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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.

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  • Etymology
  • In later Christian tradition
  • References
  • External links
  • Further reading

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.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Agaunum” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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