crispina kemp

Roman Theatre: photo by Luca Comé

My father’s grandfather died… when the bloody-handed red-garbed men from Rome thieved our gold.

Those same red-garbed men set stone-on-stone within our valley. They bridged the rivers, built a road, and built a town. No seer needed to see where they’d fixed their sights; no flights of birds to know we capitulate or die. My father and his brothers, my mother and my aunts gathered stones to hurl at them.

And now in my time, those bloody-handed red-garbed men from Rome come armed. My sons tell me I’m too old to fight, and I tell them I am not. Am I to watch my people die? Hide while those who survive the killing are bound and taken captive, to be sold as slaves? Because the Romans want our pass, and the Salassi are People of the Bear and will not bow.

141 words written for What Pegman Saw: Aosta Valley, Italy.

In 143 BCE Rome seized the gold mines located in Aosta Valley. In 100 BCE they established the city of Eporedia and built road and bridges to access Great St Bernard Pass. In 35 BCE the campaign against the Salassi began in earnest. In 25 BCE it ended in slaughter with 2000 Salassi warriors killed and 40,000 men, women and children taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. Because the Salassi were People of the Bear and would not bow.