Eporedia, the Roman town

Sentences without a label are documented facts; the others are marked "probable" or "uncertain".

In 100 BC Rome founded the colony of Eporedia, today Ivrea, on the Dora, as an outpost against the Salassi and to guard the road to the passes of the Graian Alps. Of the Roman town there remain the base of the Ponte Vecchio, the amphitheatre and stretches of the theatre and of the aqueduct. This page separates what comes from excavations from what is reconstructed.

The founding

The colony of Eporedia was founded in 100 BC, in the consulship of Marius (his sixth) and Valerius Flaccus. Pliny writes that it was founded by the Roman people at the command of the Sibylline books. The name is Celtic: Pliny says that the Gauls call good horse-tamers "eporedii" and the word is explained by epos "horse" and redo "to ride". probable The colony was to be an outpost against the Salassi and to control the road that went up the valley of the Dora Baltea to the passes of the Graian Alps. Strabo relates that it was there that Augustus had the Salassi defeated in 25 BC sold as spoils of war. According to most scholars the colony was also created to protect Roman interests linked to the nearby Bessa mine. probable Velleius places Eporedia "in Bagiennis": this may be an error in the text or the memory of a small group of Salassi called Bagienni. uncertain

Sources: Velleius Paterculus I, 15, 5; Pliny, Naturalis historia III, 21, 123; Strabo, Geography IV, 6, 7; Rubat Borel 2014, p. 43; Rubat Borel 2019, pp. 84-88; Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, p. 127; Sacchi 2014, p. 47; Balbo 2018, p. 60

The first town and the walls

The first Roman settlement seems to lie in the central-eastern sector of the modern town and on the slope near the river, where structures of the first half of the 1st century BC have come to light. probable A 90-metre trench in the public gardens revealed the first stone buildings around 50 BC, a flood of the Dora around AD 30-40 and a workshop with small furnaces for working metals. The complete line of the walls has not been excavated: Perinetti's plan of 1965 reconstructs it as a polygon. uncertain In the excavation of the former hotel La Serra, in corso Botta, the corner of a possible defensive structure came to light, made of two parallel walls with a walkway between them. probable Nothing remains of the Roman gates: the porta praetoria, to the east, stood where the Porta di Bando rose in the Middle Ages and the northern gate where Porta Aosta is today. probable

Sources: Sacchi 2014, pp. 47-48; Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, pp. 133-136, 139; Curzio 2014, pp. 3-4, 8, 18

Two bridges over the Dora

The Ponte Vecchio stands in the gorge that the river has cut through the rock spur at the south-western end of the town and keeps part of its Roman base in squared blocks of local stone. In Roman times it had only two round arches on a single pier founded on the rock, which still has a cutwater on the upstream side.

About 470 metres further downstream the ruins of the "ponte maggiore" (main bridge) remain in the riverbed, uncovered by the 1977 flood:

• Size: about 150 metres long, it had ten segmental arches on eleven piers; the four central ones had a span of 14.40 metres.
• Foundations: the piers rest on piles with iron shoes driven more than 5 metres into the sandy bed.
• Road: paved, 5.50 metres wide with two pavements, at right angles to the river and heading south.
• Date: the bridge belongs to the phase between 25 BC and AD 15.

From the main bridge the road crossed the countryside to the south as far as the mansio Quadrata, near the confluence of the Dora with the Po: there it joined the road between Ticinum and Augusta Taurinorum. probable

Sources: Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, pp. 131-133, 139

The theatre and the amphitheatre

The theatre stood between via Cattedrale and piazza di Città: its semicircular shape can still be read in the streets and houses. It measured about 76 metres from east to west and 72 from north to south and rested against the southern slope of the Castle hill; thirteen rows of seats in Carema stone survived. The theatre was probably built in the first half of the 1st century AD, but there is no secure excavation evidence for its date. probable The amphitheatre stood outside the town along the road to Vercelli, about 500 metres from the eastern edge of the settlement; excavations began in 1955. It was built in the last decades of the 1st century AD on top of a suburban villa with frescoed walls. It measured about 96 by 72 metres: it is estimated that it could hold between ten and fifteen thousand spectators. probable

Sources: Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, pp. 127-130; Curzio 2014, pp. 10-12; Sacchi 2014, pp. 47, 62, 64; Legrottaglie 2014, pp. 89, 93

Streets, houses and water

The decumanus maximus was the street arriving from the plain to the east and corresponds to today's via Palestro. Via Palma follows the line of the cardo maximus. probable In 1970-1971 the earthworks for the hotel La Serra uncovered almost 3,000 square metres of a block with shops and a mosaic floor with coloured marbles. The forum perhaps stood on the cathedral hill, in today's piazza Castello. probable The aqueduct started from the Maresco di Bienca and ran for at least 7.5 kilometres through Chiaverano and Montalto Dora, in a covered conduit 48 centimetres wide and 96 high. In the Tabula Peutingeriana Eporedia is a station on the road that led from Augusta Praetoria, today Aosta, to Vercellae. From the road of the plain, which in town became the decumanus maximus, the road to the passes of the Little and Great St Bernard branched off to the north-west. probable

Sources: Sacchi 2014, p. 47; Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, pp. 128, 136-139; Curzio 2014, pp. 3, 5-6, 8, 13, 16

Who lived there

• Gaius Atecius Valerius was quaestor, aedile, duumvir and judge in the five decuriae: his sarcophagus is in the crypt of the cathedral and his family name is Celtic.
• Lucius Ebutius Faustus, freedman, land surveyor and sevir, has on his stele the groma, the instrument for laying out roads and fields.
• Titus Sextius Secundus paid, between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, for work on the ponderarium, where the standard weights and measures were kept; the inscription was found in 1819 at San Secondo di Salussola.

Tacitus mentions the town in the 1st century AD among the most steadfast municipia of Transpadana. In the first half of the 2nd century AD a fine building, perhaps a temple, was put up and later restored in the Severan period: after that there are no more public building works. The story continues on the page "From the first Christians to the Franks".

Sources: Curzio 2014, pp. 6-7; Rubat Borel 2014, p. 43; Sacchi 2014, pp. 47-48, 62-63

Open questions

Much of the plan of Eporedia is still a reconstruction: the circuit of the walls comes from Perinetti's plan and the great wall in via Peana might follow its southern edge, but this is a hypothesis still to be proved. uncertain The position of the forum and the point where the aqueduct entered the town, perhaps near the Castle, are hypotheses too. uncertain The date when the theatre was built is not known for certain.

Sources: Curzio 2014, pp. 3-6, 8, 13; Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, pp. 129-130, 139; Sacchi 2014, p. 62