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 retreat from Swiss territory when it became a border region again after the Crisis of the Third Century. Roman control weakened after 401 AD, but did not entirely disappear until the mid-5th century after which the area began to be occupied by Germanic peoples.

Switzerland before the Roman conquest

The Swiss plateau, within the natural borders of the Alps to the South and East, Lake Geneva and the Rhône to the west and the Rhine to the north, was recognized as a contiguous territory by Julius Caesar.
This area had been dominated by the La Tène culture since the 5th century BC, settled by a mostly Celtic population, of which the Helvetii were the most numerous, but which also included the Rauraci in north-west Switzerland centered on Basel, and the Allobroges around Geneva. South of the Swiss plateau were the Nantuates, Seduni and Veragri in the Valais, the Lepontii in the Ticino, and the Raetians controlled the Grisons as well as large areas around it.

The Roman conquest

Early contact

The first part of what is now Switzerland to fall to Rome was the southern Ticino, annexed after the Roman victory over the Insubres in 222 BC. The territory of the Allobroges around Geneva came under Roman sway by 121 BC and was incorporated into the province of Gallia Narbonensis before the Gallic Wars.
In around 110 BC, two Helvetic tribes under Divico – the Tigurini and the Tougeni, sometimes identified with the Teutons – joined the wandering Germanic Cimbri on a march to the West. In the course of the Cimbrian War they defeated a Roman force under Lucius Cassius Longinus at the Battle of Burdigala in 107 BC, but after the Roman victory over the Teutons at Aquae Sextiae in 102 BC, the Tigurini returned to settle in the Swiss Plateau.

Defeat of the Helvetii

In 61 BC, the Helvetii, led by Orgetorix, decided to leave their lands and move to the West, burning their settlements behind them – twelve oppida, according to Caesar, and some 400 villages. They were decisively beaten by Caesar in the Battle of Bibracte in 58 BC. After their surrender, Caesar sent the Helvetii home, according them the status of foederati or Roman allies, but not yet fully subjugating them to Roman sovereignty.
Caesar's policy aimed at controlling the territory west of the Jura and Rhine, as well as at blocking the potential incursion routes from the East along the Jura. The Raetians, described as savage warriors by Strabo, continued to launch incursions into the Swiss Plateau and also had to be contained. To that end, Caesar charged the Helvetii and the Rauraci with defending their territory and established two colonies of veterans – one, the Colonia Julia Equestris on the shores of Lake Geneva and the other through Lucius Munatius Plancus in northwestern Switzerland, preceding the larger Augusta Raurica founded by Augustus in around 6 AD.

Conquest of the Alps

Caesar's attempt to open the Great St Bernard Pass for Roman traffic failed in 57 BC due to strong opposition by the local Veragri. Concerted and successful efforts to gain control over the Alpine region were undertaken by his successor, Augustus, as the rapid development of Lugdunum made the establishment of a safe and direct route from Gaul to Italy a priority.
In 25 BC, an army under Aulus Terentius Varro Murena wiped out the Salassi in the Aosta Valley. At some time between 25 and 7 BC – either following the Aosta campaign or, more likely, in the course of the conquest of Raetia in 15 BC – a campaign also subjugated the Celtic tribes of the Valais and opened the Great St Bernard Pass.
That conquest was a consequence of the Augustan imperative of securing the Imperial borders. To effectively control the Alps as the shield of northern Italy, Rome needed to control both flanks of the mountain range. Thus it had to extend its power to the Rhine and Danube, thereby also opening a direct route to Germania and all of Central Europe. The last obstacle in this path were the Raetians. After a first expedition against them by Publius Silius Nerva in 16 BC, a more thorough campaign by Drusus and the later emperor Tiberius brought Raetia – and thereby all of Switzerland – firmly under Roman control.
The tropaeum alpium, built by Augustus in 7 BC to celebrate his conquest of the Alps, lists among the defeated peoples the tribes of Raetia and of the Valais, but not the Helvetii. It appears that they were absorbed peacefully into the Empire during the first century AD, except for their part in the conflicts of the Year of the Four Emperors, AD 69.

