coming from diverse provinces of the empire, according to Eucherius, devoutly to honor these saints, and (important for the abbey of Agaunum) 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. 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