Tales from the northwest: the Salassi and the Roman conquest of the Valle d’Aosta

The Canavese – Rome’s border in 100BC

Driving north on the A5 from Turin, you crest a rise to be presented with the area known as the ‘Canavese’.

This pre-Alpine territory is bordered to the north by the impressive Serra d’Ivrea, the morainic côte which marked the extent of the Monte Rosa glacier.

In 100BC, within this amphitheatre, the Romans founded the outpost of Eporedia, modern-day Ivrea, on the site of a tribal settlement. The name derives from the local tribes’ words for ‘horse’ and ‘cart’. The tribes went by the name Salassi.

The map (🗺️©️ MTW) shows the Dora Baltea as it passes from Valle d’Aosta into Piemonte, through the Canavese – which is covered by the Canavese DOC appellation (highlighted).

The Salassi

The Salassi were an iron-age warrior population. They occupied the length of the valley of the Dora Baltea river as far as Ivrea.

The Salassi controlled the key trade routes over the Great Saint Bernard (📸 James MacNay) and Little Saint Bernard passes, and were miners of gold and iron.

Based on finds of cultivated grape seeds from earlier societies, some surmise that the Salassi grew grapes and made wine.

Some Salassi excavations

-Below Monte Tantané, La Magdeleine 2440m – 22 huts have been uncovered. (The Five Days of the Matterhorn passes close by.) (📸 GM Navillod)

-Col Pierrey, Torgnon 2620m – 56 hut foundations have been uncovered.

-Saint-Martin-de-Corléans, Aosta – pre-Salassi tools and seeds. (All MTW guests in Valle d’Aosta have the chance to visit this important site).

-Petit Saint-Bernard 2188m – a stone circle of 46 menhirs, possible a ritual site.

-Saxe, Courmayeur 1800m – gold and iron mines originally worked by the Salassi, then later by the Romans. (Heart of the Itaian Alps passes close by.)

-Pompiod, Aymavilles 800m – iron mines cut into the cliff face. (Heart of the Itaian Alps passes close by.)

Conflict between the Salassi and Rome

These traditional activites of the Salassi put them on a collision course with a Rome which was expanding and which coveted the trade routes and the mines.

Hostilities commenced under Appius Claudius in 143BC, with the seizure of the gold mines in the Canavese.

Eporedia was founded to support the legions’ activities there, and to keep the tribes under supervision.

The picture is Appius Claudius Blind in the Senate by Cesare Maccari.

Augusta Praetoria Salassorum – Aosta

Augustus founded the city in 25BC with 3000 retired soldiers, under the command of Aulus Terentius Varro Murena. This was a decisive move.  3,000 Salassi were killed, up to 40,000 sold at the Eporedia slave auctions, and the Salassi as a people ceased to exist. However final and traumatic the experience, there was also the following inscription on the arch (📸 Carlo Grifone) at the entrance of the city indicating, perhaps, that there was some assimilation of the Salassi into Roman society:

To Imperator Caesar Augustus, son of the Divine [Julius], consul 11, imperator 8, holder of tribunician power. The Salassi settlers, who from the beginning betook themselves to the colony, [dedicate this to their] patron.

Via delle Gallie

With the Salassi conquered, Augustus began work on the great road which connected the Transalpine territories – Gaul and the lands to the Rhône – to Eporedia.

Sources suggest that contruction work began in 12BC, with the paving added in 47AD.

Little of the original road remains, but MTW visitors can hike an almost perfectly intact stretch of it at Donnas. This is not part of a standard trip, but can be easily organised, either by a vehicle stop-off, or as part of a ‘bonus hike’.

This bonus hike, incidentally, also takes in the terraced vineyards of Carema and Donnas, the Roman bridge at Pont Saint-Martin, a piece of the Via Francigena medieval pilgrim trail, and the imposing C 19th fort at Bard.

Pondel

Heart of the Italian Alps hikers cross the jaw-dropping acqueduct at Pondel.

Here a private individual, Caius Avillius Caimus of Padua, constructed a two-tier, single arch bridge in 3BC. The top – over which we now walk – carried the water to the mines (mentioned above) above Aymavilles, while the lower, covered walkway, transported people and animals over an otherwise impassable gorge.

📸 James MacNay.

Other Roman sites in the Valle d’Aosta

Aosta city today is a rich trove of Roman sites, which you can read more about here.

As well as the sites described above, visitors can discover the Roman bridge at Châtillon (1889 sketch pictured), a Roman villa in St. Pierre, and sections of Roman road in Villeneuve, Arvier*, Avise, Prê-St.-Didier* and La Thuile. There are milestones and the remains of forts and mansiones, at the main passes and at Bard.

Most of the mines the Romans operated in the region they inherited or seized from the Salassi.

Many place names in the region derive from their Roman origins. For example Diemoz, Nus‡ and Quart‡ are named according to their distance from Aosta (ten, nine and four miles, respectively).

*Heart of the Italian Alps passes through.

‡The Five Days of the Matterhorn passes through or stops at.