Part 3

What they did excel in was fighting. Dressed in gaudy costume--wide tunic, bright plaid, and toga embroidered with silver and gold--the Celtic noble would fight by preference in single combat, to show off to personal advantage, but in the brunt of battle he threw away his clothing to fight unimpeded. Bituitus, king of the Arverni, attired in magnificent style, mounts his silver chariot, and, preceded by a harper and a pack of hounds, goes to meet Cæsar in battle, and win his respect and admiration.

The Helvetians were peaceful neighbours to Italy so long as they did not come into direct contact with the Romans, but on the Rhine they were engaged in daily feuds with the German tribes, who had driven them from their settlements in the Black Forest, and had continued their raids beyond the river. For the sake of plunder, or from mere restless habits, the Germans had left their northern homes on the Baltic and North Seas, the Cimbri, and their brethren, the Teutons and others, and were slowly moving southward, repelling or being in turn repelled. The most daring crossed the Rhine, and made their way straight through the lands of the Belgians and Helvetians towards the South, thereby anticipating the great dislocation of peoples which was to take place but five hundred years later, when the Roman Empire, sapped at the root, crumbled to pieces, unable longer to resist the tide of barbarian invasion.

On one of these expeditions the Cimbri, giving a glowing account of sunny Gaul, and the booty to be obtained there, were joined by the Helvetian Tigurini, whose leader was the young and fiery Divico (B.C. 107). They started with the intention of founding a new home in the province of the Nitiobroges in Southern Gaul; but when they had reached that territory they were suddenly stopped on the banks of the Garonne by a Roman army under the consul Cassius and his lieutenant Piso. But, little impressed by the military fame of the Romans, the Tigurini, lying in ambush, gave battle to the forces of great Rome, and utterly routed them at Agen, on the Garonne, between Bordeaux and Toulouse. It was a brilliant victory; both the Roman leaders and the greater part of their men were slain, and the rest begged for their lives. The proud Romans were under the humiliating necessity of giving hostages and passing under the yoke--a stain on the Roman honour not to be forgotten; but the victors, being anything but diplomats, knew no better use to make of their splendid victory than to wander about for a time and then go home again.

A few years later (102 and 101 B.C.) the Tigurini, Toygeni, Cimbri, and Teutons joined their forces on a last expedition southwards. The expedition ended in the destruction of these German tribes. The Toygeni perished in the fearful carnage at Aquæ Sextiæ, and the Cimbri later on at Vercellæ. When the Tigurini heard of this last-mentioned disaster they returned home.

Cæsar had been appointed governor of the Province (Provence) which extended to Geneva, the very door of Helvetia; on the Rhine the Germans continued to make their terrible inroads. Thus there was but little scope for the stirring Helvetians, and the soil afforded but a scanty supply of food; so they turned their eyes wistfully in the direction of fair Gaul. Meeting in council they decided on a general migration, leaving their country to whoever might like to take it. Then rose up Orgetorix, one of their wealthiest nobles, and supported the plan, volunteering to secure a free passage through the neighbouring provinces of the Allobroges and Ædui. The 28th of March, B.C. 58, was the day fixed for the departure, and Geneva was to be the meeting-place; thence they were to proceed through the territory of the Allobroges. For two years previously they were to get ready their provisions, and to collect carts, horses, and oxen, but before the period had expired Orgetorix was accused of treason, and being unable to clear himself, put an end to his own life to escape public obloquy. This episode made no difference in the general plan. The Helvetians, indeed, insisted on its being carried out. Setting fire to their towns and villages to prevent men from returning, they started on their adventurous journey on that spring morn of 58 B.C. Cæsar's figures seem very large, but, if he is to be trusted, the tribes numbered some 368,000 men, of which 263,000 were Helvetians, the rest being neighbours of theirs. But 93,000 were capable of bearing arms.

