However, it is not certain that this was Ceba: Mombasiglio is also regarded as a candidate. In the first century AD Columella referred to a particular breed of cattle raised here, and Pliny the Elder praised its sheep's milk cheese in his Natural History. The town is on the site of the old Roman road from Augusta Taurinorum via Pollentia to the coast[4] and it is probable that there was a market here from which the cheese produced in the region was exported with Rome via the Ligurian ports of Vada Sabatia (the modern Vado Ligure) and/or Albingaunum (Albenga).