The Legio duodecima Fulminata ("Thunderbolt Twelfth Legion"), also known as Paterna, Victrix, Antiqua, Certa Constans, and Galliena, was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. It was originally levied by Julius Caesar in 58 BC and which accompanied him during the Gallic Wars until 49 BC. The unit was still guarding the Euphrates River crossing near Melitene at the beginning of the 5th century. The legion's emblem was a thunderbolt (fulmen). In later centuries it came to be called commonly, but incorrectly, the Legio Fulminatrix, the Thundering Legion.
Under The Republic
The Twelfth legion, as it is perhaps better known, fought in the Battle against the Nervians, and probably also in the Siege of Alesia. The Twelfth fought at the Battle of Pharsalus (48 BC), when Caesar defeated Pompey. After Caesar won the civil war, the legion was named Victrix, and enlisted in 43 BC by Lepidus and Mark Anthony. Mark Anthony led the Twelfth, renamed XII Antiqua during his campaign against the Parthian Empire.
Legio was a Roman military camp south of Tel Megiddo in the Roman province of Galilee.
Location
The approximate location of the camp of the Legio VI Ferrata was known from the persistence of its name in the form Lajjun by which a Palestinian Arab village was known.
It was close to the ancient town of Rimmon, perhaps the Hadad-rimmon of Zechariah 12:11, which in the 3rd century was renamed Maximianopolis (City of Maximian) by Diocletian in honour of his co-emperor Maximian. Both places were within a single episcopal see, generally called Maximianopolis, but in one list of such sees the name Legionum (genitive plural of the Latin word Legio) is used, where the Greek original has "Maximianopolis".
Recent research
In 2002–2003, an archaeological survey was made in the Legio region by Yotam Tepper as part of his master's thesis. The survey located the legionary camp on the northern slope of El-Manach hill, the village of Ceparcotani on the adjacent hill, and the city of Maximianopolis on the site of the contemporary Kibbutz Megiddo. In 2013 Tepper and the Jezreel Valley Regional Project dug test trenches measuring approximately 295 feet by 16.5 feet that revealed clear evidence of the camp. No military headquarters of this type for this particular period had yet been excavated in the entire Eastern Empire, and the 2013 excavations uncovered defensive earthworks, a circumvallation rampart, barracks areas and artifacts including roof tiles stamped with the name of the Sixth Legion, coins and fragments of scale armor.