The Helvetii against Caesar
Swiss Plateau, Geneva, Saône, Bibracte (France)
Key figures: Julius Caesar, Orgetorix, Divico
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (German): Helvetii, Battle of Bibracte
Orgetorix’s plan (61–58 BC). Almost everything we know comes from Caesar, who tells the story of the campaign in the first book of his De bello Gallico: a work of history but also of political self-justification, and the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland advises caution, especially with the figures. “Among the Helvetii, by far the noblest and richest was Orgetorix” (I, 2, 1): in 61 BC, driven by a desire for kingship, he persuaded his people that, “since they surpassed everyone in valour, it would be very easy to gain control of the whole of Gaul” (I, 2, 2). The Helvetii felt hemmed in by the Rhine, the Jura, Lake Geneva and the Rhône, and for two years they bought carts and draught animals and sowed as much as they could (I, 3). Accused of seeking power, Orgetorix came to his trial with ten thousand men and soon afterwards died, perhaps by suicide (I, 4). The real reasons for the migration remain obscure: raids by the Germans, according to Caesar, or economic and political motives we do not know.
The departure (March 58 BC). Even without Orgetorix, the Helvetii set out. To remove any hope of return, “they set fire to all their towns, about twelve in number, to about four hundred villages and to the remaining private buildings” (I, 5, 2), burned the grain they could not carry, and each took flour for three months. The Rauraci, Tulingi, Latobrigi and Boii joined them. The gathering on the bank of the Rhône was set for 28 March 58 BC (I, 6, 4); their destination was the land of the Santones, on the Atlantic coast.
Geneva and the Rhône (April 58 BC). Caesar, newly appointed governor of Gaul, hurried to Geneva and had the bridge over the Rhône destroyed (I, 7, 2). When the envoys Nammeius and Verucloetius asked to pass through the Roman province, he played for time: he remembered that the Helvetii had killed the consul Lucius Cassius and sent his army “under the yoke” (I, 7, 4). Meanwhile his soldiers built a wall sixteen feet high and nineteen miles long, with a ditch, from Lake Geneva to the Jura (I, 8, 1); then passage was refused.
The Saône and Divico (June 58 BC). The Helvetii then went through the territory of the Sequani and took twenty days to cross the Saône. Caesar surprised the part left behind, the pagus of the Tigurini, and slaughtered it (I, 12): the very Tigurini who “in our fathers’ time” had killed Lucius Cassius. Then he bridged the river in a single day. The Helvetii sent him as envoy the aged Divico, who had led them against Cassius: their fathers, he said, had taught them “to fight with valour rather than rely on trickery or ambush” (I, 13, 4), and when Caesar demanded hostages he replied that the Helvetii were accustomed “to receive hostages, not to give them” (I, 14, 7).
The Battle of Bibracte (June 58 BC). Short of supplies, Caesar turned towards Bibracte, “by far the largest and richest town of the Aedui” (I, 23, 1), on Mont Beuvray in Burgundy. The Helvetii seized the opportunity to attack him. The fighting lasted “from the seventh hour until evening”, and throughout the battle “no one could see an enemy turn his back” (I, 26, 2); at night it went on around the carts, used as a rampart, where a daughter and a son of Orgetorix were captured. According to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, the battle most probably took place at Montmort, not far from Bibracte, where excavations have found a ditch dug by the legionaries.
Surrender and return. Some 130,000 survivors fled towards the land of the Lingones (I, 26, 5), but without supplies they surrendered. Caesar ordered the Helvetii, Tulingi and Latobrigi to return to their lands and rebuild their towns and villages, and the Allobroges to supply them with grain: he did not want the plateau to remain empty and the Germans from beyond the Rhine to settle there (I, 28, 3). In the Helvetian camp the Romans found tablets “written in Greek characters” with a census of those who had left: 263,000 Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobrigi, 23,000 Rauraci and 32,000 Boii, 368,000 people in all, of whom 92,000 could bear arms; on their return 110,000 were counted (I, 29). Probably on that occasion the Helvetii concluded a treaty with Rome, which they broke in 52 BC by sending 8,000 men to help Vercingetorix at Alesia.
Divico and the yoke: from 107 BC to the 19th century. In 107 BC the Tigurini, led by Divico, had defeated the army of the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus near Agen, in south-western Gaul; the consul was killed and the surviving Romans were forced to pass under the yoke. This is the scene painted by Charles Gleyre in 1858, now in the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne. In the 19th century Switzerland, looking for heroic ancestors, preferred to remember this victory rather than the defeat at Bibracte: in Karl Jauslin’s plates, Die Schweizergeschichte in Bildern (1885–1887), Divico appears alongside William Tell and Arnold Winkelried. Yet, as the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland notes, Bibracte and Divico never became symbols in Switzerland the way Alesia and Vercingetorix did in France: wanting to leave one’s own land is hardly patriotic.
Charles Gleyre, Les Romains passant sous le joug, 1858, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The first page of the De bello Gallico in a late 11th-century manuscript: “Gallia est omnis divisa…” and, in the second column, “Apud Helvetios longe nobilissimus fuit… Orgetorix”
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 5764, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Karl Jauslin, the Battle of Bibracte, 58 BC, around 1900
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Porte du Rebout, the main entrance to the oppidum of Bibracte, rebuilt after excavation using the murus gallicus technique
Bibracte EPCC, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Karl Jauslin, Divico und Caesar: the meeting between Divico and Caesar after the clash on the Saône, late 19th century
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Reconstruction of the three phases of the battle between Caesar and the Helvetii, south of Bibracte (modern map, Italian labels)
Cristiano64, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0