This Trophy is erected by the Senate and People of Rome to the
Emperor Caesar Augustus, son of the
Divine Julius, in the
fourteenth year of his imperial Dignity, and in the eighteenth of
his Tribunician Power, because under his command and auspices all
the nations of the Alps from the Adriatic to the Tuscanian Sea,
were reduced under the Dominion of Rome. The Alpine nations
subdued were the Trumpelini, etc.
Pliny, however, is mistaken in placing this inscription on a
trophy near the Augusta praetoria, now called Aosta, in Piedmont:
where, indeed, there is a triumphal arch, but no inscription.
This noble monument of antiquity was first of all destroyed by
fire; and afterwards, in Gothic times, converted into a kind of
fortification. The marbles belonging to it were either employed
in adorning the church of the adjoining village, which is still
called Turbia, a corruption of Trophaea; [This was formerly a
considerable town called Villa Martis, and pretends to the honour
of having given birth to Aulus Helvius, who succeeded Commodus as
emperor of Rome, by the name of Pertinax which he acquired from
his obstinate refusal of that dignity, when it was forced upon
him by the senate. You know this man, though of very low birth,
possessed many excellent qualities, and was basely murdered by
the praetorian guards, at the instigation of Didius Tulianus. For
my part, I could never read without emotion, that celebrated
eulogium of the senate who exclaimed after his death, Pertinace,
imperante, securi viximus neminem timuimus, patre pio, patre
senatus, patre omnium, honorum, We lived secure and were afraid
of nothing under the Government of Pertinax, our affectionate
Father, Father of the Senate, Father to all the children of
Virtue.] or converted into tomb-stones, or carried off to be
preserved in one or two churches of Nice.
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