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. Caesar 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 Caesar'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
Caesar 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. Caesar 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 Caesar, 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, Caesar
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 Rhaetia was delayed for more than a generation. To
guard the empire against the Eastern hordes; against the mountain
robbers of Graubuenden 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 Rhaetian 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 Rhaetians were
overcome, they became the most useful of auxiliaries to the Roman army.
Horace's ode to Drusus alludes to the Rhaetian campaign.
The Rhaeto-Roman inhabitants of Graubuenden--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 Rhaetians
belonged to the art-loving Etruscan race, whose proficiency in the
_amphora-technic_ we so highly value. An old legend calls their ancestor
Raetus a Tuscan. And not without show of reason, says Mommsen, for the
early dwellers of Graubuenden 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 Graubuenden and Ticino were found, some thirty years
ago, stones bearing inscriptions in that dialect. The Rhaetians 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
Rhaetians, 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.
[Illustration: HOUSE (FORMERLY CHAPLE) IN THE ROMAUNSH STYLE, AT SCHULS,
LOWER ENGADINE, GRAUBUeNDEN.
(_After a Photograph by Guler_.)]
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.
[Illustration: SILVER COIN, VERCINGETORIX.
(_Dr. Imhoof, Winterthur._)]
On the surrender of the noble Vercingetorix, a valiant knight, but no
statesman--he delivered himself up to Caesar, 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.), Caesar
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 Caesar returned home to carry on his great contest with Pompey
for supremacy in the State.
Although Caesar'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. Caesar 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; Caesar 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 Caesar, 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 Caesar
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 Galliae, 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, Graubuenden, and the land around Lake
Wallenstatt, as far as Lake Constance, was joined with Rhaetia, 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 Caesar'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 Caesar 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 Rhaetians 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.
[Illustration: GOLD COIN, VESPASIAN (VESPASIANUS IMPERATOR-AETERNITAS).
(_By Dr. Imhoof, Winterthur._)]
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
_praefectus 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), Aquae
(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.
There would no doubt often be but little love lost between the
Helvetians and the soldiery in occupation. Tacitus ("Annals") tells of
one bloody episode. After the death of the madman hero, the twenty-first
legion, surnamed _Rapax_, or Rapacious, no doubt for good reasons, was
quartered at Vindonissa. Caecina, a violent man, lieutenant of Vitellius,
then commander of the Rhine army, marched into Helvetia to proclaim
Vitellius emperor. But the Helvetians supported his opponent Galba, not
knowing that he had just been murdered, and fell upon the messengers of
Caecina, and put them in prison, after first seizing their letters. The
lieutenant enraged at this affront laid waste the neighbouring Aquae
(Baden near Zurich), a flourishing watering-place much frequented for
its amusements, Tacitus tells us. Calling in the Rhaetian cohorts, he
drove them to the Boetzberg, and cut them down by thousands in the
woods and fastnesses of Mount Jura; then, ravaging the country as he
went, Caecina marched on to Aventicum, which at once surrendered.
Alpinus, a notable leader, was put to death, and the rest were left to
the clemency of Vitellius. However, the Roman soldiery demanded the
destruction of the nation, but Claudius Cossus, a Helvetian of great
eloquence, moving them to tears by his touching words, they changed
their minds, and begged that the Helvetians might be set at liberty.
However this military occupation was, after sixty years of duration,
drawing to a close. Under Domitian and Trajan all the land between
Strasburg and Augsburg, as far as the Main, was conquered and annexed to
the Roman Empire. An artificial rampart was formed across country from
the mouth of the Main to Regensburg on the Danube, and the military
cordon was removed from the Swiss frontier to the new boundary line.
Helvetia, now no longer the rendezvous of the Roman legionaries, quietly
settled into a Roman province, where the language, customs, art, and
learning of Rome were soon to be adopted.
If the military stations were starting-points of the new culture, it was
the more peaceful immigrants who introduced agriculture, commerce, and
wealth, or, at any rate, caused it to make progress. Gradually the
Helvetians amalgamated with the Romans, adopting even their religion.
Horticulture and vine-culture were introduced. A Roman farmer grew vines
on a patch of ground near Cully, on Lake Geneva, and on an inscribed
stone (dug up at St. Prex) begs Bacchus (_Liber Pater Cocliensis_) to
bless the vintage. He little anticipated that his plantation would be
the ancestor, as it were, of the famous La Cote, now so highly valued.
