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Helvetii
The Helvetii ( , Gaulish: *''Heluētī''), anglicized as Helvetians, were a Celts, Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their Switzerland in the Roman era, contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. According to Julius Caesar, the Helvetians were divided into four subgroups or ''pagus, pagi.'' Of these, Caesar names only the Verbigeni and the Tigurini, while Posidonius mentions the Tigurini and the Tougeni (). They feature prominently in the ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Commentaries on the Gallic War,'' with their failed migration attempt to southwestern Gaul (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 AD 68, a Helvetian uprising was crushed by Aulus Caecina Alienus. The Swiss plateau was at first incorporated into the Roman province of Gallia Belgica (22 B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caesar's Conquest Of Gaul
The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland). Gauls, Gallic, Germanic peoples, Germanic, and Celtic Britons, British tribes fought to defend their homelands against an aggressive Roman Campaign (military), campaign. The Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul. Though the Gallic military was as strong as the Romans, the Gallic tribes' internal divisions eased victory for Caesar. Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls under a single banner came too late. Caesar portrayed the invasion as being a preemptive and defensive action, but historians agree that he fought the Wars primarily to boost his political career and to pay off his debts. Still, Gaul was of significant military importance to the Romans. Native ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Switzerland In The Roman Era
The territory of modern Switzerland was a part of the Roman Republic and Empire for a period of about six centuries, beginning with the step-by-step conquest of the area by Roman armies from the 2nd century BC and ending with the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. The mostly Celtic tribes of the area were subjugated by successive Roman campaigns aimed at control of the strategic routes from Italy across the Alps to the Rhine and into Gaul, most importantly by Julius Caesar's defeat of the largest tribal group, the Helvetii, in the Gallic Wars in 58 BC. Under the ''Pax Romana'', the area was smoothly integrated into the prospering Empire, and its population assimilated into the wider Gallo-Roman culture by the 2nd century AD, as the Romans enlisted the native aristocracy to engage in local government, built a network of roads connecting their newly established colonial cities and divided up the area among the Roman provinces. Roman civilization began to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tigurini
The Tigurini were a clan or tribe forming one out of four '' pagi'' (provinces) of the Helvetii. The Tigurini were the most important group of the Helvetii, mentioned by both Julius Caesar and Poseidonius, settling in the area of what is now the Swiss canton of Vaud, corresponding to the bearers of the late La Tène culture in western Switzerland. Their name has a meaning of "lords, rulers" (cognate with Irish ''tigern'' "lord"). The other Helvetian tribes included the ''Verbigeni'' and the ''Tougeni'' (sometimes identified with the Teutones), besides one tribe that has remained unnamed. The name of the Tigurini is first recorded in the context of their alliance with the Cimbri in the Cimbrian War of 113–101 BCE. They crossed the Rhine to invade Gaul in 109 BCE, moved south to the Roman region of Provence in 107 BCE and defeated a Roman army under Lucius Cassius Longinus near Agen. The Tigurini followed the Cimbri in their campaign across the Alps, but they did not enter It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commentarii De Bello Gallico
''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'' (; en, Commentaries on the Gallic War, italic=yes), also ''Bellum Gallicum'' ( en, Gallic War, italic=yes), is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting the Celtic and Germanic peoples in Gaul that opposed Roman conquest. The "Gaul" that Caesar refers to is ambiguous, as the term had various connotations in Roman writing and discourse during Caesar's time. Generally, Gaul included all of the regions primarily inhabited by Celts, aside from the province of Gallia Narbonensis (modern-day Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon), which had already been conquered in Caesar's time, therefore encompassing the rest of modern France, Belgium, Western Germany, and parts of Switzerland. As the Roman Republic made inroads deeper into Celtic territory and conquered more land, the definition of "Gaul" shifted. Concu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine). In a wider sense, it also comprises varieties of Celtic that were spoken across much of central Europe ("Noric language, Noric"), parts of the Balkans, and Anatolia ("Galatian language, Galatian"), which are thought to have been closely related. The more divergent Lepontic language, Lepontic of Northern Italy has also sometimes been subsumed under Gaulish. Together with Lepontic and the Celtiberian language, Celtiberian spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, Gaulish helps form the geographic group of Continental Celtic languages. The precise linguistic relationships among them, as well as between them and the modern Insular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during Republican era, Cisalpina was annexed in 42 BC to Roman Italy), and Germany west of the Rhine. It covered an area of . According to Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 204 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maxima Sequanorum
