In Qobustan (a town located 70 km from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan) there is an extremely rare monument dating back to Roman times. One of the stones has an inscription made by a Roman legionary.
The facility was discovered in the 1930s. The inscription reads:
Imp Domitiano
Caesare avg
Germanic
L Julius
Maximus
Leg XII Ful.
which we can translate as:
“The time of Emperor Domitianus Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Lucius Julius Maxim, and Centurion of the XII Legion Lightning”.
According to scientists, Emperor Domitian sent a legion at the end of the 1st century CE to the Caucasus to support the allied kingdoms of Iberia and Caucasian Albania.
