Helvetii

“ Among the Gauls the Helvetii surpass the rest in valour, as they constantly contend in battle with the Germans. When Messala and Piso were consuls, Orgetorix, the most distinguished of the Helvetii, formed a conspiracy among the nobility, persuading them that, since they excelled all in valour, it would be very easy to acquire the supremacy of the whole of Gaul. They made great preparations for the expedition, but suddenly Orgetorix died, nor was suspicion lacking that he committed suicide. ”

“ The Helvetii were to be persuaded by their leaders to migrate to western Gaul, and it was arranged that, when the whole tribe was slowly passing through the land of the Ædui, there should be a rising against Ariovistus. The Ædui could count on the assistance of the Helvetii, because as future occupants of Gallic territory the immigrants would have no desire to be dependents of the German king. ”

“ Nothing in the whole study of historical geography is more necessary than to root out the notion that there has always been a country of Switzerland, as there has always been a country of Germany, Gaul, or Italy. ♦The Swiss do not represent the Helvetii.♦ And it is no less needful to root out the notion that the Swiss of the original cantons in any way represent the Helvetii of Cæsar. ”

“ Nevertheless, the Helvetii appear to have been desirous of avoiding battle, for next day they raised their camp, and, cut off from the possibility of following the course of the Saône to proceed towards the south, they took the easiest way to reach the country of the Santones, by directing their march towards the{67} sources of the Dheune and the Bourbince. ”

“ As this defile was commanded by a very lofty mountain, a handful of men was sufficient to prevent the access. The other road, less contracted and more easy, crossed the Roman province, after having passed the Rhone, which separated the Allobroges from the Helvetii, from Lake Léman to the Jura. Within this distance the river was fordable in several places. [158] At Geneva, the extreme limit of the territory of the Allobroges towards Helvetia, a bridge established a communication between the two countries. The Helvetii decided on taking the most convenient road ”

“ They possessed the elements of a higher civilization (gold coinage, the Greek alphabet) , and, according to Caesar, were the bravest people of Gaul. The reports of gold and plunder spread by the Cimbri and Teutones on their way to southern Gaul induced the Helvetii to follow their example. ”

“ For the Aedui—"our brethren" [1] —have recently fought a losing battle, and the Helvetii are undoubtedly in arms and making raids upon our province. [2] The senate has decreed that the two Consuls should draw lots for the Gauls, that a levy should be held, all exemptions from service be suspended, and legates with full powers be sent to visit the states in Gaul, and see that they do not join the Helvetii. ”

“ Immediately the Helvetii, who had appointed their rendezvous on the banks of the Rhine towards the 24th of March, the day of the equinox, ask his permission to cross Savoy, with the intention of going to establish themselves in Saintonge. He adjourns his answer to the 8th of April, and employs the fifteen days thus gained in fortifying the left bank of the Rhone, from Geneva to the Pas-de-l’Ecluse, in raising troops in the Roman province, and in renewing the old bonds of friendship with the Burgundians, [560] who will soon furnish him with men, horses, and provisions. ”

“ History is little beyond the record of migrations, how one race moved on and overcame the race in front of it. In ancient days lots were cast as to who should migrate, and those chosen by this conscription left their homes that the rest remaining might have room and food. Checking the attempted migration of the Helvetii was the beginning of Caesar's exploits. What men do only at intervals birds do frequently, having greater freedom of movement. ”

“ HELLESPONTINE SIBYL. See SIBYLS. HELLULAND. See AMERICA: 10TH-11TH CENTURIES. HELOTS. 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. ”

“ Under Vespasian they attained the height of their prosperity. He greatly increased the importance of Aventicum, where his father had carried on business. Its inhabitants, with those of other towns, probably obtained the ius Latinum, had a senate, a council of decuriones, a prefect of public works and flamens of Augustus. After the extension of the eastern frontier, the troops were withdrawn from the garrisons and fortresses, and Helvetia, free from warlike disturbances, gradually became completely romanized. ”

“ But in course of time their character was greatly modified, and, owing probably to their secluded position, they settled down into more peaceful habits, and rose to wealth and honour, combining with their great powers a certain amount of culture. They practised the art of writing, having adopted the Greek alphabet, and gold, which was possibly found in their rivers, circulated freely amongst them. To judge from the relics found in Helvetian tumuli the Helvetians were fond of luxuries in the way of ornaments and fine armour, and they excelled in the art of working metals, especially bronze. ”

“ At the Celto-Roman period of which we are treating, Helvetia comprised all the territory lying between Mount Jura, Lake Geneva, and Lake Constance, [Pg 14] with the exception of Basle, which included Graubünden, and reached into St. Gall and Glarus. It was parcelled out amongst many tribes, even as it is in our own day. The Helvetians, who had previously occupied all the land between the Rhine and the Main, had been driven south by the advancing Germans, and had colonized the fertile plains and the lower hill grounds of Switzerland, leaving to others the more difficult Alpine regions. ”