A curious yet thrilling sight must have been that motley caravan of prodigious proportions--ten thousand carts drawn by forty thousand oxen, carrying women, children, and the old men; riders and armour-bearers alongside, toiling painfully through woods and fords, and up and down rugged hills; behind the emigrants the smoking and smouldering ruins of the homes they were leaving with but little regret. Yet they were no mere adventurers, but looked forward with swelling hearts to a brighter time and a more prosperous home. Arriving at Geneva they found the bridge over the Rhone broken up by Cæsar's order. Cæsar was, in truth, a factor they had not reckoned upon, and, after useless attempts to make headway, they turned their steps towards Mount Jura, and whilst they were toiling over the steep and rugged Pas de l'Ecluse, Cæsar returned to Italy to gather together his legions. Returning to Gaul he arrived just in time to see the Helvetians cross the Arar (Saône) with the utmost difficulty. The Tigurini were the last to cross. And on them Cæsar fell and cut them down, thus avenging the death of Piso--the great-grandfather of Cæsar's wife--and wiping out the stain on the honour of the Roman arms. His legions crossed the Saône in twenty-four hours, and this performance so excited the admiration of the Helvetians, who had themselves taken twenty days to cross, that they condescended to send legates to treat with Cæsar for a free passage. They promised him that they would do no harm to any one if he would comply with the request, but threatened that if he should intercept them he might have to see something of their ancient bravery. No threats or entreaties were of avail, however, with such a man as Cæsar, who, smiling at their naïve simplicity, asked them to gives hostages as a sign of confirmation of their promise. "Hostages!" cried Divico, the hero of of Agen, in a rage, "the Helvetians are not accustomed to give hostages; they have been taught by their fathers to receive hostages, and this the Romans must well remember." So saying he walked away.

The Helvetians continued their march, Cæsar following at a distance, watching for an opportunity of attacking them. At Bibracte, an important city of Gaul (now Mont Beuvray), west of Autun in Burgundy, the opportunity offered itself. Cæsar seized a hill and posted his troops there, and charged the enemy with his cavalry. The Helvetians fiercely repulsed the attack, and poured on the Roman front, but were quite unable to stand against the showers of the Roman pila, which often penetrated several shields at once, and thus fastened them together so that they could not be disentangled. Disconcerted by this unexpected result, the Helvetians were soon discomfited by the sharp attack with swords which instantly followed. Retiring for a while to a hill close by, the barbarians again drew up in battle order, and again descended to combat. Long and fierce was the struggle which followed; the Helvetians fighting like lions till the evening, never once turning their backs on the enemy. This is Cæsar's own report. But barbarian heroism was no match for the regular, well-organized, and highly-trained Roman army, and once more driven back, they withdrew to the hill where had been left their wives and children with the baggage. From this place they ventured to make a last resistance, and they drew up their carts in the form of a deep square, leaving room in the middle for the non-combatants and the baggage. Then mounting their extemporized fort--the so-called Wagenburg--the Helvetian men commenced the fray, even their women and children hurling javelins at the enemy. Not till midnight did the Romans seize and enter on the rude rampart, and when they did the clashing of arms had ceased. All the valiant defenders lay slain at their feet, and the spirit of bold independence of the Helvetians was crushed for ever.

After this fearful disaster the rest of the emigrants, to the number of 110,000, continued their march through Gaul, but lacking both food and capable leaders, and being moreover ill-used by the Gauls, they sent to Cæsar for help. He demanded hostages, and ordered them to return home and rebuild their towns and villages. And, further, he supplied them with food for the journey, and requested the Allobroges to do the same when the Helvetians should arrive in their province. Cæsar admits that this apparent generosity on his part was dictated not by compassion, but by policy. It was to his interest that these barbarians should re-occupy Helvetia, because they would keep watch on the Rhine, and prevent the irruption of the Germans into the country. In their condition now, he calls the Helvetians ASSOCIATES (_foederati_), and not SUBJECTS, and leaves them their own constitution, and, to some extent, their freedom. But they did not relish this forced friendship, which was indeed more like bondage; and when the Celts of Gaul rose in revolt under the noble and beloved Vercingetorix, who had been a friend of Cæsar, they joined their brethren (52 B.C.), and were again vanquished. On the defeat of the Helvetians at Bibracte followed that of the Valisians, in 57 B.C. To establish a direct communication between Central Gaul and Italy, Cæsar took those same measures which Napoleon I. employed long afterwards; he conquered the Valais (by his lieutenant Galba), that he might secure the passage of the Great St. Bernard. A splendid road was formed over Mount Poeninus, and a temple erected to Jupiter Poeninus, where the traveller left votive tablets as a thanksgiving offering after a fortunate ascent.

