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The Origin of the Legend of Maurice and the Theban Legion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

David Woods
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Extract

The primary account of the martyrdom of Maurice and the Theban legion occurs in a letter addressed by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons c. 434–50, to a fellow bishop, Salvius. This relatively brief document has attracted a degree of scholarly attention out of all proportion to its length, the purpose of which has been to investigate its historical basis. There are those who believe with varying degrees of certainty that there is a historical basis to the story which Eucherius relates, that there did indeed exist a group of Theban soldiers who were executed in the Alps during the early years of the reign of Emperor Herculius Maximianus because they refused, for religious reasons, to obey his commands. However their arguments have left many unconvinced. Denis Van Berchem's thorough examination of the story has raised many doubts about its veracity, and many commentators now incline to believe, with him, that no such martyrs ever existed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 385 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 CSEL xxxi. 163–73; Krusch, B., Monumenta Germaniae historica: scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, iii, Berlin 1896, 32–9Google Scholar; Van Berchem, D., Le martyre de la légion Thébaine: essai sur la formation d’une lé;gende, Basle 1968, 55–9Google Scholar. All references are in accordance with the latter's division of the text.

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5 For example, Bellen, H., ‘Der Primicerius Mauricius: ein Beitrag zum Thebaer-problem’, Historia x (1961), 238–47Google Scholar.

6 As Hornus states, ‘I therefore continue to believe that the only (although real) interest of the text consists in its revelation of “the sentiments…of a Roman Christian of the fifth century”’: It is not lawful, 155; Van Dam, R., Leadership and community in late antique Gaul, Berkeley, Ca. 1985, 54–5Google Scholar, seeks to interpret it against a background of social unrest and peasant revolts.

7 Berchem, Van, La légion Thébaine, 42–3Google Scholar.

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10 See Hoffmann, D., Das spatrömische Bewegungsheer und die Notitia Dignitatum, Dusseldorf 1969, 238Google Scholar.

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12 ‘Porro ab idoneis auctoribus rei ipsius veritatem quaesivi, ab his utique, qui adfirmabant se ab episcopo Genavensi sancto Isaac hunc quem praetuli passionis ordinem cognovisse; qui, credo, rursum haec retro a beatissimo episcopo Theodoro viro temporis anterioris acceperit’: Eucherius, , Pass. Acaun. 19Google Scholar.

13 CSEL lxxxii, 312–68, for the acts of this council.

14 Ibid. 302–11. The date is that suggested by Dudden, F. H. in The life and times of St Ambrose, Oxford 1935, 393Google Scholarn. 1, rather than the earlier date of 389/390 accepted byBerchem, Van (La légion Thébaine, 37)Google Scholar.

15 ‘ At vero beatissimorum Acaunensium martyrum corpora post multos passionis annos sancto Theodoro eiusdem loci episcopo revelata traduntur’: Eucherius, , Pass. Acaun. 16Google Scholar.

16 Leclerq, H., Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne el de liturgie, Paris 1907–1953, x/2, col. 2722Google Scholar, shows how the verb ‘revelare’ could also be used of relics translated from one place to another. Yet the text he uses to illustrate his point is of a later date, and may illustrate only a derivatory and looser use of the term. The comparison should rather be to the use of this term in 422 by Paulinus of Milan in Vita Ambrosii 29, 35.

17 Ambrose, , ep. xxii. 2Google Scholar.

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19 See Dudden, , St Ambrose, 298–320Google Scholar. The use of relics as a political weapon is of particular relevance to the topic in hand, for the other bishops, including Theodore, cannot have failed to be impressed by their part in Ambrose's victory on this occasion.

20 Ambrose, , Exhortatio virginitalis 1–10Google Scholar; Paulinus, , Vita Ambrosii 29Google Scholar.

21 Ibid. 32, 33.

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25 Peeters, P., Orient et Byzance: le tréfonds oriental de I’hagiographie byzantine, Brussels 1950, 32–41Google Scholar. See also Woods, D., ‘A historical source of the Passio Typasii’, Vigiliae Christianae xlvii (1993), 78–84,CrossRefGoogle Scholarand ‘An unnoticed official: the praepositus saltus’, Classical Quarterly xliv (1994)Google Scholar, forthcoming, on the invention c. 397 of a fictitious northern African military martyr by the name of Typasius.

