Theban Legion The Theban Legion ( also known as the Martyrs of Agaunum ) figures in Christian hagiography as an entire Roman legion — of " six thousand six hundred and sixty - six men " — who had converted en masse to Christianity and were martyred together , in 286 , according to the hagiographies of Saint Maurice , the chief among the Legion ' s saints . Their feast day is held on September 22 . The account . According to Eucherius of Lyon , ca . 443 – 450 , the garrison of the Legion was the city of Thebes , Egypt . There the Legion were quartered in the East until the emperor Maximian ordered them to march to Gaul , to assist him against the rebels of Burgundy . The Theban Legion was commanded in its march by Saint Maurice ( Mauritius ) , Candidus , Innocent , and Exuperius , all of whom are venerated as saints . At Saint - Maurice , Switzerland , then called Agaunum , the orders were given — since the Legion had refused to worship a man , to sacrifice to the Emperor — to " decimate " it by putting to death a tenth of its men . This act was repeated until none were left . According to a letter written about 450 by Eucherius , Bishop of Lyon , bodies identified as the martyrs of Agaunum were discovered by Theodore ( Theodulus ) , the first historically identified Bishop of Octudurum , who was present at the Council of Aquileia , 381 and died in 391 . The basilica he built in their honor attracted the pilgrim trade ; its remains can still be seen , part of the abbey begun in the early sixth century on land donated by King Sigismund of Burgundy . The earliest surviving document describing " the holy Martyrs who have made Aguanum illustrious with their blood " is the letter of Eucherius , which describes the succession of witnesses from the martyrdom to his time , a span of about 150 years . The bishop had made the journey to Agaunum himself , and his report of his visit multiplied a thousandfold the standard formula of the martyrologies : We often hear , do we not , a particular locality or city is held in high honour because of one single martyr who died there , and quite rightly , because in each case the saint gave his precious soul to the most high God . How much more should this sacred place , Aguanum , be reverenced , where so many thousands of martyrs have been slain , with the sword , for the sake of Christ . As with many hagiographies , Eucherius ' letter to Bishop Salvius reinforced an existing pilgrimage site . Many of the faithful were coming from diverse provinces of the empire , according to Eucherius , devoutly to honor these saints , and ( important for the abbey of Aguanum ) to offer presents of gold , silver and other things . He mentions many miracles , such as casting out of devils and other kinds of healing " which the power of the Lord works there every day through the intercession of his saints . " In the late sixth century , Gregory of Tours was convinced of the miraculous powers of the Theban Legion , though he transferred the event to Cologne , where there was an early cult devoted to Maurice and the Theban Legion : At Cologne there is a church in which the fifty men from the holy Theban Legion are said to have consummated their martyrdom for the name of Christ . And because the church , with its wonderful construction and mosaics , shines as if somehow gilded , the inhabitants prefer to call it the " Church of the Golden Saints " . Once Eberigisilus , who was at the time bishop of Cologne , was racked with severe pains in half his head . He was then in a villa near a village . Eberigisilus sent his deacon to the church of the saints . Since there was said to be in the middle of the church a pit into which the saints were thrown together after their martyrdom , the deacon collected some dust there and brought it to the bishop . As soon as the dust touched Eberigisilus ' head , immediately all pain was gone . The tale of steadfast conduct and faith was embroidered in later retellings and figured in the " Golden Legend " of Jacobus de Voragine and was included among the persecution of Christians detailed in John Foxe ' s 1583 " Actes and Monuments " , an early Protestant stand - by . The strength of the account is based on the historical reputation for the hermit s of the Egyptian desert , the Desert Fathers , of whom the most famous was Anthony the Great and the almost fanatical Christian following they inspired during the first two centuries . The first monks in the Christian tradition are known as the " Desert Fathers . " Accounts of the moral inculcated by the " exemplum " of the Theban Legion resonate with the immediate culture of each teller . The miraculous whole - hearted unanimity of the Legion to the last individual , was downplayed by Hugo Grotius , for whom the moral of the Theban Legion was employed to condemn atrocities committed under military orders . For Donald O ' Reilly , an apologist for the historicity of the account in 1978 , it was " the moral issue of organized violence " . Interpretations . " Thebaei " is the proper name of one particular military unit , the Legio I " Maximiana " , also known as " Maximiana Thebaeorum " , recorded in the " Notitia Dignitatum " . According to Samir F . Girgis , writing in the " Coptic Encyclopedia " , there were two legions bearing the name " Theban , " both of them formed by Diocletian sometime after the organization of the original Egyptian legion , stationed at Alexandria . It is not certain which of these was transferred from Egypt to Europe in order to assist Maximian in Gaul . Johan Mösch , after comparing information from the various chronicles on the events and geography of the martyrdoms of the legionnaires , concluded that only a cohort was martyred at Agaunum . The remainder of the battalions were either on the march or already stationed along the Roman road that ran from Liguria through Turin and Milan , then across Alps and down the Rhine to Colonia Agrippinensis ( Cologne ) . L . Dupraz and Paul Müller , by examining the military titles and ranks of the legionnaires and thereby determining the total number of soldiers involved , estimated that the Thebans martyred at Agaunum consisted of but one battalion whose number did not exceed 520 men . Criticism of the account . Denis Van Berchem , of the University of Geneva , proposed that Eucherius ' presentation of the legend of the Theban legion was a literary production , not based on a local tradition ; by isolating its hagiographic conventions from the anachronisms of local narrative elements , he sought to demonstrate that Eucherius derived his formulas from Lactantius and Orosius and that the " decimation " was an anachronism : the practice of decimation had not been practiced for at least a century ( see Ammianus Marcellinus for Julian ' s misinterpretation of decimation ) and that service by Christians in the legions before Emperor Constantine the Great was relatively rare . David Woods , Professor of Classics at the University College Cork , alleges that the model of Maurice and the Theban Legion based on Eucherius of Lyon ' s letter was a complete fiction .