abandoned and the lake-dwellers merged into the general body of the Helvetians. What we know as Switzerland to-day was then occupied by Celts, Rhætians, and Alamanni. Helvetia, as it was known to the Romans, took its name from the Helvetians, a tribe of Celts who had been pushed out of their own territories by the advancing tide of the Teutonic invasion and had colonised lower Switzerland.

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. They had adopted the Greek alphabet and kept written records of their doings. Their weapons and armour were good; their cultivation of the soil was skilful, and they had a knowledge of architecture, their fortifications in particular being praised by Roman writers as excellent. Local traditions said that Hercules had once visited Helvetia and taught the Helvetians arts and laws. That was the picturesque way of stating that their ideas of civilisation had come from Greece. These Helvetians were the easily traceable ancestors of the present Swiss, and many Swiss cities of to-day occupy the sites and keep close to the names of the old Helvetian centres—Geneva, Lausanne, Soleure, and Zurich, for examples. But the Helvetians were not strictly an Alpine race. They left the great mountains to wilder people and settled on the foothills and around the lakes.

The method of government of the Helvetians was closely modelled on the aristocratic republicanism of the Greek states. Wealthy nobles owned the land, and the rest of the population was made up of their vassals and slaves. But no one could aspire to be king. The chief Orcitrix, it is told, aspiring to kingly power, was burned to death. The Swiss do not seem to have copied the Grecian religious system, adhering to their ancient Druidical worship. Perhaps the gloomy and savage form which Protestantism was to take in after years among the Swiss, was in part due to the fact that their ancient form of worship seems to have been a particularly fierce kind of Druidism, and was very little subjected to the moderating influence of the pagan culture.

The mountain barriers kept the Helvetii for a long time from hostile encounters with the Roman power. But there is evidence that they got in touch with the Etruscans for purposes of trade through the Alpine passes from a very early age. Their chief warlike trouble came from the north, where the German population was constantly pressing down seeking fresh outlets. The first conflict between the Helvetii and the Romans was when the Tigurini tribe of Switzerland joined with the Cimbri in an attack upon Roman Gaul and defeated a Roman army under Cassius and Piso. That was 107 B.C. The Romans did not make any serious attempt to avenge that humiliation. The next meeting of the Helvetii with the Romans was not until the days of Cæsar (58 B.C.). Then the Helvetii, hemmed in on one side by Roman Gaul and on the other by the swelling floods of the German migration, resolved on a mass move, abandoning their own country completely and seizing some of the rich lands of Gaul.

It was a strange design and was carried out with strange persistency. Two years were devoted to the organisation of the great move, and on the appointed day practically all the Helvetii, men, women, and children, with all their beasts and their property assembled at Geneva. Their old homes were given to the torch, burned so that there would be no temptation for the people to turn back. Julius Cæsar (who followed Thucydides in the ranks of great war correspondents) tells the story: and it was Cæsar who set himself to the breaking up of this great plan. At Geneva the Helvetii found the bridge over the Rhone broken up by Cæsar's order. After useless attempts to cross the river, they turned towards the Jura Mountains, and whilst they were toiling over the steep and rugged Pas de l'Ecluse, Cæsar returned to Italy to gather his legions. Returning to Gaul, he arrived in time to see the Helvetians cross the Arar (Saône). The Tigurini were the last to cross. On them Cæsar fell and almost exterminated them, thus wiping out the old stain on the Roman arms. The Roman legions had crossed the Saône in twenty-four hours, and this feat so excited the admiration of the Helvetians, who had themselves taken twenty days to cross, that they sent legates to treat with Cæsar for a free passage. They promised him that they would do no harm to any one if he would comply with their request, but threatened the full rage of their arms if he should intercept them. Cæsar asked them to give hostages to confirm their promise. "The Helvetians are not accustomed to give hostages; they have been taught by their fathers to receive hostages, and this the Romans must well remember," was the reply.