XIII Gemina
Heavy Infantry(0.6.7)Side / Back
Short description
Legio XIII, the 13th Legion (after 31 BC known as Legio XIII Gemina, the twin legion), is one of the more historically noteworthy Roman legions, as it was one of Julius Caesar's armies used in Gaul, and also for his civil war.
Description
Legio XIII, the 13th Legion (after 31 BC known as Legio XIII Gemina, the twin legion), is one of the more historically noteworthy Roman legions, as it was one of Julius Caesar's armies used in Gaul, and also for his civil war. Its icon was a lion. It was the legion he famously crossed the Rubicon with on January 10, 49 BC. After Caesar's victory, the legion was retired and its veterans settled, in 45 BC. In 41 BC Legio XIII was reactivated by Augustus to deal with the rebellion of Sextus Pompey.
In 16 BC, the legion was transferred to Emona (now Ljubljana) in Pannonia, where they dealt with local rebellions. After the disaster of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, the legion was sent as reinforcements to Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), and then to Vindonissa, Raetia, to prevent further attacks from the Germanic tribes.
Emperor Claudius sent them back to Pannonia around 45; the legion camped at Poetovio (modern Ptuj, Slovenia). In the year of the four emperors (69), XIII Gemina supported first Otho and then Vespasian against Vitellius, fighting in the two Battles of Bedriacum.
Under Trajan the Legion took part in both Dacian wars (101-102, 105-106), and it was transferred by Trajan in 106 to the newly conquered province of Dacia (in Apulum, modern Alba Iulia, Romania) to garrison it. Vexillationes of the XIII Gemina fought under Emperor Gallienus in northern Italy. Another vexillatio was present in the army of the emperor of the Gallic Empire Victorinus: this emperor, in fact, issued a gold coin celebrating the legion and its emblem.
In 271, the legion was relocated when the province of Dacia was evacuated under Aurelian, and restationed in Dacia Aureliana, which was, in reality, a piece of Moesia that had been re-named. The Notitia Dignitatum, written at the beginning of the 5th century AD, has the legion stationed in Babylon in Egypt, a strategic fortress on the Nile at the traditional border between Lower Egypt and Middle Egypt.
The legion was probably integrated into the army of the Eastern Roman Empire after the Western half of the Empire collapsed in 476 AD.