“ Thus early in history the difference between Gallic Switzerland and Teutonic Switzerland begins to show itself.
Helvetia was much favoured by the Romans and became in effect the frontier province for the defence of the empire against the Germans. After a time the Helvetians were but little distinguishable from the Romans, adopting their27 manners and their faith. Wealthy Romans loved to make their summer resorts along the lake of Geneva, and Aventicum, the Helvetian capital, became a great Roman city. ”

“ Just as the lake-dwellers had set up a higher standard of civilisation than the mountain-dwellers in their age, so the Helvetians, occupying the lower ground of Switzerland, showed much more culture than any of their neighbours. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Probably no one doubts that the grade of civilisation of our cave-dwellers is to be placed in far distant times. Though this is not the place for a regular dissertation on these remote periods, yet it may not be out of place to bring forward some conjectures as to the age of this settlement. The first notice in history as to the inhabitants of Helvetia is found in Cæsar; but in his reports about Switzerland he does not say a word about the lake-dwellings, though the remains of two hundred or thereabouts of these settlements are known at the present day. ”

“ The cautious Buffon soon edged away from this salon, as he also edged away from the gatherings of Helvétius. The monstrous things these people talk about might come to the ears of the authorities—accompanied by the fact that the politic author of the ‘Natural History’ was among the talkers! Helvétius himself was often at d’Holbach’s, until the storm of fury and hatred which assailed his book ‘On the Mind’ banished him, astounded and embittered, to his estates in Burgundy. ”

“ A people of Gallic race, the Helvetians, who inhabited present Switzerland, where the old name still abides beside the modern, found themselves incessantly threatened, ravaged, and invaded by the German tribes which pressed upon their frontiers. After some years of perplexity and internal discord, the whole Helvetic nation decided upon abandoning its territory, and going to seek in Gaul, westward, it is said, on the borders of the ocean, a more tranquil settlement. ”

“ The cantons were already taking sides, when the First Consul launched a proclamation as the natural arbiter of the destinies of Switzerland:—
"People of Helvetia, you have been disputing for three years without understanding each other. If you are left longer to yourselves, you will kill yourselves in three years without understanding each other any better. Your history, moreover, proves that your civil wars have never been finished unless by the efficacious intervention of France. ”

“ He preferred a quiet life to his honour and his philosophy. His wife had a nobler soul than he, as she wanted to sell all they had, and to take refuge in Holland rather than submit to the shame of a recantation. Perhaps Helvetius would have followed the noble advice of his wife if he had foreseen that this monstrous recantation would make his book into a fraud; for he had to confess that he had written without due reflection, that he was more in jest than earnest, and that his arguments were mere sophisms. ”

“ Helvetia is the old name of Switzerland. He was himself a Switzer, a romantic man; a man of great adventure, with vast ideas; a sort of feudal lord. The name of New Helvetia does not signify that the land which he wanted lies at the fort or near it. On the contrary, he called all the country about the fort New Helvetia.
The grant to Sutter is dated the 18th of June, 1841. It does not point to the cultivated and improved lands then occupied by Sutter himself. When the lines come to be specifically described they are given thus: North by the Three Peaks; east by the margins of the Feather River ”

“ If, between these eventful years of three-and-twenty and six-and-thirty, Helvétius had been nothing but an astute, ambitious young man-about-town, seeking the likeliest way to fame and fortune, he would have been undistinguishable from hundreds of others around him, and not worth distinguishing. ”

“ Van Helmont, Borrichius, Kirchen, Boerhaave, and a score of others, though not professed alchymists, were fond of the science, and countenanced its professors. Helvetius, the grandfather of the celebrated philosopher of the same name, asserts that he saw an inferior metal turned into gold by a stranger, at the Hague, in 1666. He says that, sitting one day in his study, a man, who was dressed as a respectable burgher of North Holland, and very modest and simple in his appearance, called upon him, with the intention of dispelling his doubts relative to the philosopher's stone. ”

“ After the plunderers came the constitution-mongers, who forthwith forced on Switzerland democracy of the most French and geometrical type: all differences between the sovereign cantons, allies, and subject-lands were swept away, and Helvetia was constituted as an indivisible republic—except Valais, which was to be independent, and Geneva and Mühlhausen, which were absorbed by France. The subject districts and non-privileged classes benefited considerably by the social reforms introduced under French influence ”

“ Thus we find Helvetia incorporated with Gaul.
The political capital of the Tres Galliæ, 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. ”

“ Truly, this world can go on without us, if we would but think so. If it had been a hearse instead of a post-chaise, it would have been all the same to the people of Heidelberg,--though by no means the same to Paul Flemming.
But at the farther end of the city, near the Castle and the Carls-Thor, one warm heart was waiting to receive him; and this was the German heart of his friend, the Baron of Hohenfels, with whom he was to pass the winter in Heidelberg. ”

“ As soon as they shall be executed, the French troops shall be withdrawn.
We recognize Helvetia, constituted conformably to the present act, as an independent power.
We guarantee the federal constitution, and that of each canton, against the enemies of the tranquility of Helvetia, whomsoever they may be, and we promise to continue those relations of beneficence, which for so many ages have united the two nations. ”