Christian report of the miracle, admit that this title of Thundering or
Lightning was not given to this legion because the Quadi were struck
with lightning, but because there was a figure of lightning on their
shields, and that this title of the legion existed in the time of
Augustus.

Scaliger also had observed that the legion was called Thundering
([Greek: keraunobolos], or [Greek: keraunophoros]) before the reign of
Antoninus. We learn this from Dion Cassius (Lib. 55, c. 23, and the note
of Reimarus), who enumerates all the legions of Augustus' time. The name
Thundering of Lightning also occurs on an inscription of the reign of
Trajan, which was found at Trieste. Eusebius (v. 5), when he relates the
miracle, quotes Apolinarius, bishop of Hierapolis, as authority for this
name being given to the legion Melitene by the emperor in consequence of
the success which he obtained through their prayers; from which we may
estimate the value of Apolinarius' testimony. Eusebius does not say in
what book of Apolinarius the statement occurs. Dion says that the
Thundering legion was stationed in Cappadocia in the time of Augustus.
Valesius also observes that in the Notitia of the Imperium Romanum there
is mentioned under the commander of Armenia the Praefectura of the
twelfth legion named "Thundering Melitene;" and this position in Armenia
will agree with what Dion says of its position in Cappadocia.
Accordingly Valesius concludes that Melitene was not the name of the
legion, but of the town in which it was stationed. Melitene was also the
name of the district in which this town was situated. The legions did
not, he says, take their name from the place where they were on duty,
but from the country in which they were raised, and therefore what
Eusebius says about the Melitene does not seem probable to him. Yet
Valesius, on the authority of Apolinarius and Tertullian, believed that
the miracle was worked through the prayers of the Christian soldiers in