[1] Named after the 1st-century BC ruler of the region, Marcus Julius Cottius, the toponym survives today in the Cottian Alps.

[2] The province had its origin in a local chiefdom controlled by the enfranchised king Marcus Julius Donnus, who ruled over Ligurian tribes of the region by the middle of the 1st century BC.

He was succeeded by his son, Marcus Julius Cottius, who offered no opposition to the integration of his realm into the Roman imperial system under Emperor Augustus in 15–14 BC, then kept on ruling on native tribes as a praefectus civitatium of a Regnum Cotti.

[3][1][2] After the death of his son Cottius II in 63 AD, the region was annexed by Emperor Nero and made into a procuratorial province known as provincia Alpium Cottiarum.

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