26 It is clear, for example, that Pass. Acaun. 5, which describes the geographical location of the place of martyrdom, owes nothing to any of Eucherius ' sources, but is a digression on his part to try to fill Salvius in on some background detail. It is unfortunate that his own geographical knowledge was so shaky, and that he erred in describing the distance between Acaunum and Octodurum as 60 miles, rather than the actual figure of about 10 miles. It is not particularly surprising that a bishop of Lyons should have made such a mistake, but it is unthinkable that the bishop of Octodurum would have erred in such a way. It is unreasonable to use this geographical error, as has been done, to impute the historicity of the legend of the Theban Legion when it is so obviously simply an error of Eucherius.

27 Zosimus, , Historia nova iv. 30–1;Google Scholar dated to 380 by Heather, P., Goths and Romans 332–489, Oxford 1991, 152Google Scholar.

28 Nixon, C. E. V., Pacatus' panegyric to the Emperor Theodosius, Liverpool 1987, 94Google Scholar.

29 ‘Dexterae istae pugnare adversum impios adque inimicos sciunt, laniare pios et cives nesciunt. Meminimus, nos pro civibus potius quam adversus cives arma sumpsisse’: Eucherius, , Pass. Acaun. 9Google Scholar.

30 Paulinus, , Vita Ambrosii 31Google Scholar.

31 Hornus, , It is not lawful, 157Google Scholar.

32 Lizzi, R., ‘Ambrose's contemporaries and the Christianization of northern Italy’, Journal of Roman Studies lxxx (1990), 156–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Ibid. 169–73.

34 Jones, A. H. M., Martindale, J. R. and Morris, J., The prosopography of the late Roman Empire, Cambridge 1970, i. 570Google Scholar.

35 On senior commands in general, see Crump, G. A., ‘ Ammianus and the late Roman army’, Historia xxii (1973), 91–103.Google Scholar I would argue that Maurice became one of those described as ‘a sizable group of comites of the second class who acted as lieutenant commanders of the mobile reserves’: ibid. 97.

36 Woods, D., ‘The early career of the magister equitum Jacobus’, Classical Quarterly xli (1991). 571–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Ambrose, , ep. xxiiGoogle Scholar; sight was restored to a blind man by the name of Severus who touched the fringe of the pall which covered the relics when they were being translated to the Ambrosian basilica.

38 Eucherius, , Pass. Acaun. 17Google Scholar.

39 Ibid. 18.

40 Mot. Dig. Or. viii. 36, a legion entitled Prima Maximiana Thebaeorum; ibid. Or. viii. 37, a legion entitled Tertia Diocletiana Thebaeorum. Both these units were under the control of the magister militum per Thracias. Indeed the Thebaei were probably formed by detachments from these units after they had been brought up to full strength by the reinforcements from Egyptc. 380.

41 Socrates, , Historia ecclesiastica v. 25Google Scholar.

42 Following Matthews, J., Western aristocracies and the imperial court AD 364–425, Oxford 1975, 238–52Google Scholar, in his account of the development of Eugenius' revolt.

43 Sozomen, , HE vii. 24Google Scholar.

44 Jones, A. H. M., Later Roman Empire, ii. 1422.Google Scholar It is a notable feature of the Passio Acaunensium martyrum that the term legio occurs repeatedly. Compare this, for example, with the complete absence of the term in the descriptions of the sufferings of two other military martyrs, thePassio Typasii {Analecta Bollandiana ix [1890], 116–23), and the Passio Fabii (ibid. 123–34), text s of the same era. The Passio Typasii uses the termscuneus andvexillatio to describe a military unit, whilst thePassio Fabii avoids such specific terms altogether. The emphasis on the term legio is highlighted also by the attempt to define it. Thus, ‘Legioautem vocabatur, quae tune sex milia ac sexcentos viros in armis habebat’: Pass. Acaun. 3. The purpose of this statement is not to inform us of the numbers in theThebaei, and any criticism of the text on that issue misses the point, but rather to designate the military status of the Thebaei. They formed a ‘proper’ military unit and were not to be confused with units of irregular size and formation and lesser status, variously designated by terms such as numerus, cuneus, or vexillatio. This text therefore reveals an awareness of military status which seems particularly fitting in the case of the description of the deeds of a unit which had recently attained the elevated status of legio palatina.