Agaunum was an outpost in Roman Switzerland, predecessor of the modern city of Saint-Maurice in the canton of Valais, southwestern Switzerland. It was used by the Roman Empire for the collection of the Quadragesima Galliarum. In Christian tradition, Agaunum is known as the place of martyrdom of the Theban Legion. Etymology The word Agaunum derives from Gaulish acaunum, meaning "saxum, stone, whetstone". The word acauna also appears in compound nouns relating to "stone", for instance, as related by Pliny. Ultimately, the word stems from the Proto-Indo-European root *h2ekmōn, meaning "stone" in several of the daughter languages. The name is also attested as a deity called Acauno or Acaunus, leading scholars to argue that in this location there was a probable cult to a river deity. The name Agaunum is probably at the origin of French toponym Agonès, a commune in southern France. In later Christian tradition Agaunum is noted for the fact that the monks at the monastery of Agaunum performed perpetual prayers since its formation in 522 by King Sigismund. Near Agaunum, in a place still identifiable as a former temple to Mercury, god of travellers, recently excavated behind the abbey's present sanctuary, a revelation led to the discovery of martyrs' bones during the time of Theodore, Bishop of Octudurum (now Martigny), who was in office 350. The etiological narrative explaining the cache of human remains led to the cult of an entire Roman legion, the legendary Theban Legion, martyred at the spot, when this entirely Christian legion refused to sacrifice to the Emperor Maximian and were put to death, by decimation, one out of ten at a time, until all were martyred. Their leader according to the legend was Saint Maurice. The martyrology was written by Eucherius, Bishop of Lyon, who died in 494. He wrote "We often hear, do we not, a particular locality or city is held in high honour because of one single martyr who died there, and quite rightly, because in each case the saint gave his precious soul to the most high God. How much more should this sacred place, Agaunum, be reverenced, where so many thousands of martyrs have been slain, with the sword, for the sake of Christ." Eucherius' telling of the legend reports that the shrine erected by Theodore was already in his time a basilica that was the destination of pilgrims. It lay within the diocese of the Bishop