Valerius ~ia ~ium, a. FORMS: orig. wri- ten Valesius, as in Elog. 42 (CIL I.p.202); cf. QUINT. Inst.1.4.13, POMPON.dig.1.2.2.36 PAUL.Fest.p.23M 1 (masc., fem.) A Roman gentile name 2 (as adj.) Of or belonging to the Valerii Oxford Latin Dictionary

A heartfelt plea: Will people finally realise that there was no such legion as XX Valeria.

The matter should have been put to rest by McPake 1981 and Tomlin 1992, but still it appears in accounts of the conquest or early history of Roman Britain. In fact I have a book before me published in 1999 in which the legion is referred to as XX Valeria right up to its arrival at Chester. Let me reiterate - there is no literary or epigraphic evidence that it ever bore that title alone, indeed where there is only one name given it is always Victrix, which appears to have been the official short title (see especially CIL VI 3492; ILS 9200; Ptolemy Geography II.3.11; Antonine Itinerary 469₂).

Paradoxically we owe both of these suggestions to Ritterling 1925 (who was usually right, and here suffers from the embellishments of later writers). Ritterling made the attractive connection between the events of AD6 under Valerius Messalinus and the title Valeria (to which we shall return), but went on to emphasise the above point about the use of XX Victrix. Later writers, with the events of the year AD60 rather more to the front of their minds and with the example of legio XIV Martia Victrix before them, hit upon the notion that the XXth was styled Valeria after AD6 and became Valeria Victrix after the suppression of the Boudiccan revolt in AD60.

This remains the most likely context for the award - of both titles. The discovery of a remarkable document at Carlisle, recording the loan of 100 denarii between two soldiers of the legion and dated to 7 Nov 83

led Tomlin to suggest a later context, in recognition of service in the Caledonian campaigns under its former commander Agricola. However, the argument from absence is not strong (as he is the first to admit) and there are a number of 2nd century inscriptions, and other inscribed material, in which the titles are omitted.

The meaning of Valeria in this context remains obscure. Despite attempts to treat it as somehow cognate with valeo and hence translate as 'valiant' or 'valorous', there are no literary parallels for such usage. Birley's suggestion after Florus and Cicero (McPake 1981) is ingenious, as ever, but even allowing that the name Valerius had specific auspicious and military associations, this unique case remains puzzling - as unique cases so often do.

One further note: ‘victorious (black) eagle’
This translation appears in de la Bedoyere (2001, 45) and has crept into use in a number of online references of varying quality. Although this has the authority of Lewis and Short, it needs a degree of qualification. Valeria appears in early editions of Pliny’s Natural History (10.3 ‘melanaetos a Graecis dicta, eadem in valeria’), but later editors reject the difficult ‘in valeria’ for leporaria (see for example the version available through Perseus, or that on the Lacus Curtius site). Lewis and Short gloss valeria, but it is leporaria which appears in their successors, e.g. the Oxford Latin Dictionary. Of course, even if we accept the reading valeria, the translation, although an understandable shorthand, does not necessarily follow: rather than ‘valeria, the black eagle’, we have ‘valeria, the eagle known to the Greeks as the black eagle’. What the Latin term might actually mean in that case is another matter entirely.

Further reading

Ritterling, E. 1925. ‘Legio (XX valeria victrix)’ in Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll Real-Encyclopadie der Altertumswissenschaft XII, 1769-1781.

Tomlin, RSO, 1992. 'The Twentieth Legion at Wroxteter and Carlisle in the First Century: The Epigraphic Evidence' Britannia 23, 141-158

Legio XX Valeria Victrix by Steve Malone is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.