the steps and landings, which they made as filthy and odoriferous as themselves. It is but fair, however, to say that the landlord had no control over this, and the accommodation, as far as his efforts were concerned, was good and clean. The only other hotel in the town, the Poste, was much inferior. A new one has since been started under the auspices of a Chamouni guide, reported to be good.

Aosta

CHAPTER VI.

VAL D'AOSTA.

Antiquities - Triumphal arch- History and conquest of Salassi - Foundation of Roman city - Augusta Prætoria - Plan of streets and gates-Porta Prætoria― Walls-Mediæval remains - Porte de Bramafam- Amphitheatre and Roman remains-Sœurs de St. JosephCafés and journals — Pilgrimage to the hermitage of St. Grat — Return of procession-College - Tour du Lépreux – Lepers - Goître and crétins-Xavier de Maistre - Preparations for the mountains.

OUR first object was to explore the Roman remains, for which Aosta is famous; and on the Monday we sallied out soon after seven, by the Porte de la Trinité, on the road to Turin, as the most satisfactory point from which to commence a general survey. At the end of a small suburb outside the walls, the Buthier torrent, which runs down to the Doire from the Val Pellina, is crossed by a modern bridge; and in front of it, spanning the road, stands the Triumphal Arch of Augustus. The view through it from the eastward of the city, and the distant mountains and glaciers, is a beautiful picture. The Buthier torrent has changed its course completely since the period when the arch was built, and now flows much closer to it than formerly. The ancient bed and the Roman bridge which crossed it-the arch half buried in sand and gravel-may be found together in a little suburb, called Pont de Pierre, at a short distance eastward of the modern bridge.

The arch itself is entire all but the attic, and in general design resembles the arch of Titus at Rome, as distinguished from those of Severus or Constantine, which might have been expected from its much earlier date. Like that of Titus, it consists of a single arch, with four columns on each face, an

intermediate one at each end, and a recess like a doorway on either side of the archway, between each pair of columns. But the shafts of the pillars are here plain, not fluted, and have Corinthian capitals, with a Doric entablature. The attic-on which probably was, or was intended to be, the dedicatory or commemorative inscription, as in the abovementioned instances-no longer exists, and is replaced by a tiled roof, to the great detriment of its original proportions. There is no sculpture on the frieze beyond the ordinary Doric triglyph, neither on the spaces between the columns, nor, as in the arch of Titus, under the arch itself This absence of one of the most important and interesting features of a triumphal arch, is probably to be accounted for, by the want of sculptors in the district competent to do such work. In the contemporaneous arch at Susa, erected by Julius Cottius to Augustus, the sculptures are of the most rude and barbarous character. The Roman builder, in neither instance, has united the sculptor's art with his own; and while the architectural details are good, the relievos have either been left to native Ligurian artists, as at Susa, or altogether omitted, as at Aosta. The material of which the arch, and also the old walls, is composed, is a very remarkable pudding-stone, consisting of small rough lumps of gneiss, quartz, schist, and various metamorphic rocks, all cemented together; and, I was informed, was procured from a vast quarry which once existed at Quart, about four or five miles from the city. A crucifix now stands, supported by iron rods, across the arch, where the winged image of Victory was suspended over the head of the Emperor as he passed under on his triumphal entry.

This arch was erected by Terentius Varro, the General of Augustus, to commemorate the establishment of the Emperor's rule, after the final conquest of the Salassi. This hardy people, as has already been alluded to, maintained possession of their native fastnesses against the Roman

legions, the last of all the Ligurian tribes; and contested it with a resolute pertinacity, which cost their invaders dear. Entrenched in their mountain strongholds, they set at defiance the superior advantages of the disciplined and civilized Roman legions; and were only at last overcome by stratagem. They were of the same stock as the Taurini, Graioceli, Centrones, Caturiges, and the other Highland Ligurian tribes, who probably withdrew entirely to the mountain ranges of the Cottian, Graian, and Pennine Alps, when driven back by the invading Etruscans; as the ancient Celtic Cymri did in Britain, under similar circumstances. According to the local antiquaries of Aosta, the Salassi advanced from Gaul, across the Alps, under the leadership of Cordelius-a descendant of no less a person than Saturn himself, and moreover one of the Generals of Hercules-who appropriated the then uninhabited valley, and founded a city, on the site of the present Aosta, which he named Cordele. This event is modestly fixed at 406 years before the Roman era, and 1159 before Christ. We may, however, safely admit the authenticity of the name, and leave the Valdotians the belief in its antiquity.

As to the relations of the Salassi with the neighbouring tribes, we have seen, on the authority of Polybius, that they joined not only with the Ligurian tribes, the Taurini, Libui, and others, but also with the Gallo-Celtic Boii and Insubres, against the Romans, in the great Gallic war, B.C. 226; when, as Gallenga observes, the number of combatants on both sides exceeded that of the very largest hosts brought into the field, in later times, by Napoleon himself. They were not however conquered, but only driven back, and the Salassi retired on their own strongholds. At the commencement of the second Punic war, B.C. 218, they do not seem to have been unfavourable to the intentions of their allies, the Boii and

* Dion., Hist. Rom., liv. 53.

G

Insubres, in sending the deputation over to Hannibal. The Carthaginian army, in fact, does not appear to have met with any opposition from the Salassi, nor is any mention made of Cordele, from which we may conclude they merely marched through it, as a friendly country, down to their first halt in the plains, at the mouth of the Val d'Aosta.

The Salassi pursued an entirely different policy from that of their mountain neighbours; who had been compelled into an understanding with the Romans, which eventually resulted, after various struggles, in the submission of twelve of their tribes, who became allies of Rome, with Cottius, their former king, at their head, as Prefect; and by whom the triumphal arch was erected to Augustus at Susa. The Salassi were of a different mettle, for Livy tells us that Appius Claudius only partially subdued them, with the loss of 10,000 troops. Strabo moreover says, that, "whether at war or at peace with the Romans, they still maintained their power; inflicting loss on them whenever they passed through their territory. They compelled Decimus Brutus, on his flight with his troops from Modena, to pay a denarius or six sesterces a head as indemnity; and when Messala wintered in the neighbourhood, he had to purchase from them the wood for fuel, and the elm spear-shafts for their exercises. They also sometimes carried off the treasures of Cæsar's army, and under the pretence of assisting his movements, by repairing the roads and erecting bridges, they laid wait for his troops on the tops of precipitous places. At last Cæsar conquered them, and sold the whole of them as slaves at Eporedia (Ivrea); which had been built as a Roman colony, and for a protection against the Salassi, although it was of little avail against the native tribes, until their race was blotted out. 36,000 of them were thus sold by Terentius Varro, including 8000 men-at-arms. Augustus sent 3000 Roman soldiery, and founded a city on † Strabo, Geog., lib. iv.

Livy, Epitome, liii.