29 _note_).

It is presumably a mere matter of convenience; no superstition attaches to it such as that which led the Chinese not to put their gates opposite each other (p.

148).
[Illustration: FIG.15.TURIN.FROM A PLAN OF 1844] _Aosta_ (fig.

16).
Another example of an Italian town-plan, from the same date and district as Turin, is supplied by Augusta Praetoria, now Aosta, some fifty miles north of Turin in the Dora Baltea Valley, not far from the foot of Mont Blanc.[77] Aosta was founded by Augustus in 25 B.C.on a hitherto empty spot, to provide homes for time-expired soldiers and to serve as a quasi-fortress in an important Alpine valley.

Its first inhabitants were 3,000 men discharged from the Praetorian Guard, with their wives and children; its population may have numbered at the outset some 15,000 free persons, besides slaves.