Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
A similar character of financial speculation marks the war, which was
waged by the Romans under the consul Appius Claudius in 611 against the
Salassi respecting the gold mines and gold washings of Victumulae (in
the district of Vercelli and Bard and in the whole valley of the Dorea
Baltea).
The great extent of these washings, which deprived the
inhabitants of the country lying lower down of water for their fields,
first gave rise to an attempt at mediation and then to the armed
intervention of the Romans. The war, although the Romans began it
like all the other wars of this period with a defeat, led at last to
the subjugation of the Salassi, and the cession of the gold district
to the Roman treasury.
Some forty years afterwards (654) the colony of
Eporedia (Ivrea) was instituted on the territory thus gained, chiefly
doubtless with a view to command the western, as Aquileia commanded
the eastern, passage of the Alps.
