386 Remains of the Roman Station at Cappuck. 



For some time afterwards, during the campaigns of Germanicns on the 

 Rhine, it saw a considerable amoant of hard serWce, forming, through the 

 greater portion of the period, a powerful and celebrated rear-guard ; on 

 more than one occasion having to restore victory to the disordered ranks 

 of the army. Little or nothing else is known of it until the year a.d. 43, 

 when it formed one of the four legions sent over to Britain for the 

 conquest and permanent occupation of the country. At the time of the 

 overthrow of Vitellius, and before Yespasian had reached Rome, the 

 governor of that city appointed the celebrated Agricola to command this 

 legion, which, according to Tacitus, had been unmanageable and 

 formidable even to commanders of consular dignity, and their late 

 commander (Roscius Caelius) of praetorian rank, had not sufficient 

 authority to keep them in obedience. The legion was at first unwilling 

 to own allegiance to Yespasian, but, by the tact of Agricola, eventually 

 did so. Agricola appears to have been in Britain in command of it for 

 about two years, a.d. 69-71 ; and when, some seven years afterwards, he 

 was appointed Imperial Legate, the Twentieth, with the other legions in 

 Britain, accompanied him in his expedition to Scotland. 



In Hadrian's reign this Legion, with the Second and Sixth, built the 

 celebrated Wall between the Tyne and the Solway. When it returned to 

 the south, on the completion of the Wall, is not at present known, but in 

 the reign of the next Emperor, Antoninus Pius, it was again engaged, 

 with the Second and Sixth Legions, in building the still more northern 

 Wall between Forth and Clyde, on which it has left numerous 

 inscriptions. This was about a.d. 140-144. 



It probably did not leave Scotland for eight or nine years afterwards, 

 making a short stay on the Northumbrian Wall whilst en route to the 

 south. This I gather from the fact that at Birdoswald, on the last named 

 Wall, an altar to the British god, Cocidius, erected, as its inscription tells 

 us, 'by the soldiers of the Twentieth Legion,' and dated about a.d. 153, 

 has been found ; whilst two others, ' by the soldiers of the Second 

 Legion,' and by 'a vexillation of the Sixth Legion,' were with it. In 

 the next year, whether the legion was at Deva or not, an altar was 

 erected there, by one of its officers, to Jupiter Sanarus. When Severus 

 and Caracalla visited Chester in a.d. 207 or 208, it was most certainly 

 at that castrum, as the altar erected by Flavius Longus proves ; and 

 either the whole legion or some part of it, went with these emperors to 

 the Caledonian campaign. A vexillation of it stopped in the north for 

 some years, with a vexillation of the Second Legion, and they are both 

 commemorated in an inscription of the reign of Blagabulus found at 

 Netherby, dated between a.d. 219 and 222. This appears so far to be 

 the latest dated inscription which has come to light concerning this 

 legion. 



After this, its history can only be imagined : that it remained at 

 Deva until nearly the close of the Roman domination seems certain ; 

 but, as already said, it had left Britain when the Novitia was compiled, 

 circa, a.d. 400. 



