Axima
Vovit, quod ad ejus sepulturam portaret unam Aximam, et omni anno iret ad ejus altare, etc.
Aximaponi videtur pro figura cerea, inquit Continuator Bollandi tom. 3. SS. Martii pag. 202. Unde Italis inter verba ornatus muliebris
Azzimare, Cerussare, polire : neque enim nunc littera X. utuntur.
AXIMA (Aisme), a town of the Centrones, according to Ptolemy, who are an Alpine people. In the Table it is placed, but under the name Axuna, between Bergintrum (St. Maurice) and Darantasia (Moutiers en Tarentaise), on the road over the pass of the Alpis Graia or Petit St. Bernard. The position is thus determined to be that of Aisme. The Antonine Itin. omits Axima, but makes the distance xviii., between Bergintrum and Darantasia, the same distance that is given in the Table. It is said that inscriptions have been found at Aisme with the name Forum Claudii; yet Forum Claudii is a different place, though in the country of the Centrones.
[G.L]Ancient capital of the Ceutrones, who inhabited the Tarentaise region (valley of the Isère). Conquered by Caesar and subdued by Augustus, the region became a procuratorial province of the Alpis Graia. Darantasis (Moutiers) was the first capital, then Axima, which was on the Roman road leading from the Val d'Aoste to Vienne and Lyon by the Little Saint-Bernard Pass. Under Claudius it was known as Forum Claudii. At Aime the present national highway closely follows the Roman road, which used to be lined with funerary monuments. Many ancient remains and inscriptions have been unearthed in different areas.
In the Saint-Martin district, 3.3 in below the Romanesque basilica, is a rectangular Roman building which may have been a temple of Silvanus or, more likely, a secular basilica from the late 1st or early 2d c., judging from the base of a statue of Trajan found there. It was destroyed, and replaced in the 5th c. by an apsed Early Christian basilica (22.9 x 9.1 m). In the Saint-Sigismond district, on the hill above Saint-Martin, the traces of a temple with an altar dedicated to Mars can still be seen. Under the chapel is a necropolis. In the Poëncet district, between the Grande Rue and the Tessens road, many inscriptions and architectural fragments have been found; they are now in the Saint-Martin church. In the Replat district, between Saint-Martin and the national highway, are some tombs in which have been found epitaphs, pottery, and many other objects now at the Musée de l'Académie du Val d'Isère at Moutiers.
BIBLIOGRAPHYR. L. Borrel, Les monuments anciens de Tarentaise (1884) PI; M. Hudry, La basilique de Saint-Martin d'Aime (n.d.).
M. LEGLAY