page_title: Legio IX Hispana
section_title: In fiction and popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Legio IX Hispana / In fiction and popular culture
caption_attribution_description: Photo of the silchester eagle
context_page_description: Legio IX Hispana, also written Legio nona Hispana or Legio VIIII Hispana, was a legion of the Imperial Roman army that existed from the 1st century BC until at least AD 120. The legion fought in various provinces of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was stationed in Britain following the Roman invasion in 43 AD. The legion disappears from surviving Roman records after c. AD 120 and there is no extant account of what happened to it.
  The unknown fate of the legion has been the subject of considerable research and speculation. One theory was that the legion was wiped out in action in northern Britain soon after 108, the date of the latest datable inscription of the Ninth found in Britain, perhaps during a rising of northern tribes against Roman rule. This view was popularised by the 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth in which the legion is said to have marched into Caledonia, after which it was "never heard of again".
context_section_description: The Ninth Legion's mysterious disappearance has made it a popular subject for historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.
  In Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 historical novel The Eagle of the Ninth, a young Roman officer, Marcus Flavius Aquila, is trying to recover the Eagle standard  of his father's legion beyond Hadrian's Wall.
  A Home Service radio dramatisation of  The Eagle of the Ninth was broadcast on Children's Hour in about 1956.
  In Alan Garner's 1973 novel Red Shift, one narrative involves a group of Roman soldiers who are survivors of the Legion's destruction, trying to survive in hostile, 2nd-century Cheshire.
  In Karl Edward Wagner's 1976 fantasy novel Legion from the Shadows (featuring Robert E. Howard's Bran Mak Morn), the survivors of the Ninth flee underground where they interbreed with the Worms of the Earth.
  A BBC television serial was made of The Eagle of the Ninth in 1977.
  The 1979 historical novel Legions of the Mists by Amanda Cockrell recounts the destruction of the Ninth Hispania by an attack by combined tribes in Scotland.
  In David Gemmell's "Stones of Power" historical fantasy series,  (1988–1991) the Ninth have been trapped in Limbo and are released by the protagonists (Uther Pendragon in Ghost King and Alexander the Great in Dark Prince (1991)) to help in battles.
  In Will Murray's 1993 Doc Savage novel, The Forgotten Realm,  the Ninth Hispana founded a city called Novum Eboracum ("New York") in the African Congo, surviving until at least the 1930s.
  A full-cast radio dramatization of The Eagle of the Ninth was broadcast by BBC4 in 1996.
  In Marion Zimmer Bradley's Lady of Avalon historical fantasy novel, (1997) the Ninth is destroyed in a battle with the native Britons, from which the hero Gawen escapes to return to Avalon.
  In Susanna Kearsley's 1997 novel The Shadowy Horses, an archaeologist believes he has found the remains of a fort that housed the Ninth Legion in remote Eyemouth, Scotland.
  N. M. Browne's 2000 Warriors of Alavna accounts for the disappearance of the Legion by transporting it to an alternative reality.
  Valerio Massimo Manfredi's 2002 historical novel  L'ultima legione (The Last Legion)  depicts the Ninth Legion as being part of the legend of King Arthur.
  Jim Butcher's Codex Alera fantasy series (2004–2009) is populated by the descendants of the Ninth Legion and its camp followers, who were transported to the world of Carna.
  The 2006 album Caledonia by German Celtic metal band Suidakra includes a song "The IXth Legion" about the legion's fight with the Picts.
  The 2007 movie The Last Legion based upon the Manfredi novel.
  In Stephen Lorne Bennett's 2010 historical novel Last of the Ninth the Ninth Legion is destroyed by the Parthians under General Chosroes, in Cappadocia in 161 AD.
  The 2010 movie Centurion follows the destiny of the Ninth Legion, as seen from the perspective of centurion Quintus Dias.
  The 2011 movie The Eagle is based on the book The Eagle of the Ninth.
  The 2013 book The Eagle has Fallen written by Brian Young also subscribes to the theory that the Legion was destroyed in Britain.
  The 2017 Doctor Who episode "The Eaters of Light" features the remnants of the Ninth Legion, which was wiped out by an extradimensional being.
  In Marc Alan Edelheit's 2017 book Lost Legio IX: The Karus Saga the remains of the IXth, about to be destroyed by the native Britons, find themselves transported to another planet where they will rebuild a Roman civilization.
  In the TV series Britannia
  In Kate Atkinson's novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum, set in 20th-century York, the ghosts of the members of Legio IX—together with those of people from other periods in York's history—celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and raise aloft their legion's Eagle in the new Queen's honour.
caption: The Silchester eagle, the Roman eagle that inspired Sutcliff's novel. According to Reading Museum, it "is not a legionary eagle but has been immortalized as such by Rosemary Sutcliff."[35]
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