The nearness of a source does not correspond with accuracy (see No, Mr. Christian, A.N. Sherwin-White Didn’t Say That. And Even What He Did Say Was Wrong.).

Professional history is constructed by an analysis of the reliability of what a source does and says (such as congruence with background facts, external corroboration, biases and methodology, and plausibility).

For example, the first Alexander Romances were written by contemporaries of Alexander the Great; while Arrian wrote five centuries later. Yet historians can prove Arrian vastly more reliable than the Romances, using such data as that.

I even survey some of that kind of evidence here in the article you are commenting on, yet you just completely ignored all of that. It sounds like you are the victim of motivated reasoning here. Whereas I am employing a reliable critical method.

I highly recommend you do the same.

Neither thing you claim is happening in that sculpture is there. There is no cross, no cross shape, no Christian symbols at all. I think you are seeing things.

Archaeologists who have studied the sculpture since even before it was worn down by acid rain have consistently reported the two soldiers are enacting what we find in Dio’s description of capturing the falling water to drink in their shields and in chance pots and skins. This is depicting a narrative event, not religious symbolism of any kind. And be that as it may, there are certainly no Christian symbols here.