page_title: Legio XX Valeria Victrix
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Legio XX Valeria Victrix / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Deva Minerva Plan (reconstruction)
context_page_description: Legio vigesima Valeria Victrix, in English Twentieth Victorious Valeria Legion was a legion of the Imperial Roman army.
  The origin of the Legion's name is unclear and there are various theories, but the legion may have gained its title Valeria Victrix from a victory it achieved during the Great Illyrian revolt under the command of the general Marcus Valerius Messalla Messallinus.
  The legion had a boar as its emblem.
context_section_description: The legion was probably founded shortly after 31 BC by the emperor Augustus.
  XX Valeria victrix was probably part of the large Roman force that fought in the Cantabrian Wars in Hispania from 25 to 19 BC.
  The legion then moved to Burnum in Illyricum at the beginning of the Pannonian uprising (Bellum Batonianum) in AD 6. It is recorded operating against the Marcomanni in AD 6 in the army of Tiberius.
  In Illyria they were led by the governor of Illyricum, Marcus Valerius Messalla Messallinus, who may have given his clan (gens) name Valeria to the legion. Although understrength, they managed to defeat the rebels led by Bato of the Daesitiates. In one battle the legion cut through the enemy lines, was surrounded, and cut its way out again.
  After the disaster of Varus in AD 9, XX Valeria Victrix moved to Germania Inferior and was based at Oppidum Ubiorum, then moved to Novaesium at the site of modern Neuss during Tiberius' reign.
  The legion was one of the four with which Claudius invaded Britain in 43 AD. It was also one of the two legions that defeated Caratacus at the Battle of Caer Caradoc, after which, from the AD 50s, it was encamped at Camulodunum, with a few units at Kingsholm in Gloucester.
  Around AD 55 it moved to Usk, for the conquest of the Silures, a tribe very resistant to the imposition of Roman rule in Wales. In AD 60 or 61 the Twentieth helped put down the revolt of queen Boudica, after having routed the Ordovices by crossing Menai Strait in Wales to destroy the Druids' sacred groves in 58. In AD 66, the legion was transferred to Viroconium (Wroxeter). 
  In the year of the four emperors, the legion sided with Vitellius. Some units went with him to Rome.  In AD 78–84, the legion was part of Gnaeus Julius Agricola's campaigns in northern Britannia and Caledonia, and built the base at Inchtuthill. In AD 88 the legion returned south and occupied Castra Deva (Deva Victrix), where it remained based for at least two centuries.
  The Twentieth was among the legions involved with the construction of Hadrian's Wall, and the discovery of stone altars commemorating their work in Caledonia suggests that they had some role in building the Antonine Wall.
  The legion probably went on campaign in 196 under Decimus Clodius Albinus into Gaul, and would have suffered heavy losses in Gaul before returning to Britain.
  During the Carausian Revolt, which established the Britannic Empire under Carausius and Allectus in the 280s and 290s, the XX Valeria Victrix was still active. No further information is known after this period and scholars believe the XX legion was still stationed in Britain when the usurper Constantine III pulled the bulk of the military forces from there in the year 407 for his doomed campaign on the continent.
  This legion has been much studied; at least 250 members of the legion have been identified in surviving inscriptions.
caption: Legio XX built Deva Victrix (now Chester), a Roman castrum shown in the figure. The Legio was stationed in Roman Britain until the beginning of the fifth century
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