The Helvetii (, , Gaulish: *Heluētī), anglicized as Helvetians, were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. According to Julius Caesar, the Helvetians were divided into four subgroups or pagi. Of these, Caesar names only the Verbigeni and the Tigurini,Bell.Gall. 1.27 and 1.12, respectively while Posidonius mentions the Tigurini and the Tougeni ().Strabo 4.1.8, 7.2.2. They feature prominently in the Commentaries on the Gallic War, with their failed migration attempt into southwestern Gaul in 58 BC, serving as a catalyst for Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
The Helvetians were subjugated after 52 BC, and under Augustus, Celtic oppida, such as Vindonissa or Basilea, were re-purposed as garrisons. In 68 AD, a Helvetian uprising was crushed by Aulus Caecina Alienus. The Swiss plateau was at first incorporated into the Roman province of Gallia Belgica in 22 BC, later into Germania Superior in 83 AD. The Helvetians, like the rest of Gaul, were largely Romanized by the 2nd century. In the later 3rd century, Roman control over the region waned, and the Swiss plateau was exposed to the invading Alemanni. The Alemanni and Burgundians established permanent settlements in the Swiss plateau in the 5th and 6th centuries, resulting in the early medieval territories of Alemannia (Swabia) and Upper Burgundy. The Helvetii were largely assimilated by their new rulers, contributing to the ethnogenesis of modern Swiss people.
Name The earliest attestation of the ethnonym Helvetii is found in a graffito on a vessel from Mantua in Northern Italy, dated to c. 300 BC.Reproduction in R.C. De Marinis, Gli Etruschi a Nord del Po, Mantova, 1986. The inscription in Etruscan letters reads eluveitie, which has been interpreted as the Etruscan form of the Celtic elu̯eti̯os ("the Helvetian"), presumably referring to a man of Helvetian descent living in Mantua.
They are mentioned as Helvetii by Cicero (mid-1st c. BC), Caesar (mid-1st c. BC) and Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD),Cicero. Epistulae ad Atticum, 1:19:2Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico, 1:1:4Tacitus. Historiae, 1:67 in the genitive case as Helvetiorum by Livy (late 1st c. BC),Livy. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, epit. 65 as Helveti by Pliny (mid-1st c. AD),Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:106 and as Elouḗtioi (Ἐλουήτιοι) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:9:10, s.v. Helvetii.
The Gaulish ethnic name Helvetii is generally interpreted as (h)elu-ētioi ('rich in land'), from elu- ('numerous', cf. OIr. il) attached to etu- ('grassland'; cf. OIr. iath). The presence of the initial h-, remnant of a previous p- (PIE *pelh1u- > Celt. helu- > elu-), attests of an archaic formation.
Tribal organisation Of the four Helvetian pagi or sub-tribes, Caesar names only the Verbigeni (Bell. Gall. 1.27) and the Tigurini (1.12), Posidonius the Tigurini and the Tougeni (). There has been substantial debate in Swiss historiography (beginning with Felix Stähelin 1927) on whether the Tougeni may or may not be identified with the Teutones mentioned by Titus Livius.Stähelin, Die Schweiz in römischer Zeit (1927) suggested a corruption of the tribal name in the manuscript tradition of Strabo. A stone marker bearing the inscription INTER TOVTONOS CAH(F?) found in Miltenberg on the Main (which had been the nordern border of the older Helvetian territory according to Tacitus, Germania, 28) is sometimes taken to support this theory. See Stähelin, 1948, p. 59; Strabo 4.1.8, 7.2.2. Ancient writers usually classify the Teutons as "Germanic" and the Helvetii as "Gallic", but the ethnic attributions are debatable; the fluidity of these terms is well illustrated by Ludwig Rübekeil, , Vienna 2002.
According to Caesar, the territory abandoned by the Helvetii had comprised 400 villages and 12 oppida (fortified settlements). His tally of the total population taken from captured Helvetian records written in Greek is 263,000 people, including fighting men, old men, women and children. However, the figures are generally dismissed as too high by modern scholars (see hereafter).
Like many other tribes, the Helvetii did not have kings at the time of their clash with Rome but instead seem to have been governed by a class of noblemen (Lat. equites).Other tribal aristocracies were the Aedui (Bell. Gall. 1.3), the Arverni (Bell. Gall. 7.4), or the Remi (Bell. Gall. 2.3). When Orgetorix, one of their most prominent and ambitious noblemen, was making plans to establish himself as their king, he faced execution at the stake if found guilty. Caesar does not explicitly name the tribal authorities prosecuting the case and gathering men to apprehend Orgetorix, but he refers to them by the Latin terms civitas ("state" or "tribe") and magistratus ("officials").Bell. Gall. 1.4.
History
Earliest historical sources and settlement
In his Natural History (c. 77 AD), Pliny provides a foundation myth for the Celtic settlement of Cisalpine Gaul in which a Helvetian named Helico plays the role of culture hero. Helico had worked in Rome as a craftsman and then returned to his home north of the Alps with a dried fig, a grape, and some oil and wine, the desirability of which caused his countrymen to invade northern Italy.Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis 12.2.
The Greek historian Posidonius (c. 135–50 BC), whose work is preserved only in fragments by other writers, offers the earliest historical record of the Helvetii. Posidonius described the Helvetians of the late 2nd century BC as "rich in gold but peaceful," without giving clear indication to the location of their territory.Strabon 7.2.2. His reference to gold washing in rivers has been taken as evidence for an early presence of the Helvetii in the Swiss plateau, with the Emme as being one of the gold-yielding rivers mentioned by Posidonius. This interpretation is now generally discarded,SPM IV Eisenzeit, Basel 1999, p. 31f. as Posidonius' narrative makes it more likely that the country some of the Helvetians left in order to join in the raids of the Teutones, Cimbri, and Ambrones was in fact southern Germany and not Switzerland.
