Road station
In Alpe Cottia
Col du Mont-Genèvre
In Alpe Cottia, on the Cottian Alps, marks the pass of the Mont Genèvre. Caesar crossed here in 58 BC, judging it the shortest way into Further Gaul, and under Augustus the local ruler Cottius, after whom these Alps are named, built the road. In late antiquity the pass was called Matrona, perhaps after the goddesses called Matronae. The four silver cups from Vicarello name the station variously as Druantium, Druentia or Summae Alpes, and do not agree on the distances either. Curiously, the map draws both the pass and Cottius' kingdom west of the main Alpine ridge.