Roman Switzerland

The history of Switzerland under Roman rule was, from the Augustan period up until 260 AD, a time of exceptional peace and prosperity. The Pax Romana was made possible by the protection of well-defended and distant Imperial borders and a peaceful and smooth Romanization of the local population. The Romans urbanized the territory with numerous settlements and built a network of high-quality Roman roads connecting them, allowing for the integration of Helvetia into the imperial economy.

Roman settlements

While the Roman presence was always strong in the Alps, where the crucial North-South connection had to be kept open, the Swiss plateau was not really Romanized until decades after the conquest. The principal Roman settlements in Switzerland were the cities of Iulia Equestris, Aventicum, Augusta Raurica and Vindonissa. Evidence has also been found of almost twenty Roman villages established in the 1st to 3rd century AD, as well as hundreds of villas of varying sizes built in the western and central part of the Swiss Plateau. The known vici include:
The colonies of Nyon and Augusta Raurica at first had little cultural influence beyond their immediate surroundings. After Roman military defeats in Germania in 12–9 BC and 6–9 AD, the frontier was moved back to the Rhine and guarded by eight legions, of which one, originally Legio XIII Gemina, was based in the permanent camp of Vindonissa.
Aventicum was likely the capital of the Helvetii since its founding at the beginning of the 1st century. In the 40s, it benefited from the traffic brought over the St Bernard pass over a street expanded by Claudius, and in 71 it acquired the status of a Roman colony and of an allied city. This is believed to have been a favor of Vespasian for the city in which he had lived for a time, or a measure to better control the Helvetii after the events of 69 by implanting a colony of veterans in their midst.

Administrative divisions

The Alps were first administered by a legatus pro praetore in Augusta Vindelicorum, then by the procurator of the new province of Raetia. The Valais was split from Raetia by Claudius in AD 43 and merged with the province of Alpes Graiae to form a new province, Alpes Graiae et Poeninae.
As for the Swiss plateau, its western and central part up to Ad Fines was administratively part of the province of Belgica and for military purposes part of Germania Superior. Its eastern part belonged to Raetia.
This division, established by Augustus in 22 BC, was accompanied by a redistribution of tribal settlement areas. It remained essentially unchanged until Diocletian's reforms in the third century, when parts of Switzerland each belonged to the provinces of Sequania, Vienna, Raetia Prima, Liguria and Alpes Graiae et Poeninae.

Government

The colonies of Nyon, Aventicum and Augusta Raurica were governed under republican constitutions similar to that of Rome. Most governmental powers were exercised by a pair of magistrates, the duoviri, elected annually first by all citizens older than 25, and in later times by the city council or ordo decurionum. The 100 members of this council, which corresponded to the Roman Senate, were selected by the duomviri among former officials or priests according to their wealth, and held office for life.
Augusta Raurica and Aventicum were also the civitates, or capitals, of the non-Roman tribes of the Rauraci and Helvetii, respectively. In that capacity, the magistrates of Aventicum, as duoviri coloniae Helvetiorum, also governed the entire Helvetic population, which had the legal status of incolae invested with the Latin Right. The rights of the Roman coloni, or colonists, were represented by a special authority, the curatores colonorum Aventicensum. Moreover, the Roman citizens of the entire territory established the cives Romani conventus Helvetici.
The civitas of the Helvetii was similar to that of the Celtic tribes of the Valais, which were merged into a single civitas Vallensis probably around 40 AD, and given Forum Claudii Vallensium as their capital. Parts of the modern Ticino belonged to the colony of Comum, founded in the 1st century AD. On the local level, the basic administrative units were the vici, replacing the Helvetic pagi, or tribes, which were dissolved at the time of colonization. These villages enjoyed a certain autonomy and were governed by popularly elected magistrates.
While the governmental system in the central and western part of Switzerland, as described above, is well documented, nothing of substance is known about the political and administrative system in eastern Raetia. However, records of the time show that a great number of local nobles held political and religious offices in Raetia, indicating that the Romans successfully co-opted the local elite.