The Story of Switzerland

INGETORIX. (Dr. I

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

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,

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 C?sar 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 divid

n 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) o

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 joine

ccupied 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 ch

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, a

IANUS IMPERATOR-AETERNITAS).

engthy title of Colonia Pia Flavia Constans Emerita Helvetiorum F?derata 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 m

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 li

he 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 ne

ted his opponent Galba, not knowing that he had just been murdered, and fell upon the messengers of C?cina, and put them in prison, after first seizing their letters. The lieutenant enraged at this affront laid waste the neighbouring Aqu? (Baden near Zurich), a flourishing watering-place much frequented for its amusements, Tacitus tells us. Calling in the Rh?tian cohorts, he drove them to the B?tzberg, and cut them down by thousands in the woods and fastnes

nexed 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 ne

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 inscrib

ici, or village settlements, sprang up or increased in importance under Roman influence-Zurich, Aqu? (Baden near Zurich), Kloten, Vindonissa, and others.[10] Yet the eastern portion of the country could not compete in the matter of fine buil

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

cent 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 th

d 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. A

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

faith came to the land as part and parcel of the Roman culture. Indeed this is now the opinion most generally received. The military operations of the empire required continual changes of locality

s (a.d. 280-300), but being mostly Christians they refused, and were massacred with their chief, Mauritius. Some, however, escaped for the time, but were called upon to receive the martyr's crown later on, and in other places. Two such, Ursus and Victor, came to Soleure with sixty-six companions, and were put to death by order of Hirt?us, the Roman governor. Two others, Felix and his sister Regula, reached Zurich, where their successful conversions irritated Decius, who put them to the rack, and then beheaded them. Yet, wonderful to tel

T. FELIX, ST. REGULA-SANCTUS CARO

pal sees since the third century, though some of these sees were in process of time removed to other pla

TNO

settlements). Aqu? alone we know from Tacitus was a city-like water