The Sequani were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the upper river basin of the Arar river (Saône), the valley of the Doubs and the Jura Mountains during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Name They are mentioned as ''Sequanos'' by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC) and Ammianus Marcellinus (4th c. AD), ''Sequanis'' by Livy (late 1st c. BC), ''Sēkoanoús'' (Σηκοανούς) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD), and as ''Sequani'' by Pliny (1st c. AD). The Gaulish ethnonym ''Sequani'' (sing. ''Sequanos'') stems from the Celtic name of the Seine river, '' Sequana''. This may indicate that their original homeland was located by the Seine. Geography The country of the Sequani corresponded to Franche-Comté and part of Burgundy. The Jura Mountains separated the Sequani from the Helvetii on the east, but the mountains belonged to the Sequani, as the narrow pass between the Rhone and Lake Geneva was Sequanian. They did not occupy the confluence of the Saône into the Rhone, as the Helvetii plundered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vindonissa
Vindonissa (from a Gaulish toponym in *''windo-'' "white") was a Roman legion camp, vicus and later a bishop's seat at modern Windisch, Switzerland. The remains of the camp are listed as a heritage site of national significance. The city of Brugg hosts a small Roman museum, displaying finds from the legion camp. History Excavations along the western edge of the Roman camp have discovered a few funeral pyre graves dating to the late Bronze Age ( 1000–800 BC). The first settlement of Vindonissa was a 1st century BC Helvetii fortified village on the peninsula between the Aare and Reuss rivers. The settlement was protected by an approximately long wood and earth wall, with an up to deep trench which stretched across the narrow neck of the peninsula. The settlement came under Roman control either after the 58 BC conquest of the Helvetii by Julius Caesar or the 15 BC conquest of the Alps. A small guard post was established on the site around 15 BC. The Roman settlement and legio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, an informal political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power as were opposed by the within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a string of military victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, which greatly extended Roman territory. During this time he both invaded Britain and built a b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aulus Caecina Alienus
Aulus Caecina Alienus ( 40 – 79) was a Roman general active during the Year of the Four Emperors. Biography Caecina was born in Vicetia (modern Vicenza) around 40 A.D. He was ''quaestor'' of Hispania Baetica (southern Iberia) in 68 A.D. On the death of Nero, he attached himself to Galba, who appointed him to the command of Legio IV Macedonica at Mogontiacum in Germania Superior (Upper Germany). In 68 A.D, as quaestor, his job was to control the public monies of the senatorial province of Baetica. Before the end of 68 AD, Galba was informed that Caecina had diverted funds into his own pocket. After a trial, Galba convicted him for misappropriation of funds. Having been prosecuted for embezzling public money, Caecina went over to Vitellius, who sent him across the Swiss plateau with troops from Germania Superior. During this campaign, as recorded by Tacitus, he pillaged Aquae Helveticae after engagements between the Legio XXI Rapax and the Helvetii, and later defeated the Helvet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germania Superior
Germania Superior ("Upper Germania") was an imperial province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of today's western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany. Important cities were Besançon ('' Vesontio''), Strasbourg (''Argentoratum''), Wiesbaden ('' Aquae Mattiacae''), and Germania Superior's capital, Mainz (''Mogontiacum''). It comprised the Middle Rhine, bordering on the ''Limes Germanicus'', and on the Alpine province of Raetia to the south-east. Although it had been occupied militarily since the reign of Augustus, Germania Superior (along with Germania Inferior) was not made into an official province until c. 85 AD. Origin Initial Roman involvement The terms, "Upper Germania" and "Lower Germania" do not appear in the ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'' of Julius Caesar, yet he writes about reports that the people who lived in those regions were referred to as "Germani" locally, a term used for a tribe that the Romans called the Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pagus
In ancient Rome, the Latin word (plural ) was an administrative term designating a rural subdivision of a tribal territory, which included individual farms, villages (), and strongholds () serving as refuges, as well as an early medieval geographical term. From the reign of Diocletian (284–305 AD) onwards, the referred to the smallest administrative unit of a province. These geographical units were used to describe territories in the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, without any political or administrative meaning. Etymology is a native Latin word from a root , a lengthened grade of Indo-European , a verbal root, "fasten" (''pango''); it may be translated in the word as "boundary staked out on the ground". In semantics, used in is a stative verb with an unmarked lexical aspect of state resulting from completed action: "it is having been staked out", converted into a noun by , a type recognizable in English adjectives such as surveyed, defined, noted, etc. English doe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