The subjugation of Rhætia was delayed for more than a generation. To guard the empire against the Eastern hordes; against the mountain robbers of Graubünden and the Tyrol, who descended into the valleys of the Po, ravaging the country as far as Milan, and no doubt liberally paying back in their own coin, the Romans who had made from time to time such havoc in the Alpine homes--to guard against these, and the wild Vindelicians of Bavaria, Augustus sent the two imperial princes to reduce them to subjection. Drusus marched into the Tyrol, whilst Tiberius advanced on Lake Constance, where even the Rhætian women engaged in the conflict, and, in default of missiles, hurled their sucking children into the face of the conquerors, through sheer exasperation. Their savage courage availed them nothing, however; the incursions from the East were repressed; and once the Rhætians were overcome, they became the most useful of auxiliaries to the Roman army. Horace's ode to Drusus alludes to the Rhætian campaign.

The Rhæto-Roman inhabitants of Graubünden--for they still occupy the high valleys of the Engadine and of the Vorder-Rhine--present much interest in point of language and antiquities. The sturdy Rhætians belonged to the art-loving Etruscan race, whose proficiency in the _amphora-technic_ we so highly value. An old legend calls their ancestor Rætus a Tuscan. And not without show of reason, says Mommsen, for the early dwellers of Graubünden and the Tyrol were Tuscans, and spoke a dialect agreeing with that of the district of Mantua, a Tuscan colony in the time of Livy. In Graubünden and Ticino were found, some thirty years ago, stones bearing inscriptions in that dialect. The Rhætians may have dropped behind in these Alpine regions on the immigration of Etruscans into the valleys of the Po; or, they may just as likely have fled there on the advent of the Celts, when that warlike race seized on the fertile plains of the river, and drove the Etruscans from their home southward and northward. Be that as it may, however, it is certain that the Rhætians, once blended with the Romans, have preserved the Latin tongue and customs to this day, for Romaunsh a corrupt Latin, with no doubt some admixture of Tuscan, is still spoken by more than one-third of the population of the Grisons.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Valais (German, _Wallis_) means valley, and is so called from its being a long narrow dale or vale hemmed in by lofty mountains.

[8] Mommsen, "Roman History," vol. ii. p. 166.

[9] "Story of Alexander's Empire," by Mahaffy, p. 79.

III.

HELVETIA UNDER THE ROMANS.

On the surrender of the noble Vercingetorix, a valiant knight, but no statesman--he delivered himself up to Cæsar, trusting in his generosity on the plea of former friendship, and died a prisoner of Rome--the war with Gaul was virtually at an end. The sporadic risings that followed lacked the spirit of union, and led to no results of any consequence. During the seven years of his governorship in Gaul (58-51 B.C.), Cæsar had completed the subjection of the entire country, with the exception of the province of Narbonensis, whose conquest was of more ancient date. He followed up his victories, and secured their results by organizing a line of secure defences on the northern boundary of Gaul, along the Rhine, creating thereby a new system of open defences--defences offensive, so to speak--which he sketched out with full details, and made Gaul herself a bulwark against the inroads of the aggressive Germans. To secure peace and voluntary submission, he also regulated the internal affairs of the new province, leaving her, however, most of her old national institutions, hoping by conciliatory measures to gradually bring her under Roman influences, and win her to side with Rome. But it was left to others to carry out his plans, the Emperor Augustus being the first to put them into practice; for civil war was again threatening Italy, and Cæsar returned home to carry on his great contest with Pompey for supremacy in the State.

