n lofty crags--_praeruptis
oppida saxis_--which gave no room for square or oblong house-blocks.
In the period of the dying Republic and nascent Empire fewer
'coloniae' were planted here than in the north, while in much of
southern Italy towns have in all ages been comparatively rare.

[70] Beloch, _Campanien_, p. 252.

In the towns just noted we can trace many, though not all, of the
original house-blocks. Usually the blocks are square or nearly so, as
at Turin, Verona, Pavia, Piacenza, Florence, Lucca. Less often they
are long and even narrow rectangles, as at Modena, and Sorrento, and
above all Naples, and as usual it is not easy to understand the reason
for the difference (p. 80).

_Turin_ (fig. 15).

Of all the examples of Roman town-planning known to us in Italy, Turin
is by far the most famous.[71] Here the streets have survived almost
intact, and excavations have confirmed the truth of the survival by
revealing both the ancient road-metalling and the ancient town-walls
and gates. Turin, Augusta Taurinorum, began about 28 B.C. as a
'colonia' planted by Augustus. Its walls enclosed an oblong of about
745 x 695 metres (127 acres).[72] The sides are represented (1) on the
north by the Via Giulio, in the western part of which the southern
edge of the street actually coincides with the line of the Roman
town-wall, while further east the Porta Palatina enshrines an ancient
gate; (2) on the west by the Via della Consolata, and the Via
Siccardi, the east side of which latter street seems to stand upon the
Roman town-wall; and (3) on the south by the Via della Cernaia and Via
Teresa, the north side of which stands over the Roman southern
town-wall. (4) The east wall agrees with no existing street but may be
represented by a line drawn through the Carignano Theatre and the
western front of the Palazzo Madama, which contains the actual towers
of the Roman east gate.[73] The north-west corner, uncovered in 1884,
is a sharp right angle. This feature recurs at Aosta and at Laibach
(pp. 90, 116), both founded, like Turin, in the Augustan age, and
seems to belong to that period; later, it gave place to the rounded
angle visible at Timgad (p. 109) and in many Roman forts of the middle
Empire.

[71] Carlo Promis, _Storia dell' antico Torino_ (Torino, 1869);
Alfredo d'Andrade, _Relazione dell' ufficio regionale per la
conservazione dei monumenti del Piemonte_, 1883-91 (Torino,
1899); Schultze, _Bonner Ja