Legio V Macedonica

Legio V Macedonica (the Fifth Macedonian Legion) was a Roman legion. It was established in 43 BC by consul Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus and Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (later known as the Emperor Augustus), and was based in the Balkan provinces of Macedonia, Moesia and Dacia. In the Notitia Dignitatum records from beginning of the fifth century, the legion was still stationed in Dacia, with detachments stationed in the east and Egypt.

The last known evidence shows the legion, or detachments from it, stationed in Egypt in the seventh century one or two years before the Islamic conquest of Egypt. It is often assumed that the legion fought in this war and was destroyed, although it is uncertain whether detachments or the whole legion were in Egypt, and there is no further evidence of the legion's eventual fate. Regardless, the duration in which the legion is known to have been extant—from 43 BC to at least c. AD 635—makes it one of the longest-serving Roman legions; possibly, the single most long-lived of all.

Its symbol was the bull, but the eagle was used as well.

The Legio V was one of the original twenty-eight legions raised by Octavian. There are two other fifth legions recorded: the V Gallica and the V Urbana. It is possible that these both were early names for the V Macedonica. The legion probably participated in the Battle of Actium (31 BC). It later moved to Macedonia, where it stayed from 30 BC to AD 6,^{[citation needed]} gaining its cognomen, before moving to Oescus (Moesia).

It took part in the suppression of rebellion among the Thracians south of the Balkan Range during the establishment of the new province of Moesia in AD 45.

In 62, some vexillationes of the Fifth fought under Lucius Caesennius Paetus in the Nero's Parthian War in Armenia. After the defeat of the Battle of Rhandeia, the whole V Macedonica, together with III Gallica, VI Ferrata, and X Fretensis under the command of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, was sent to the east to fight in the conclusion of the war.

The Fifth was probably still in the East when the First Jewish–Roman War in Iudaea Province began in 66. Nero gave the V Macedonica, the X Fretensis and the XV Apollinaris to Titus Flavius Vespasianus to counter the revolt. In 67, in Galilee, the city of Sepphoris surrendered peacefully to the Roman army, and later the V Macedonica conquered Mount Gerizim, the chief sanctuary of the Samaritans. In the Year of the Four Emperors, 68, the legion stayed inactive in Emmaus, where several tombstones of soldiers of the V Macedonica remain. After the proclamation of Vespasian as Emperor and the end of the war under his son Titus, the V Macedonica left Iudaea and returned to Oescus in 71. It took part in the first phase of Domitian's Dacian War in 85-86.

In 96 emperor Hadrian served the legion as an officer (tribunus militum).