From the Alpine legions of ancient Rome to today’s Alpini: a two-thousand-year story
When we talk about the origins of the Alpini, we tend to think of their official birth in 1872, the year the Royal Army created the Alpini Corps to defend the mountain borders of the newly unified state. But history, looked at more closely, tells us something even older and more fascinating.
The true origins of the Alpini go back well before the modern age, as far as Roman times, when the defence of the Alps was already considered a fundamental strategic necessity for the security of the Empire.
After Julius Caesar’s great victory over the Gauls at Alesia in 52 BC, tens of thousands of prisoners were brought to Italy and assigned to the hardest labour, particularly in the mines of the Alpine regions.
The prisoners were scattered through the valleys of the two Doras and the Scrivia, and some groups were even sent to Sardinia. New mountain colonies thus sprang up near the mines, made up of Gallic miners and Roman garrison troops in charge of guarding them. These colonies, born of the great event of the battle of Alesia, chose to remember its name, perhaps out of the victors’ vainglory or the vanquished’s nostalgia.
Thus Nova Alesia was born near the Mont Cenis Alps, where the monastery of Novalesa stands today; Alesia in Valchiusella, recorded in the episcopal archives of Ivrea as Iove sacra Alesia near the mines of Traversella; another Alesia, today Alice, in the Scrivia valley near Gavi; Allain in the mining districts of the Aosta Valley; Ales in Sardinia, and so on.
Brigantio, the Cottian Alps and the «Road of the Gauls»
If we widen our view to the western Alps, we find another interesting piece of the puzzle: in Roman times Brigantio (or Brigantium, today’s Briançon) lay within the area of the Cottian Alps, named after King Marcus Julius Cottius (c. 60 BC – AD 10), son and successor of Donnus.
According to tradition, in 61 BC Donnus made a pact with Julius Caesar, on his way to Spain, allowing him to cross the pass of Montgenèvre (the Mons Matrona of the Romans). This agreement laid the foundations for an alliance with Rome that brought stability and prosperity to the kingdom and its dynasty, maintaining strong local autonomy within the framework of a Roman protectorate.
In 58 BC Caesar had to cross the pass again for the campaign in Gaul: the crossing was preceded by clashes with some mountain tribes hostile to the alliance, but Roman military superiority prevailed. From then on, control of the Alpine passes became increasingly decisive.
From 55 BC, with the conquest of Gaul, the Montgenèvre corridor gained enormous economic and strategic value, and Donnus encouraged its development until it became the «Road of the Gauls» par excellence: a great route for trade and military movement, linking the plain with the world beyond the Alps. The alliance with the local peoples was then consolidated between 13 and 12 BC with a pact between Cottius and Augustus, celebrated at Segusio (today Susa) with the Arch of Augustus, linked to the Via Cottia (as it was called along that stretch).
It is no surprise, then, that the Brigantio area also appears in late antique sources: the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, in the second half of the 4th century AD, mentions Briançon as Castellum Virgantiam (probably a corruption of Castellum Brigantiam), a sign that those Alpine passes were still very much alive in the military and administrative geography of the time.
To control the prisoners and protect their exploitation, Rome set up permanent military garrisons in the mountain valleys themselves. Mining colonies guarded by Roman soldiers thus came into being, and over time they took on an increasingly important role in defending the Alpine territory.
These garrisons, originally tied to the mines, gradually turned into real territorial military units. The soldiers, used to living and operating in the mountains, became specialists in Alpine warfare: experts on the passes, the valleys, the climate and the hardships of the mountain environment.
When, under the emperor Augustus, Rome decided to subdue once and for all the Alpine peoples of Raetia, these units were decisive.
It is therefore beyond doubt that the creation of the Roman Alpine mining colonies brought with it the establishment of Alpine military garrisons. These garrisons became the core of territorial military formations, which gradually moved from the first mining settlements to points of greater strategic importance in the mountains. Their growing number and the services they rendered to the Empire, especially during the Raetian wars, led to the formation of larger and more distinctive units: the Alpine legions.
Many people do not know that in the days of the Roman Empire there were three exclusively Alpine legions: the Legio Prima Alpina, the Second Julia Alpina and the Third Julia Alpina. The first had its original core in the garrison of Nova Alesia. The other two must have been stationed in the Aosta Valley, probably at the mouth of and within the valley, in keeping with the ancient name of Aosta, Augusta Praetoria Julia.
It is likely that the second legion was formed at Eporedia (Ivrea) from the garrison units of Alice Superiore, near the Dora, and that the third was formed at Aosta from the units of Allain. In any case, at the time of Emperor Julian’s victories against the Germans in Raetia (AD 361), the Roman Alpine legions rendered great service to the Empire.
