If these are survivals of other such roads, Aosta may have contained thirty-two oblong 'insulae', each nearly 220 x 540 ft., or even sixty-four smaller and squarer 'insulae', measuring half that size.[79] Four gates gave entrance; those in the two longer sides which face north-west and south-east, are curiously far from the centre and indeed close to the south-western end of the town.

It is, of course, impossible to determine, without spade-work, which of the recognizable buildings of Aosta date from the foundation of the place in 25 B.C.But the general internal scheme and the symmetrical and practically 'chess-board' pattern of streets must date from the first foundation.[80] [79] Promis, p.

140; his plan has no proper scale.

There seems no decisive evidence and the modern streets of Aosta do not help us.
[80] The town of Concordia in north-east Italy, where Augustus planted a 'colonia', doubtless of discharged soldiers, is said to have possessed a ground-plan of oblong blocks very like that of Augusta Praetoria.

But this plan rests mainly on the authority of a workman who apparently did not know how to read or write (he is described as 'analfabeta') and I therefore omit it here.