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
Famous quotes containing the words switzerland, prior, roman and/or conquest:
“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)
“And ‘tis remarkable that they
Talk most who have the least to say.”
—Matthew Prior (1664–1721)
“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This agglomeration which called itself and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,—the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,—at least apparently,—but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)