THUNDERING LEGION, THE. Eusebius (v. 5), on the authority of Apollinarius and Tertullian, says that this name was given to a legion of Christian soldiers in the army of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He gives the following story to account for the name : " But it is said that Marcus Aurelius Caesar, the brother of the former, when about to engage in battle with the Germans and Sarmatians, and his army was suffering with thirst, was greatly at a loss on this account. Then, however, those soldiers that belonged to the Melitine legion, as it was called, by a faith which has continued from that time to this, bending their knees upon the earth whilst drawn up in battle array against the enemy, according to our peculiar custom of praying, entered into prayer before God. And as this was a singular spectacle to the enemy, a still more singular circum stance is reported to have happened immediately; that the lightning drove the enemy into flight and destruction, but that a shower came down and refreshed the army of those that then called upon God, the whole of which was on the point of perishing with thirst " (Eccles. Hist.,
Bagster's English edition). Neander has sought to show that the story is a mixture of truth and fiction. Duchesne writes : " The precarious position of the army is un doubted. And we also know that the Romans in their extremity invoked all the different divine powers whose rites the soldiers affected. But when the column com memorative of the victories of Marcus Aurelius in Ger mania was erected in the Campus Martins, the miracle was ascribed to the gods of the State. In those cele brated bas-reliefs, Jupiter P]uvius is still to be seen with the saving torrential rain—which enabled the legions to escape thirst and defeat—streaming from his hair, his arms, and his whole person." See William Benham; Louis Duchesne, Hist.