How we know

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

For almost two thousand years, from the Iron Age to 891, we have four kinds of evidence: what the ancient authors wrote, inscriptions, excavations and geology. This page explains what each of them tells us, how the certain is told apart from the probable and what we still do not know.

The ancient authors

The first to name the Salassi is Cato, in the Origines, in the mid-2nd century BC. Strabo, writing in the Augustan age, tells of the gold mines of the Salassi and the quarrels over the water of the Dora. Of the mine near Vercelli, however, he speaks in the past tense: once there was one. Pliny the Elder mentions a censorial law that forbade the publicani to employ more than 5,000 men in the gold mines of Victimulae, in the territory of Vercelli. He also writes that Eporedia was founded by the Roman people at the command of the Sibylline books.

For the same war the sources can give different dates. Appius Claudius Pulcher attacked the Salassi in 143 BC: according to Cassius Dio he was looking for a pretext to win a triumph. The Oxyrhynchus epitome, on the other hand, places his victory in 140 BC. probable Velleius Paterculus gives the year of the founding of Eporedia, 100 BC, with the names of the consuls. Some scholars recognise Ivrea in the kástron Eourías mentioned by George of Cyprus in the second half of the 6th century. uncertain

In this portal the ancient authors are cited as modern scholars report and discuss them. The citations themselves do not always match: for one passage of Cassius Dio three studies give three different references.

Sources: Rubat Borel 2019, pp. 83-85; Balbo 2018, pp. 58, 60; Strabo, Geography IV, 6, 7 and V, 1, 12; Pliny, Naturalis historia III, 21, 123 and XXXIII, 78; Velleius Paterculus I, 15, 5; Giostra 2014, p. 155

Inscriptions and coins

A potsherd from Paraj Àuta shows that the Salassi wrote a Celtic language in the Lugano alphabet. The five funerary inscriptions of Cerrione, from the early 1st century BC, are the most important evidence of that language.

For Eporedia the gravestones tell us about people: the sarcophagus of the magistrate Gaius Atecius Valerius, who has a Celtic family name, or the stele of the freedman Lucius Ebutius Faustus with the carved groma. It is a gravestone that makes the existence of Bishop Innocenzo, who died in 486, entirely certain. The way of dating is itself evidence: the Christian inscriptions of Ivrea count the years by the consuls; that of Droctario, of 545, is dated by the indiction and by the years since the consulship of Paulinus, the last consul of the West. Coins help with dating too: on Paraj Àuta a Roman coin of a magistrate of 147 BC is associated with the brief return of the inhabitants in the 2nd century BC.

Sources: Rubat Borel 2014, pp. 42-43; Rubat Borel 2019, p. 85; Curzio 2014, pp. 6-7; Mennella 2014, pp. 179-180

Excavations

Several remains of Eporedia came to light by chance or during building work. The remains of the theatre were uncovered between 1833 and 1836 during work on a building in piazza di Città and were largely demolished to make cellars. The ruins of the main bridge were uncovered by the flood of 1977. At the amphitheatre, on the other hand, excavations began in 1955.

At the Bessa the 1995 excavation at Ciapej Parfondà yielded material of the end of the 2nd and the first half of the 1st century BC, with no older objects and none of the Imperial age: this is how the mine is dated. The wooden handle of a pick, radiocarbon-dated in 1980, gave a date between the 2nd and the 1st century BC. probable An excavation says little if nobody records it. The Lombard necropolis of Borgomasino was found between 1875 and 1897 while clay was being dug for a kiln: the excavations were not documented and most of the objects were dispersed. For the Salassi of the Canavese, between 400 and 100 BC, finds are few and weapons and large rings come from collections without context.

Sources: Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, pp. 127, 131; Legrottaglie 2014, p. 89; Sánchez-Palencia, Vaudagna 2008, p. 4; Pipino 2010, p. 13; Giostra 2014, pp. 158-159; Rubat Borel 2014, p. 41

Geology

The ground itself is a document. The Bessa deposit was a placer, an alluvial deposit of pebbles and sand with gold in flakes. That the gold comes from the Aosta Valley is proved by the nature of the pebbles in the heaps: the Balteo glacier carried it here. The placer lies 20-50 m above the beds of the Viona and the Olobbia: to wash it, therefore, the water had to be taken further upstream and brought in by a channel. probable The work itself erased part of the evidence: later digging gradually destroyed the water network of the earlier phases.

Sources: Gianotti 2011, pp. 183-185; Gianotti 2016, p. 4; Sánchez-Palencia, Vaudagna 2008, pp. 6, 12

We know, probable, uncertain

Every sentence in the portal carries its degree of certainty. "We know" means that the fact is attested by an ancient source, an inscription or an excavation reported in a study: the founding of Eporedia in 100 BC is recorded by Velleius. "Probable" indicates a well-founded hypothesis: 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 "Uncertain" marks weak or debated hypotheses: the circuit of the walls comes from a plan reconstructed in 1965, not from an excavation. uncertain

Facts that come only from popular works or from university laboratory coursework are at most "probable": the full name of the general who defeated the Salassi, Aulus Terentius Varro Murena, is given only by a popular text. probable When scholars disagree, the views stand side by side. For the CSIC and for Gianotti the Bessa mine was already abandoned by the beginning of the 1st century AD. probable According to Pipino it closed earlier, around the middle of the 1st century BC. uncertain Pipino's views, often contrary to those of the archaeologists, are collected on the page "Those who think otherwise".

Sources: Velleius Paterculus I, 15, 5; Brecciaroli Taborelli 2007, p. 130; Curzio 2014, p. 8; Aime, pp. 6, 24; Sánchez-Palencia, Vaudagna 2008, p. 4; Gianotti 2011, p. 183; Pipino 2021b, pp. 7, 41

The gaps

• Iron Age: for the early Iron Age there are no excavations of settlements; between 400 and 100 BC the material culture of the Salassi is almost unknown.
• The Bessa: no source gives the point where the water was taken in or the route of the aqueduct; we do not know whether the workers were free or slaves. uncertain The final results of the CSIC campaigns of 2012-2013 are missing.
• Goths: no source collected speaks of Goths in the Ivrea area. uncertain
• Texts not read: the 1993 study of the Mazzè stele, the Vita Gaudentii, the Passio of the Theban Legion and Einhard's Annals for 801 are not among the sources of this portal.

Sources: Rubat Borel 2014, pp. 40-41; Rubat Borel 2019, p. 84; Sánchez-Palencia, Vaudagna 2008, pp. 4, 6, 12, 22; Mennella 2014, p. 180