Arco di Augusto e Susa Romana

The Arco di Augusto stands on a terrace above the Alpine town of Susa, the ancient Segusio, guarding the valley route between Italy and Gaul that the Romans prized as a strategic gateway across the Alps. The white marble arch was erected in 9-8 BC by Marcus Julius Cottius, a chieftain of the local Gaulish peoples who, rather than resisting Rome, allied himself with the emperor Augustus and governed the Alpine valleys on Rome's behalf as a client prince. A frieze running around the arch depicts the ceremony of alliance and sacrifice between Cottius and the Roman authorities, a rare and vivid record of how Rome absorbed the Alpine tribes through diplomacy as much as conquest. The single-span arch is remarkably well preserved and is the finest Roman monument in Piedmont, framed by the mountains of the Val di Susa. Around it the town retains further traces of its Roman past, including the remains of an amphitheatre, sections of aqueduct, the Porta Savoia gate, and the foundations beneath the later medieval cathedral of San Giusto, making Susa an open-air record of two thousand years of Alpine history. Easily reached by road or rail from Turin up the Val di Susa, the arch is a compelling stop for visitors interested in the Roman roots of Piedmont and the long history of the routes that crossed these mountains.