“'Legion,' for many demons had entered him”
What is your name?… Legion… because many demons had gone into him. (Luke 8:26–33 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A spooky answer meaning 'lots of demons.'
The cultural key
A legion was not a vague crowd; it was the Roman army's principal unit, five to six thousand soldiers. In occupied territory, the word carried one meaning: the force that holds us down. The scene is the Decapolis, Gentile ground, which is why a herd of two thousand pigs (unclean animals no Jewish region would farm) is grazing nearby. The demons beg 'not to be sent out of the country,' occupation language, and end up drowned in the sea, an ending with echoes of Pharaoh's army. Some also note that the emblem of the Tenth Legion, later stationed in the region, was a boar; that connection is a modern suggestion, not a settled fact. Luke adds the explanatory clause for readers who might miss the word's weight, and notes the man had long worn no clothes and lived among the tombs; his restoration ends 'clothed and in his right mind.'
Recovered meaning
The empire's own word for overwhelming force comes out of a chained, self-harming man, and Jesus expels it with a sentence. First-century hearers could not miss the resonance: the powers that occupy people, and lands, meet something stronger.