In the version of his life which sets it in the third century, the date of Evasius's martyrdom is given as 1 December 292, during the reign of Diocletian, whose later persecution of Christians is well known. For the version of the story which places it in the first part of the eighth century, the context is that of the struggle between those Lombards who remained attached to their Arian beliefs and the soon-to-be-victorious Trinitarian new guard, associated particularly with the Catholic Theodolinda who had been Lombard queen from 588 to 628, and to which King Luitprand belonged.