Although Cæsar's plans were but a sketch they were faithfully carried out, and the Gallic conquest proved to be more, and aimed higher, than the mere subjection of the Celts. Cæsar was not only a great general, but also a far-seeing politician. He had clearly understood that the barbarian Germans might well prove more than a match for the Greek-Latin world if they came into close contact with it. His defeat of Ariovistus, who was on the point of forming a German kingdom in Gaul, and his wise measures of defence, kept the barbarian hordes at bay for centuries, and thus there was ample time given for the Greek-Latin culture to take root throughout the West. It happened consequently that when Rome could no longer offer any serious resistance, and the Germans poured into her lands, the people of the West were already Romanized, and those of Gaul, Britain, and Spain, became the medium of transmitting to the Germans the spirit of classicism, by which they would otherwise have hardly been affected; and those nations became the connecting link between the classical age and the German era which absorbed its high-wrought culture. If Alexander may be said to have spread Hellenism over the East; Cæsar may be taken to have done as much, and indeed vastly more for the West, for it is owing to him, though we can scarcely realize the fact in our day, that the German race is imbued with the spirit of classical antiquity.

The fall of Cæsar, and the state of anarchy that followed again, delayed the work of pacification, and Helvetia was left to take care of herself. But when Augustus was firmly seated on the imperial throne, he resumed the task which had been bequeathed to him. The organization of Gaul was chiefly his work, and it required an energetic yet moderate policy. The old Narbonensis district, which had long been moulded into a Roman province, was placed under senatorial control. New Gaul, or Gallia Comata (_Gaule Chevelue_), as the whole territory was called which Cæsar had conquered, was submitted to imperial authority, and treated more adequately in accordance with the ancient constitutions of the various tribes. To facilitate taxation and administration New Gaul was divided into three provinces, each ruled by a Roman governor. Of these three provinces, one was Belgica, extending from the Seine and the mouth of the Rhine to Lake Constance, thus including Helvetia proper. Belgica, on account of its size, was subdivided into three commands, in one of which, that of Upper Germany, Helvetia found itself placed. Thus we find Helvetia incorporated with Gaul.

The political capital of the Tres Galliæ, or Three Gauls, was Lugdunum (Lyons), owing to its central position, and it seems to have been a very important city. Here Drusus had raised an altar to his imperial father, Augustus, and the Genius of the City. Here met the representatives of the sixty-four Gallic states (including those of the Helvetians and the Rauraci) on the anniversary of the emperor. Here, too, was the seat of the Gallic Diet; and here, in the amphitheatre, took place rhetorical contests, the Celts holding eloquence in high honour.

Eastern Switzerland, that is, Graubünden, and the land around Lake Wallenstatt, as far as Lake Constance, was joined with Rhætia, which likewise included, amongst other districts, the Tyrol and Southern Bavaria. The whole of this territory was ruled by a governor residing at Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg). The Valais district was joined to some part of Savoy, and ruled by the procurator of the Poenine Alps. Ticino does not concern us here, as it remained a portion of Italy down to the sixteenth century.

Yet though thus arbitrarily made a part of Gaul, Helvetia formed a province of itself, and had its own history and kept its own constitution, thanks to Cæsar's wise and generous policy, by which he provided that the Celts should not be interfered with in their method of governing by tribes (_pagi_ or _civitates_), nor in their constitution, so long as it did not clash with the Roman laws. When Cæsar had defeated the Helvetians he sent them back to rebuild their old homes, and they re-occupied their ancient territory, with the exception of that portion which stretches from Fort l'Ecluse to Geneva and Aubonne, and borders on Mount Jura. This portion was wrenched away and given to the Equestrian Julian colony settled at Noviodunum (Nyon) on Geneva lake, to keep the passes of the mountain (43 B.C.). The Jura range separated Helvetia from the territory of the Rauraci, where another veteran colony was about the same time established as a safeguard for the Rhine, to check the incursions of the Germans. The Colonia Rauracorum was afterwards called Augusta Rauracorum in honour of the emperor. The colonists of these two settlements were mostly Romans, or had been admitted to Roman citizenship, and occupied a different position from the inhabitants of the country generally, for they were allowed Roman privileges and favours--exemption from taxation most likely amongst others--but, on the other hand, they were entirely dependent on the Roman Government.

