[7][8] The Salassi lived in the upper valley of the Dora Baltea river, where they controlled the Great and Little St Bernard passes in the Alps, collecting road tolls, and gold and iron mines.
[9] The Roman Republic took over the rich gold deposits, and a colony was later planted in 100 BC at Eporedia (Ivrea) to take control of the Alpine route into the Po Valley and guard over the Salassi.
[10] Relations with the Romans were not uniformly peaceful; Strabo mentions that the Salassi robbed Julius Caesar's treasury and threw stones on his legions on the grounds that they were making roads and building bridges.
[12] There may have been a Roman campaign against the Salassi in 35 or 34 BC, launched from the valley of the Isère river under Antistius Vetus[13] or Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus.
[15] They were definitively conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers.