Talk:Legio VIIII Hispania

So is there a story behind the "VIIII" (as opposed to "IX")??

Roman Numerology

Maccalus: Yes, the Legion was referred to as 'VIIII' in several surviving inscriptions, particularly those commemorating the Judean War. Romans were very superstitious, and they often corrupted their "pure" system of Roman numerals so that their numbers were written in ways more auspicious under various numerological systems. Five ('V') was held to be the sacred number of Mars, the Roman god of war, and there is no 'V' anywhere in 'IX' (except in one little-understood numerological system where the 'X' was held to be an upright 'V' sitting on top of another upside-down 'V!') It's only natural that soldiers marching off to battle would try to propitiate their god of war with offerings on behalf of the 'VIIII' legion instead of the 'IX' legion, especially considering that the god of war was already thought to favor the the numeral 'V!' This sort of number-play wasn't limited to the military... followers of Hermes/Thoth/Mercury considered the number "two" to be sacred and inscribed the number in all sorts of bizarre ways that held significance for them... the number was sometimes written "IIIV," or even "VIIIX," for numerological reasons. They also took note of the fact that 'II' is written nearly the same in Roman numerals regardless of whether it appears vertically or horizontally, due to the bars appearing at the tops and bottoms of Roman numerals. You also have examples of Roman words made up of letters which are also Roman numerals-- especially significant under Latin numerological systems. The most famous of these is the word, "LVX," lux, meaning "light," which also has a literal number-value of 65 in corrupted Roman numerals. By the way, in addition to the '9' in "Ninth Legion" being written "IX" and "VIIII," there are also surviving Roman inscriptions where '9' is written "VIV" (also the Latin root for "life") and even "IVV" because these numbers were thought to be more favorable to Mars.

This sort of stuff is mostly academic, but it interests me. Military service was thought to be a sacred duty in the early Imperial era, especially during the Claudian dynasty. Even rank-and-file soldiers had to go through a ceremonial investiture, dedicating themselves to Mars and the art of warfare, before they could enlist. We don't have anything comparable to Roman state religion in modern Western civilization-- it permeated everything! I'm reading and researching, and want to try to capture some of this symbolism in the inner workings of our company.

Great question!