Legio VI Victrix (victorious legion) was founded by Octavian in 41 BC. It was a copy of Legio VI Ferrata and perhaps held veterans of that legion, and some soldiers kept to the traditions of the Caesarian legion. The legion saw its first action in Perugia in 41 BC. It also served against the Sextus Pompeius, who occupied Sicily and made threats to discontinue sending grain to Rome. In 31 BC the legion fought in the Battle of Actium against Marc Antony. The next year it was stationed in Hispania Tarraconensis, where it helped in Augustus' major war against the Cantabrians , which lasted from 25-13 BC.

The legion stayed in Spain for nearly a century and received the surname Hispaniensis. Soldiers of this unit and X Gemina numbered among the first settlers of Zaragoza. The name Victrix dates back to the reign of Nero. But Nero was unpopular in the area, and when the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, Servius Sulpicius Galba, said he wished to overthrow Nero, the legion supported him and he was proclaimed Emperor in the VI Victrix legionary camp. Galba created VII Gemina and marched on Rome, where Nero killed himself.

Britain

In 119, Hadrian relocated the legion to northern Brittania, to assist the already present legions in quelling the resistance there. Victrix was key in securing victory, and would eventually replace the diminished Legio IX Hispana. In 122 the legion started work on Hadrian's Wall which would sustain the peace for two decades.

Twenty years later, they helped building the Antonine Wall, but it was largely abandoned by 164.

In 185, the British legions mutinied and put forward a commander of their own, named Priscus, to replace the impopular emperor Commodus, but the former declined. The mutiny was supressed by Pertinax, who would later become emperor himself after Commodus was murdered. During this period, Roman cavalry general Lucius Artorius Castus served with Victrix (but he seems to have remained loyal).