Note 182 — Chapter XI · JUDAEA AND THE JEWS.

It is not quite clear what were the arrangements for the forces occupying Syria after the Parthian war was ended in the year 63. At its close there were seven legions stationed in the East, the four originally Syrian, 3d Gallica, 6th Ferrata, 10th Fretensis, 12th Fulminata, and three brought up from the West, the 4th Scythica from Moesia (I. 213), the 5th Macedonica, probably from the same place (I. 219; for which probably an upper German legion was sent to Moesia I. 132), the 15th Apollinaris from Pannonia (I. 219). Since, excepting Syria, no Asiatic province was at that time furnished with legions, and the governor of Syria certainly in times of peace had never more than four legions, the Syrian army beyond doubt had at that time been brought back, or at least ought to have been brought back, to this footing. The four legions which accordingly were to remain in Syria were, as this was most natural, the four old Syrian ones; for the 3d had in the year 70 just marched from Syria to Moesia (Suetonius, Vesp. 6; Tacitus, Hist. ii. 74), and that the 6th, 10th, 12th belonged to the army of Cestius follows from Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 18, 9, c. 19, 7; vii. 1, 3. Then, when the Jewish war broke out, seven legions were again destined for Asia, and of these four for Syria (Tacitus, Hist. i. 10), three for Palestine; the three legions added were just those employed for the Parthian war, the 4th, 5th, 15th, which perhaps at that time were still in course of marching back to their old quarters. The 4th probably went at that time definitively to Syria, where it thenceforth remained; on the other hand, the Syrian army gave off the 10th to Vespasian, presumably because this had suffered least in the campaign of Cestius. In addition he received the 5th and the 15th. The 5th and the 10th legions came from Alexandria (Josephus, Bell. Jud. iii. 1, 3, c. 4, 2); but that they were brought up from Egypt cannot well be conceived, not merely because the 10th was one of the Syrian, but especially because the march by land from Alexandria on the Nile to Ptolemais through the middle of the insurgent territory at the beginning of the Jewish war could not have been so narrated by Josephus. Far more probably Titus went by ship from Achaia to Alexandria on the Gulf of Issus, the modern Alexandretta, and brought the two legions thence to Ptolemais. The orders to march may have reached the 15th somewhere in Asia Minor, since Vespasian, doubtless in order to take them over, went to Syria by land (Josephus, Bell. Jud. iii. 1, 3). To these three legions, with which Vespasian began the war, there was added under Titus a further one of the Syrian, the 12th. Of the four legions that occupied Jerusalem the two previously Syrian remained in the East, the 10th in Judaea, the 12th in Cappadocia, while the 5th returned to Moesia, and the 15th to Pannonia (Josephus, Bell. Jud. vii. 1, 3, c. 5, 3).