Agaunum

Geschichte

Roman Agaunum, the modern Saint-Maurice in the canton Valais in southwesternmost Switzerland, was a minor post confined between the Rhône and the mountains along the well-travelled road that led from Roman Genava, modern Geneva, over the Alps by the Great St. Bernard Pass to Italy.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.