Switzerland Prior To The Roman Conquest
Switzerland did not exist as a political or cultural entity prior to the emergence of the Old Swiss Confederacy in the Middle Ages, but its core territories 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 were recognized as a contiguous territory by Julius Caesar.
This area – the Swiss plateau – was settled principally by Celtic peoples, of which the five tribes of the Helvetii were the most numerous, but which also included the Rauraci in north-west Switzerland centered on Basel, the Allobroges around Geneva, and the Nantuates, Seduni and Veragri in the Valais. Additionally, the Lepontii, a people of Celtic origin, settled in the Ticino, and the Raetians controlled the Grisons as well as large areas around it.
Read more about this topic: Switzerland In The Roman Era
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“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!”
—Orson Welles (1915–84)
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—Matthew Prior (1664–1721)
“The Roman world is in collapse but we do not bend our neck.”
—Jerome (c. 340–420)
“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)