That the Helvetians originally lived in southern Germany is confirmed by the Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemaios (c. 90–168 AD), who tells us of an Ἐλουητίων ἔρημος (i.e. "Helvetic deserted lands") north of the Rhine. Tacitus knows that the Helvetians once settled in the swath between Rhine, Main, and the Hercynian Forest.Germ. 28.2. The abandonment of this northern territory is now usually placed in the late 2nd century BC, around the time of the first Germanic incursions into the Roman world, when the Tigurini and Toygenoi/Toutonoi are mentioned as participants in the great raids.
At the later Vicus Turicum, probably in the first 1st century BC or even much earlier, the Celts settled at the Lindenhof Oppidium. In 1890, so-called Potin lumps were found, whose largest weights at the Prehistoric pile dwelling settlement Alpenquai in Zürich, Switzerland. The pieces consist of a large number of fused Celtic coins, which are mixed with charcoal remnants. Some of the 18,000 coins originate from the Eastern Gaul, others are of the Zürich type, that were assigned to the local Helvetii, which date to around 100 BC. The find is so far unique, and the scientific research assumes that the melting down of the lump was not completed, therefore the aim was to form cultic offerings. The site of the find was at that time at least from the lake shore, and probably to three meters deep in the water.Keltisches Geld in Zürich: Der spektakuläre «Potinklumpen». Amt für Städtebau der Stadt Zürich, Stadtarchäologie, Zürich October 2007. There's also an island sanctuary of the Helvetii in connection with the settlement at the preceding Oppidi Uetliberg on the former Grosser Hafner island,Beat Eberschweiler: Schädelreste, Kopeken und Radar: Vielfältige Aufgaben für die Zürcher Tauchequipe IV. In: NAU 8/2001. Amt für Städtebau der Stadt Zürich, Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Unterwasserarchäologie / Labor für Dendrochronologie. Zürich 2001. as well as the settlement Kleiner Hafner at the Sechseläuten square on the effluence of the Limmat on Zürichsee lake shore.
First contact with the Romans
The Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and Ambrones probably reached southern Germany around the year 111 BC, where they were joined by the Tigurini, and, probably the Teutoni-Toutonoi-Toygenoi. (The precise identity of the latter group is unclear).Posidonius saw the Toutonoi/Teutoni as a subgroup of the Helvetii. Cf. Furger-Gunti, p. 76f.
The tribes began a joint invasion of Gaul, including the Roman Provincia Narbonensis. A Roman army under the consul L. Cassius Longinus opposed them. At the Battle of Burdigala near Agendicum in 107 BC, the Tigurini killed Longinus and captured many of his soldiers. According to Caesar, the captured Roman soldiers were ordered to pass under a yoke set up by the triumphant Gauls, a dishonour that called for both public as well as private vengeance.Bell.Gall. 1.12. Caesar is the only narrative source for this episode, as the corresponding books of Livy's histories are preserved only in the Periochae, short summarising lists of contents, in which hostages given by the Romans, but no yoke, are mentioned.L. Cassius cos. a Tigurinis Gallis, pago Heluetiorum, qui a ciuitate secesserant, in finibus Nitiobrogum cum exercitu caesus est. / Milites, qui ex ea caede superauerant, obsidibus datis et dimidia rerum omnium parte, ut incolumes dimitterentur, cum hostibus pacti sunt. (Periochae LXV)
In 105 BC, the allies defeated another Roman army near Arausio and went on to harry Spain, Gaul, Noricum, and northern Italy. They split up in two groups in 103 BC, with the Teutones and Ambrones marching on a western route through the Provincia and the Cimbri and Tigurini crossing the eastern Alps (probably by the Brenner Pass). While the Teutones and Ambrones were slaughtered in 102 BC by Gaius Marius near Aquae Sextiae, the Cimbri and the Tigurini wintered in the Padan plain. The following year, Marius virtually destroyed the Cimbri in the battle of Vercellae. The Tigurini, who had planned on following the Cimbri, turned back over the Alps with their booty and joined those of the Helvetians who had not participated in the raids.
Caesar and the Helvetian campaign of 58 BC
Prelude The Helvetii were the first Gallic tribe of the campaign to be confronted by Caesar. He narrates the events of the conflict in the opening sections of Commentarii de Bello Gallico.Book 1, Chapters 2-29 Due to the political nature of the Commentarii, Caesar's purpose in publicizing his own achievements may have distorted the significance of events and the motives of those who participated.
The nobleman Orgetorix is presented as the instigator of a new Helvetian migration, in which the entire tribe was to leave their territory and, according to Caesar, to establish a supremacy over all of Gaul. This exodus was planned over three years, in the course of which Orgetorix conspired with two noblemen from neighbouring tribes, Casticus of the Sequani and Dumnorix of the Aedui, that each should accomplish a coup d'état in his own country, after which the three new kings would collaborate. When word of his aspirations to make himself king reached the Helvetii, Orgetorix was summoned to stand trial, facing execution on the pyre should he be found guilty. For the time being, he averted a verdict by arriving at the hearing set for him with ten thousand followers and bondsmen; yet before the large force mustered by the authorities could apprehend him, he died under unexplained circumstances, the Helvetii believed by his own hand..