Maurice and the Theban Legion

Saint Maurice and the Theban Legion, also called the Martyrs of Agaunum, were a legion of Christian soldiers from Roman Egypt who, according to tradition, were put to death in the year 286 for refusing to offer sacrifice to pagan gods. They are commemorated on 22 September.

The tradition

The earliest account is the letter of Saint Eucherius of Lyon, from the fifth century. According to it, the legion was stationed in the Thebaid in Egypt. The emperor Maximian sent it to Gaul to put down the revolt of the Bagaudae. The legion's commander was Maurice, helped by Candidus and Exuperius, who are also venerated as saints. After the defeat of the Bagaudae the legion was taken to Agaunum, today Saint-⁠Maurice in Valais, and Maximian ordered everyone to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods in thanksgiving for the victory.

The legionaries refused firmly and with one mind, and in punishment the legion was decimated, that is, every tenth soldier was killed. They were warned that the emperor would not stop until the order was carried out. Saint Maurice then urged them not to yield to threats and to remain faithful to the promise made at baptism, following the example of their comrades already killed. In the name of the legion an answer was sent to the emperor: the soldiers were his, but also soldiers of the true God, and they obeyed him in everything not contrary to God's law, but could not renounce their Creator and could not stain their hands with the blood of the innocent. They had sworn their oath to God before the oath to the emperor. They said they had seen their comrades cut down by the sword and did not mourn them but rejoiced in their honour, and that, though they held arms, they did not resist, for they preferred to die innocent rather than live in sin. Because the decimation had no effect it was repeated until the whole legion was destroyed.

Eucherius gives the number of the legion as six thousand six hundred men, while other sources and the Golden Legend speak of 6,666. The bodies of the martyrs were found and identified about the year 350 by Bishop Theodore of Octodurum (today Martigny), who built a basilica in their honour at Agaunum that became a place of pilgrimage. From it grew the abbey founded in 515 on land given by the Burgundian king Sigismund. Eucherius records pilgrims and gifts from the faithful of many provinces, and miracles including healings and exorcisms. In the sixth century Gregory of Tours mentions a basilica in Cologne in which fifty martyrs of the legion lie, called the Church of the Golden Saints. The story was very popular in the Middle Ages.

Historical questions

Historians question the account as it has reached us: Maximian governed the West in those years and could not command troops from the East; no legion named Theban is attested in the Roman army of that time, and the legions at Egyptian Thebes were formed only in 297; the number of 6,600 is far above the strength of a legion in Diocletian's time; and decimation was almost no longer practised after the year 68. Many think that a smaller sacrifice of Christian soldiers martyred at Agaunum lies behind the legend. The tradition of Maurice and his companions has nonetheless been revered for centuries, and they are commemorated as holy martyrs. Other saints linked to the legion include Alexander of Bergamo, Verena, Innocent, Secundus, Felix and Regula, Fidelis and Fortunatus. The Greek calendar remembers on 27 December the soldiers who suffered martyrdom with Maurice.