LEGIO
later MAXIMIANOPOLIS (el-Lajjun) Israel.
A site in the Valley of Jezreel, called Kefar Otnay in the Jewish sources, in which Legio IV Ferrata
camped after the Bar Kohbah revolt (Ptol. 5.15.3).
Eusebius gives the name as Campus Maximus Legionis
(
Onom. 110.21). When the legion left in the time of
Diocletian, the town was renamed Maximianopolis, in
honor of the emperor's friend Maximianus Herculius
(
Onom. 14.21 and later sources). In the Byzantine period Legio was the seat of a bishop.
A rectangular altar dedicated by an officer of the legion
in the time of Elagabalus has been discovered. On two
sides of it Roman legionary eagles with wreaths in their
beaks, stand on thunderbolts; the other sides have dedicatory inscriptions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. M. Abel,
Géographie de la Palestine
II (1938) 175, 201; M. Avi-Yonah,
The Holy Land
(1966) 122-23, 141, 171.
A. NEGEV