From this evolution were born true Alpine legions, military units made up of men selected and trained specifically for mountain service.
They consisted largely of archer-hunters (sagittarii venatores), in whom we can recognise the most remote origin of the chasseurs, the Jäger and the bersaglieri of modern armies. And of course of us Alpini too!
Historical sources attest to the existence of at least three Roman Alpine legions: the Legio Prima Alpina, the Second Julia Alpina and the Third Julia Alpina. They operated mainly in the regions now corresponding to the Aosta Valley, Piedmont and the western Alpine areas.
The Legio Prima Alpina and the Second Julia Alpina were among the pseudo-comitatenses legions; the Third Julia Alpina was instead the Legio XXX of the comitatenses legions. The distinctive emblems of these three Roman Alpine legions even survive in a precious codex in the Library of Parma, attributed to Pietro Donato, Bishop of Padua, and copied from an even older manuscript from Speyer.
These legions were not ordinary troops. They were made up largely of archers and hunters, men able to move nimbly over the most difficult terrain, anticipating by many centuries the modern concept of specialised mountain troops.
A particularly significant element concerns the symbols of these legions. In an ancient late Roman manuscript, the Notitia Dignitatum, the emblems of the Alpine legions are depicted: figures and colours strikingly reminiscent of those we associate with the Alpini today.
Green, the dominant colour, together with white and red, already appears there, almost suggesting an ideal continuity across the centuries.
The Notitia Dignitatum
The Notitia Dignitatum (full title: Notitia Dignitatum et Administrationum Omnium Tam Civilium Quam Militarium) is one of the most valuable sources for understanding how the Roman state apparatus worked in the last centuries of the Empire. Compiled by anonymous authors between the late 4th and early 5th century AD, it lists the main civil and military offices and the units under the various commands, in both the Western and the Eastern Empire.
Its fame, however, does not come only from its lists: the Notitia also preserves an extraordinary series of painted shields, that is, the graphic emblems associated with military units. These images, despite some artistic simplification, help us grasp the identity, traditions and «unit marks» of the late Roman army. For many scholars they are among the oldest evidence of European military heraldry, because in logic and function these symbols anticipate the coats of arms and insignia that would spread in later centuries.
The text was preserved in the famous Codex Spirensis, now lost (broken up at the beginning of the 17th century), but fortunately copied several times in the Middle Ages. Among the most important copies is the one linked to the manuscript tradition of the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, which derives from older models. The fact that the Notitia circulated together with other «administrative» and geographical works (lists of provinces, descriptions of cities, itineraries) suggests a collection intended as a tool for study and government, valued in Carolingian times too.
Of course we cannot be absolutely certain that every shield reproduced matches a real model in every detail: some motifs may have been stylised or made more decorative by the copyists. However, the emblems that coincide with other evidence (seals, inscriptions, parallel references) show that the Notitia still reflects an authentic heritage of symbols.
As for the Alpine legions, the images attributed to these units show recurring elements and colours: in particular green, which returns as the dominant shade, alongside white and red. It is an evocative detail, because it ideally recalls the colours we associate today with the Alpini identity and the Italian tricolour, reinforcing the idea of a continuity «of spirit» between the mountain soldiers of yesterday and those of today.
In short: the Notitia Dignitatum is not just a list of names, but a concrete window onto how Rome organised the defence of the Empire and how military units built their own identity. That is also why, when it comes to the Alpine legions, the Notitia remains an essential stop for anyone wanting to dig deeper.
All this leads us to an important consideration: the Alpini are not just a military corps born in the 19th century, but the modern heirs of a thousand-year-old tradition of men bound to the mountains and to their defence.
Eras change, armies and uniforms change, but the spirit remains the same: that of people who experience the mountains not as an obstacle but as home.
That is why remembering the ancient Roman Alpine legions is not a scholarly exercise, but a way of strengthening our sense of identity and belonging.
The Alpini of the Karst, the Pasubio, the Grappa and the Col di Lana, like those engaged today in volunteering, Civil Protection and the life of their communities, are ideally linked to those first soldiers who, more than two thousand years ago, kept watch over the Alpine passes.
It would be good for this long historical continuity to be remembered symbolically too, so that every Alpino, young or old, can feel part of a story that did not begin yesterday but has its roots in the mists of time.
A story of service, sacrifice, love for the mountains and a deep sense of duty: values that the Salce Alpini Group continues to bear witness to every day.
… LONG LIVE THE ALPINI! ALWAYS!
Michele Sacchet