The laborious investigations of the learned Mommsen and Charles Morel go to show that the Helvetians were mildly treated by their masters. They had been received into the Roman pale as friends (_foederati_), and as such lived on favourable terms with these, and enjoyed as high a degree of liberty and autonomy as was compatible with their position as Roman subjects. The Rhætians had been taken from their country; the Helvetii, on the contrary, had been sent back home and entrusted with the guardianship of the Rhine, merely being required to furnish a contingent for service abroad. They were allowed to maintain garrisons of their own--that of Tenedo on the Rhine, for instance--to build forts, to raise militia in case of war. And, as has before been mentioned, their religious worship was not interfered with, nor their traditional division into _pagi_, or tribes, and they were allowed a national representative at the Gallic capital, Lyons. Helvetia took the rank of a state (_Civitas Helvetiorum_), its chief seat (_chef-lieu_) being Aventicum, which was also the centre of government. So long as Helvetia conformed to the regulations imposed by the imperial government she was allowed to manage her own local affairs. Latin was made the official language, though the native tongue was not prohibited.

A.D. 69-79. Under Vespasian, however, a great change took place. Thanks to the munificence of that emperor, who had a great liking for Aventicum, this city lost its Celtic character, and was made a splendid city after the Italian type. He had sent there his befriended and faithful Flavian colony of the Helvetians to live, giving her the lengthy title of Colonia Pia Flavia Constans Emerita Helvetiorum Foederata in return for services, for she had staunchly supported his party against Vitellius when the latter contended with Galba for the imperial throne. The inhabitants most likely received the Latin Right (_Droit Latin_), or were considered Roman citizens, and as such were more intimately connected with Rome, and had to submit to closer control. Her institutions were assimilated to those of Italian towns. She had a senate, a council of decuriones, city magistrates, a _præfectus operum publicorum_ (or special officer to attend to the construction of public buildings), Augustan flamens, or priests, and so forth.

Notwithstanding the overwhelming importance of Aventicum, a certain amount of self-government was left to the country districts, towns, and villages (_vici_). The inhabitants of Vindonissa (Windisch), Aquæ (Baden), Eburodunum (Yverdon), Salodurum (Soleure), erected public buildings of their own accord. The towns of the Valais, Octodurum (Martigny), Sedunum (Sion), &c., had their own city council and municipal officers, and received the Latin Right. In the case of the Helvetians, those of the capital and those of the provinces equally enjoyed that Right; whereas, with Augusta Rauracorum, the case was different, only the colonists within the walled cities being granted the like standing and liberties. On the whole it may be said that, though Helvetia kept many of her own peculiarities, and some of her ancient liberties, she submitted to Rome, and was greatly influenced by the advanced civilization of the empire. The Helvetians, indeed, underwent that change of speech and character, which split them into two nations, French and Germans.

One of the chief factors contributing to the Roman colonization of Helvetia was the military occupation of its northern frontier, though this occupation weighed heavily on the country. The great object of Rome was to keep back the Germans, who were for ever threatening to break into the empire. Vindonissa was one of the military headquarters, and its selection for the purpose was justified by its excellent position, situated as it was on an elevated neck of land, washed by three navigable rivers, the Aare, Reuss, and Limmat, and at the junction of the two great roads connecting East and West Helvetia with Italy. A capital system of roads, too, was planned all over the country.