Legio I Augusta Roman Vexillum

Legio I Augusta, perhaps the heir of a previous Legio I of Caesar or Pompey, was reorganized in the Augustan age and linked to the name of the princeps as a particularly prestigious unit.

Initially employed in the civil wars alongside Caesar, it participated in Pharsalus in 48 BC and then, after the dictator's assassination, came under Lepidus and then Octavian, fighting at Actium against Antony and Cleopatra. It was precisely in the great restructuring of the armies following the victory of Actium that the legion probably received the appellation Augusta, as a seal of the loyalty shown to the future Augustus.

Between 30 and 16 BC, Legio I Augusta was stationed in Hispania Tarraconensis, where it took part in the harsh Cantabrian Wars, although sources recall the shame of losing one of its vexilla, an episode that cost the legion a severe punishment and, according to some traditions, the temporary revocation of the honorary title linked to the emperor's name. Subsequently, the unit was involved in operations along the Rhine, where its "ashes" merged into Legio I Germanica, destined for the Germanic fronts of the imperial age.