under the Roman Empire. It most likely began as a small military camp built by the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio in 218 BCE to guard a wooden bridge he had built over the river Ticinum, on his way to search for Hannibal, who was rumoured to have managed to lead an army over the Alps and into Italy. The forces of Rome and Carthage ran into each other soon thereafter, and the Romans suffered the first of many crushing defeats at the hands of Hannibal, with the consul himself almost losing his life. The bridge was destroyed, but the fortified camp, which at the time was the most forward Roman military outpost in the Po Valley, somehow survived the long Second Punic War, and gradually evolved into a garrison town. Its importance grew with the extension of the Via Aemilia from Ariminum (Rimini) to the Po River (187 BCE), which it crossed at Placentia (Piacenza) and there forked, one branch going to Mediolanum (Milan) and the other to Ticinum, and thence to Laumellum where it divided once more, one branch going to Vercellae - and thence to Eporedia and Augusta Praetoria - and the other to Valentia - and thence to Augusta Taurinorum (Turin). The town was built on flatted ground with square blocks. The "cardo Maximus" road corresponded to the current Strada Nuova up to the Roman bridge while the "decumanus" road corresponded to corso Cavour-corso Mazzini. Under most of the streets of the historic center there are still the brick ducts of the Roman sewer system which continued to function throughout the Middle Ages and the modern age without interruption, until about 1970. Pavia was important as a Military site (near the city, in 271, the emperor Aurelian defeated the Juthungi) because of the easy access to water communications (through the Ticino and Po rivers) up to the Adriatic Sea and because of its defence structures. In 325 Martin of Tours come to Pavia as a child following his father, a Roman officer. Pavia was the seat of an important Roman mint between 273 and 326. The reign of Romulus Augustulus (r. 475–476), the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire ended at Pavia in 476 CE, and Roman rule thereby ceased in Italy. Romulus Augustulus, while considered the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was actually a usurper of the imperial throne; his father Flavius Orestes