After the pile dwellings: the Iron Age and the Salassi

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

More than a thousand years pass between the end of the village on Lake Viverone (shortly after 1400 BC) and the founding of Eporedia in 100 BC. This page sets out in order what is documented (from Paraj Àuta to the Mazzè stele) and tells who the Salassi were and how Rome defeated them.

After the lake

The village on Lake Viverone stops being used shortly after 1400 BC and for several centuries there are no large settlements in the Canavese. In the 10th century BC settlements increase and occupy the hilltops: in the Amphitheatre and on the Serra there is pottery from the Truch di Lessolo, from Mongrando and from Pavone Canavese. In the 9th century BC their number seems to fall, perhaps because of a colder climate and the difficulty of crossing the Alpine passes. probable For the Iron Age archaeologists call this area the "Taurino-Salassian area", after the Taurini and the Salassi, the two most important peoples of the Late Iron Age.

Sources: Rubat Borel 2014, pp. 35, 38

Paraj Àuta

On the Brich Appareglio at Pavone Canavese, in Piedmontese Paraj Àuta, stood the most important settlement of the eastern Canavese. Used from the end of the Bronze Age to the 5th century BC, it has also yielded fragments of Etruscan bucchero: they are the furthest north-west known so far. Around 400 BC the hilltop settlements of Belmonte and Paraj Àuta are abandoned. According to Rubat Borel at the end of the 5th century BC the Ivrea area was reached by the Celts coming down into Italy over the Great St Bernard, in particular the Boii and the Lingones. probable

In the 2nd century BC Paraj Àuta is inhabited again for a short time: spinning-top wine jars, Roman black-glazed pottery and a Roman coin of a magistrate of 147 BC have been found there. This occupation of the hill seems to end precisely with the founding of Eporedia. probable

Sources: Rubat Borel 2014, pp. 39, 41-42; Rubat Borel 2019, p. 85

The Mazzè stele

The Mazzè stele was found in 1988 on the bank of the Dora near the dam, where it had been reused in 1921 to build the weir; since 2007 it has stood in the open in the village square. probable According to Rubat Borel the stelae of Mazzè, Chivasso and Lugnacco, about 4 metres long, were markers placed on top of burial mounds of the early Iron Age. probable Gambari, an archaeologist of the Soprintendenza, dated the stele to the early Iron Age and in 1993 proposed the period between the 8th and 4th centuries BC as the most likely date. probable

For Gallo, on the other hand, the three stelae have no archaeological context and the way they were worked does not allow a secure date: they could be older monoliths reused in the Iron Age as funerary markers. uncertain According to Pipino the protohistoric importance of the stele, which weighs about 2,500 kilos, is not proven. uncertain

Sources: Gallo 2015, pp. 3-4, 8; Rubat Borel 2014, p. 40; Pipino 2017, p. 10

Who the Salassi were

The Salassi lived in the territories of Ivrea, Biella and Aosta. The first to name them is Cato in the Origines, in the mid-2nd century BC: he calls them "of Taurisci stock", like the Lepontii. The ancient sources that derive from Livy call them Gauls: Cassius Dio speaks of "a Gallic tribe", Orosius of "Salassian Gauls". In the 1st century BC they belong to the Celtic La Tène culture, like the neighbouring Valais: this is shown by their heavy bronze anklets and armlets. Lamboglia, in 1982, held instead that they were a Ligurian people subjected to the Gauls in the lower part of their territory. uncertain

They spoke a Celtic language which they wrote in the Lugano alphabet: this is attested by a potsherd from Paraj Àuta and by inscriptions on pottery from Aosta. The most important evidence is the five funerary inscriptions of the Cerrione cemetery, from the early 1st century BC. The name Eporedia is Celtic too: Pliny explains that the Gauls call good horse-tamers "eporedii". The place names Sala, Salasco, Salassa, Saluggia and Salussola, on the other hand, have nothing to do with the Salassi: they come from the Lombard sala, "country residence".

Sources: Rubat Borel 2014, pp. 42-43, 45; Rubat Borel 2019, pp. 83-85, 88; Pliny, Naturalis historia III, 21, 123 and III, 24, 134; Cassius Dio, Roman History XXII, 74, 1; Archeomedia 2013, p. 2

Gold and the Roman conquest

Strabo writes that in the land of the Salassi there were gold mines worked by the Salassi themselves: to wash the sands they split the water of the Dora into many channels and took it away from the farmers of the plain, so wars kept breaking out. In 143 BC the consul Appius Claudius Pulcher attacked the Salassi: according to Cassius Dio he was looking for a pretext to win a triumph and used the quarrel over the water for the mines as his opportunity. The Oxyrhynchus epitome places the victory in 140 BC. probable

After the Roman victory the working of the gold passed to the publicani, the contractors of the State. In 100 BC Rome founded the colony of Eporedia and only then organised the territory. Where the mines of the Salassi really were is debated: this is discussed on the page "Those who think otherwise".

Sources: Strabo, Geography IV, 6, 7; Velleius Paterculus I, 15, 5; Rubat Borel 2019, pp. 83-84; Rubat Borel 2014, p. 41; Balbo 2018, p. 59

25 BC: the end of the Salassi

Until the age of Augustus the Salassi controlled the passes and charged a toll for crossing them: Decimus Brutus, fleeing from Modena, had to pay a drachma for every soldier. According to Aime they had already been attacked in 35-34 BC without losing their territory; Rubat Borel holds instead that the Salassi defeated at that time were a different people with the same name. uncertain

In 25 BC Augustus sent Terentius Varro against them; he attacked them from several points at once and defeated them. The men of fighting age were sold as slaves, with a ban on freeing them before twenty years had passed. Strabo writes that more than 36,000 prisoners and 8,000 warriors were sold at auction after being taken to Eporedia. On the site of Varro's camp Augusta Praetoria, today Aosta, was founded with 3,000 Romans. Some of the Salassi moved into the new colony from the very beginning, as shown by an inscription that calls them "Salassi incolae".

Sources: Rubat Borel 2019, pp. 87-88; Strabo, Geography IV, 6, 7; Cassius Dio, Roman History LIII, 25; Aime, pp. 5, 23

How little we know

Between 400 and 100 BC archaeological finds are few and the material culture of the Salassi is almost unknown: weapons and large rings come from collections without context. For the early Iron Age, too, there are no excavations of settlements. This is why much of what we know about the Salassi comes from ancient authors: Cato, Strabo, Pliny, Cassius Dio.

Sources: Rubat Borel 2014, pp. 40-41; Rubat Borel 2019, p. 84