there remains more flexibility in fixing the time of the relocation of the legion; in that case V Alaudae was transferred to Rhine either by the beginning of the great offensive against Germans under Drusus  in 742 = 12  BC (possibly a few years earlier), or first after the Varian disaster in 9 or 10 CE. Here it appears first in the revolt of legions after the death of Augustus, in  the autumn of 14 CE, as a part of the lower army (Tac. ann. I 31). It stayed together with the XXI in a double-camp in Vetera (ann. I 45).
    In this camp, in which the legion remained until the end of its stay on the Rhine, it occupied the prestigious right part. This placing is also visible in the camp built around 45 CE by legiones V Alaudae and XV Prim. through the disposition of bricks of these legions in the two halves of the camp (Bonn. Jahrb. CXVI 313. 338. CXIX 290. CXXII 387. Lehner Röm.-germ. Korr.-Bl. II 1909 p. 50); but the same can be supposed also for earlier camps until the time of Augustus, for the then camp-fellow of the V Alaudae, the XXI Rapax, stayed behind the former in both, age and seniority, as did the XV Prim. at the time of Claudius. In fact this is also confirmed by the position in the marching order of the army in 14 and 15 CE (Tac. ann. I 51 and 64), where the right wing of the marching column seems to have been a standing position of the V legion (Oxé Bonn. Jahrb. CXVIII 1909, 85).
    The location of brick-kilns of V Alaudae, which produced the plentiful brick-material in Vetera, is still unknown; it is certain that they were separate from the brick-kilns of legio XV, because the latter have been found (Bonn. Jahrb. CX 95ff. Steiner Katalog p. 55) and the brick-stamps of legio V are missing.*** However traces of the legionary brickworks of V Alaudae have been found near Sinzig at the mouth of the river Aare (Hagen Bonn. Jahrb. CXIV 190f.), but they have not yet been thoroughly examined;

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the production of, at the least, brow-tiles with the stamp V·_|  at this site is considered certain by Haben (ibid). Bricks of leg. V have only been sporadically found in very few places in the other parts of the military district (Steiner Bonn. Jahrb. CXVIII 253f.): apart from Nijmegen (Brambach 128c 1-4), further  finds have been made in Vechten, Köln/Cologne and perhaps Cleve (Brambach 144a).
    Stone monuments of the legion are little known: besides the inscription on a tombstone CIL XIII 8644 and the fragment XIII 12078 from Xanten, only the tombstones of a missicius (CIL XIII 8711) near Heerlen in Belgium and of a freedman of a centurion CIL XIII 12059 have been found. On a wooden diptych found in Netherlands the name of a member of leg. V, T. Cesdius T. f., can be read among others (Cuq Compt. rend. de l’Acad. des Inser. 1919, 265ff. Année épigr. 1919 no. 51).
    It is doubtful whether the imprint A CAESI•L•V CIL XIII 1003, 1 on an axe found in the Rhine near Mainz can be read as l(egione) (quinta). Moreover, even if this assumption by Oxé is correct, we can hardly infer from it a temporary posting of the men of the legion to Mainz.
    The participation of V Alaudae in the mutiny of legions on the lower Rhine in 14 CE is described by Tacitus ann. I 31 and 45, as is its participation in campaigns against the Germans ann. I 51 and 64. When, in 21 CE, the army on the Rhine had to intervene against revolting Gallic villages (Tac. ann. III 41ff.), a vexillum of leg. V marched, together with detachments of the other three legions on the lower Rhine, under the command of the tribune Novellius Atticus ([trib(uni)] mil(itum) leg. I trib(uni) vexillarior(um) [leg(ionum) q]uattuor I•V•XX•XXI CIL XIV 3602). In 28 CE the legion particularly distinguished itself in the fight against the uprising of the Frisians, under the command of its legionary legate Cethegus Labeo (Tac. ann. IV 73). At the time of Caligula's operations on the Rhine and the coast of the North Sea, the Vth was commanded by the legate Plautius Silvanus Aelianus (CIL XIV 3608). Despite a far-fetched interpretation of the virtually harmless note by Cassius Dio (Pfitzner p. 29), there is no evidence for the participation of the legion in the British campaign of Claudius in 43 CE. However, a vexillation of the legion could have come to Britain affiliated to leg. XX, as was  common practice at that time, although the military decoration bestowed on the trib. mil. leg. V Alaudae by Claudius (CIL IX 3380) cannot be taken as evidence for this.
            In the uprising of the Rhine legions against Galba's rule on 1st January 69 leg.V was one of the most stubborn (Tac. hist. I 55). Part of leg. V, with its eagle, formed the core of the army mobilized from troops on the lower Rhine, which under the command of Fabius Valens had to help emperor Vitellius to gain recognition in Italy (Tac. hist. I 61: inferioris exercitus electi cum aquila quintae legionis). The fate of this detachment of the legion during the fights against Otho and then Vespasian

