Criticism of The Account
It should be noted at the outset that Thebaei is the proper name of one particular military unit: The existence of Legio I Maximiana, also known as Maximiana Thebaeorum is recorded in the Notitia Dignitatum.
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 I 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.
Read more about this topic: Theban Legion
Famous quotes containing the words criticism and/or account:
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“To have some account of my thoughts, manners, acquaintance and actions, when the hour arrives in which time is more nimble than memory, is the reason which induces me to keep a journal: a journal in which I must confess my every thought, must open my whole heart!”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)