Wherever the art-loving Roman fixed his abode he built his house, with
the wonderful Roman masonry, and furnished it with all the luxury and
art his refined taste suggested. Thus the country gradually assumed a
Roman aspect. Many towns and _vici_, or village settlements, sprang up
or increased in importance under Roman influence--Zurich, Aquae (Baden
near Zurich), Kloten, Vindonissa, and others.[10] Yet the eastern
portion of the country could not compete in the matter of fine buildings
with the western cantons. Indeed, in the eastern districts the Helvetian
influence was never predominated over by the Latin influence, and the
Helvetians clung to their native speech despite the Latin tongue being
the official language.
But it was the mild and sunny west which most attracted the foreigner,
as it still does. Wealthy Romans settled in great numbers between Mount
Jura and the Pennine ranges. Every nook and corner of the Canton Vaud
bears even down to our days the stamp of Roman civilization. The shores
and sunny slopes of Geneva lake were strewn with villas, and the woody
strip of land between Villeneuve and Lausanne and Geneva was almost as
much in request for country seats by the great amongst the Romans as
that delightful stretch of coast on the Bay of Naples, from Posilippo
to Pozzuoli and Baiae, where Cicero and Virgil, and many Romans of lesser
mark, had their _villegiatures_.
But the most remarkable place, whether for art, learning, or opulence,
was Aventicum, the Helvetian capital. Of this town some mention has been
made above, and, did space permit, a full description might well be
given of this truly magnificent and truly Roman city. Its theatre,
academy, senate-house, courts, palaces, baths, triumphal arches, and
private buildings were wonderful. Am. Marcellinus, the Roman writer, who
saw Aventicum shortly after its partial destruction by the Alamanni,
greatly admired its palace's and temples, even in their semi-ruinous
condition. The city next in beauty and size was Augusta Rauracorum
(Basel Augst), where the ruins of a vast amphitheatre still command our
wondering admiration.
But this period of grandeur was followed by the gradual downfall of the
empire, which was already rotten at the core. The degenerate Romans of
the later times were unable to stand against the attacks of the more
vigorous Germans. The story is too long to tell in detail, but a few
points may be briefly noted. In 264 A.D. the Alamanni swept through the
country on their way to Gaul, levelling Augusta Rauracorum with the
ground, and considerably injuring Aventicum. At the end of the third
century the Romans relinquished their rampart between the Rhine and the
Danube, and fell back upon the old military frontier of the first
century. Helvetia thus underwent a second military occupation. Yet the
prestige of Rome was gone. In 305 A.D. the Alamanni again overran
Helvetia, and completed the ruin of Aventicum. Weaker and weaker grew
the Roman power, and when the Goths pressed into Italy the imperial
troops were entirely withdrawn from Helvetia. As for the Helvetians
themselves, they were quite unable to offer any resistance, and when the
Alamanni once more burst into the land (406 A.D.), they were able to
secure entire possession of the eastern portions. The Burgundians,
another German tribe, followed suit, and in 443 A.D. fixed themselves in
West Helvetia. The inaccessible fastnesses of Graubuenden alone remained
untouched by the tide of German invasion, which effected such changes in
the neighbouring districts.
At this period of worldly grandeur and internal decay, occurs another
historical event of the greatest importance, the rise of Christianity,
containing the vital elements necessary for bringing about the spiritual
regeneration of the world. The social and political decomposition
throughout the empire, the cruel tyranny of the sovereigns, the
decrepitude of the state and its institutions, the growing indifference
to the national religion, which showed itself in the facile adoption of,
or rather adaptation to, the Eastern forms of worship--the adoption of
the deities Isis and Mithra, for example--all these and many other
things unnecessary to mention, were unmistakable signs that Roman rule
was drawing to its close, and they also prepared the way for the
reception of the new doctrine. The belief in one God of mercy and love;
of one Saviour, the Redeemer of the world; of a future life,--were
startling but good tidings to the poor and oppressed, and made their
influence felt also on the rich and cultivated, who saw in Christianity
a tolerance, benevolence, human love, loftiness of principle and moral
perfection which had not been attained by the creeds of antiquity. The
passionate ardour and force of conviction amongst the Christians was
such that they faced suffering and death rather than abjure their tenets
or desist from preaching them to others.