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Gabiniani


The Gabiniani (in English Gabinians) were 2,000 Roman legionaries and 500 Roman auxiliary cavalry left in Egypt by the general Aulus Gabinius after his military restoration of Ptolemy XII on the Egyptian throne in 55 BC. The soldiers were left to protect the king, but they soon adopted the manners of their new country and became completely alienated from the Roman Republic. After the death of Ptolemy XII in 51 BC they helped his son Ptolemy XIII in the power struggle against his sister Cleopatra VII and even involved Julius Caesar, the powerful supporter of Cleopatra, in the Alexandrinian war (48-47 BC) in violent battles.

In 58 BC Ptolemy XII had to leave Egypt and went into exile in Rome. Three years later Aulus Gabinius, the Roman proconsul of Syria, restored the king after a short campaign to the throne. Then he left a part of his army, the Gabiniani, in Egypt for the protection of the future reign of the king. These Roman troops also included Gallic and German horsemen.

Because Egypt was nominally independent, the Gabiniani were not a Roman occupying army but mercenaries of Ptolemy XII. According to the report of Julius Caesar, they soon adopted the dissipated way of life of the Alexandrians, while they neglected Roman discipline. Nevertheless they still possessed a great fighting strength because Caesar described them as very dangerous enemies in the Alexandrinian war. They married Egyptian women and had already fathered children with them before the arrival of Caesar in Egypt (48 BC). So they lost more and more the ties to Rome and became a loyal protecting power of Ptolemy XII, who used them in fights against rebellious subjects.


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