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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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Flavians would still mostly be visible in its personnel.**** The loss of three imaginiferi and at least five signiferi – we are dealing with the cohors prima of the legion now – which can be infered from a fragment, could happen only through a crushing defeat of any unit; even in a dearly-won victory it is a hardly imaginable loss: the well-founded suggestion of Cichorius (Die röm. Denkmäler in der Dobrudscha 1904, 25f.), that the gravestone does not date from the time of Trajan, is further confirmed by connecting this fragment to V Alaudae’s destruction with Cornelius Fuscus – complete proof must wait for later.

Legati legionis:
Cethegus Labeo, in 28, Tac. ann. IV 73.
Fabius Fabullus, in 69, hist. III 14, see also Prosopogr. II p. 46 no. 23 and 24.
Ti. Plautius M. f. Ani(ensis) Silvanus Aelianus, legat(us) leg(ionis) V in Germania under Caligula, CIL XIV 3608, see also Prosopogr. III p. 47 no. 363.

Tribuni militum:
C. Aemilius C. f. Gal(eria) Fraternus, at the time of Nero, CIL II 4188, conducted the census in Aquitania, perhaps in 61, Tac. ann. XIV 46.
L. Blatius L. f. Ser(gia), at the time of Augustus, seems to have conducted the settlement of veterans of the Vth and Xth legions in Hispalis, CIL II 1176.
Cn. Domitius Sex. f. Vel. Afer Titius Marcellus Curvius Lucanus (laticl.), under Nero, CIL XI 5210.
Cn. Domitius … Tullus (laticl.), under Nero, XI 5211.
(C. Iulius Maximus, cheiliarchon legiônos e, it is uncertain if the Macedonica or the Alaudae, Année épigr. 1908 no. 97.)
……tius Varus, at the time of Claudius, CIL XIV 2960.
Unknown (laticl.), at the time of Claudius, IX 3380.
The commander of the vexillation of the legion together with that of the other legions on the lower Rhine in 21 CE was Torquatus Novellius Atticus, XIV 3602 (see above).

Centuriones:
L. Bruttius Iustus, perhaps at the time of Claudius or Nero, XIII 12059.
(T. Cesdius T. f. (?), wax tablet from Netherlands Année épigr. 1919 no. 51); uncertain reading.
Sabidius C. f. Pap(iria), at the time of Augustus, IX 4122.

Soldier’s origins:
Italia: Mediolanium (CIL XIII 8644), Faventia (VIII 10605 = 14697)

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East: due to the title Arsaces, IX 1460, on the fragment of the Adamklissi monument (III 14214) + smaller fragments, see also Dessau 9107.
Italia: Cemenelum 1, Dertona 1, Roma 1.
Noricum: Celeia 1, Iuvavum 1.
Gallia Narbonensis: Forum Iulii 1, Vienna 1.
Germania: Cl(audia) Ara Agrippinensium 8-9.
Dalmatia: Aequum 1.
Macedonia: Heraclea 1.
Asia Minor: Caes(area) (Cappadociae) 1, Isinda (Galatiae) 1, Nic(aea) Bithyniae) 2.

Names of the legion:
The title Alaudae appears only rarely and only on inscriptions outside its garrison-province, CIL II 4188. V 547. IX 1460. 3380. XI 5210. 5211. Furthermore only the number V: apart from the finds in the Rhine area, by writers and on coins: CIL II 1176. VIII 14697. IX 4122. XIV 3408. 3602. 3608. Not. d. scav. 1906 p. 423. About the names V Gallica and V Urbana see below no. XLVIII and LIII.

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**** Through the whole 1st century a controlled replenishment of gaps in manpower of the legion, produced by natural retirement, was as unknown as a regular discharge of veterans. By the appointment of single probati, over the years the original troops of the legion on the memorial were mixed with a few people from the normal recruitment grounds of the Moesian legions (Macedonia and Orient).