See SPARTA: THE CITY.
HELVECONES, The.
See LYGIANS.
{1642}
HELVETIAN REPUBLIC, The.
Switzerland is sometimes called the Helvetian Republic, for no
better reason than is found in the fact that the country
occupied by the Helvetii of Cæsar is embraced in the modern
Swiss Confederacy. But the original confederation, out of
which grew the federal republic of Switzerland, did not touch
Helvetian ground.
See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS,
and A. D. 1332-1460.
HELVETIC REPUBLIC OF 1798, The.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.
HELVETII, The arrested migration of the.
"The Helvetii, who inhabited a great part of modern
Switzerland, had grown impatient of the narrow limits in which
they were crowded together, and harassed at the same time by
the encroachments of the advancing German tide. The Alps and
Jura formed barriers to their diffusion on the south and west,
and the population thus confined outgrew the scanty means of
support afforded by its mountain valleys. … The Helvetii
determined to force their way through the country of the
Allobroges, and to trust either to arms or persuasion to
obtain a passage through the [Roman] province and across the
Rhone into the centre of Gaul. … Having completed their
preparations, [they] appointed the 28th day of March [B. C.
58] for the meeting of their combined forces at the western
outlet of the Lake Lemanus. The whole population of the
assembled tribes amounted to 368,000 souls, including the
women and children; the number that bore arms was 92,000. They
cut themselves off from the means of retreat by giving
ruthlessly to the flames every city and village of their land;
twelve of one class and four hundred of the other were thus
sacrificed, and with them all their superfluous stores, their
furniture, arms and implements." When the news of this
portentous movement reached Rome, Cæsar, then lately appointed
to the government of the two Gauls, was raising levies, but
had no force ready for the field. He flew to the scene in
person, making the journey from Rome to Geneva in eight days.
At Geneva, the frontier town of the conquered Allobroges, the
Romans had a garrison, and Cæsar quickly gathered to that
point the one legion stationed in the province. Breaking down
the bridge which had spanned the river and constructing with
characteristic energy a ditch and rampart from the outlet of
the lake to the gorge of the Jura, he held the passage of the
river with his single legion and forced the migratory horde to
move off by the difficult route down the right bank of the
Rhone. This accomplished, Cæsar hastened back to Italy, got
five legions together, led them over the Cottian Alps, crossed
the Rhone above Lyons, and caught up with the Helvetii before
the last of their cumbrous train had got beyond the Saone.
Attacking and cutting to pieces this rear-guard (it was the
tribe of the Tigurini, which the Romans had encountered
disastrously half a century before), he bridged the Saone and
crossed it to pursue the main body of the enemy. For many days
he followed them, refusing to give battle to the great
barbarian army until he saw the moment opportune. His blow was
struck at last in the neighborhood of the city of Bibracte,
the capital of the Ædui—modern Autun. The defeat of the
Helvetii was complete, and, although a great body of them
escaped, they were set upon by the Gauls of the country and
were soon glad to surrender themselves unconditionally to the
Roman proconsul. Cæsar compelled them—110,000 survivors, of
the 368,000 who left Switzerland in the spring—to go back to
their mountains and rebuild and reoccupy the homes they had
destroyed.
_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 6 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_Cæsar,
Gallic Wars,
chapters 1-29._
_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 4, chapter 1._
_Napoleon III.,
History of Julius Cæsar,
book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2)_.
HELVII, The.
The Helvii were a tribe of Gauls whose country was between the
Rhone and the Cevennes, in the modern department of the
Ardêche.
_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 4, chapter 17._
HENGESTESDUN, Battle of.
Defeat of the Danes and Welsh by Ecgbehrt, the West Saxon
king, A. D. 835.
HENNERSDORF, Battle of (1745).
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1744-1745.
HENOTICON OF ZENO, The.
See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.