[1] Another theory is that VI Hispana was created after 197 and was destroyed in the turmoil of the Empire's Third Century Crisis.
Two lists of the legions in being survive from this era, one inscribed on a column found in Rome (CIL VI, 3492) and the other a list of legions in existence "today" provided by the contemporary Greco-Roman historian Dio Cassius, writing ca.
Sauveur argued (in 1918) that the tile-stamps of VI Hispana were in reality a mistake for VII Gemina, which from AD 70 till the 4th century was the sole imperial legion permanently based in Hispania.
[7] Sauveur also attributed the Brescia inscription to the VI Victrix, which was in Hispania for about a century (29 BC – AD 70) and may have acquired the "Hispana" title from this time.
Seyrig argues that VI Hispana was levied in present-day Northern Spain by the general Servius Sulpicius Galba in AD 68 to participate in his coup d'état against the emperor Nero.
The dating of Cassianus to the reign of emperor Philip the Arab (244–9) has given rise to the theory that a legion VI Hispana was founded under the Severan dynasty (193–235), or even later, and was destroyed during the Empire's Third Century Crisis, possibly at the Battle of Abrittus (251), where an entire Roman army was annihilated.
The main difficulty with this theory is that Dio Cassius does not include a "VI Hispana" in his list of legions existing at his time of writing (210-235).
Furthermore, if the legion was founded around in the period 230-44 and destroyed in 251, its existence lasted only a decade or two, explaining the lack of more evidence.