Because of pressures from Germanic tribes, they attempted to migrate to southwestern Gaul in 58 BCE

but were denied permission by the Romans. The pass routes—especially the Great Saint Bernard in the
west, between Octodurum (Martigny) and Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), and the San Bernardino, Splügen,
Septimer, and Julier passes that linked the upper Rhine valley with the south of Switzerland—were
enlarged from trails to narrow paved roads. In the peaceful period from 101 to 260 CE, few Roman
troops remained in Switzerland, and the economy and culture blossomed under civil Roman
administration; Romanization was particularly strong in the western and southern part of the region and
in Raetia in the east. A product of the European balance of power and, after 1499, attacked only once
(1798), Switzerland has enjoyed peace for most of its existence and was spared from two world wars in
the 20th century, when the gradually developed concept of “armed neutrality” was respected by its
neighbours. Gall, established a monastic settlement that became the town of Sankt Gallen. The Romans
improved water supplies and constructed arenas and theatres, the best examples of which may be seen
at Augst and Avenches. By the 4th century Christianity had started to spread among the inhabitants; the
legend of the “Theban Legion”—martyrs allegedly executed near Saint-Maurice in the Valais—would
leave its mark on the Christian identity in many Swiss towns.

Germanic invasions

The first of the Germanic incursions occurred in 259–260 CE after the Roman limes (fortified strips of
land that served as military barriers to invaders) fell. The French-speaking part of present-day
Switzerland is approximately the territory settled by the Burgundians from the 5th century onward.

Large-scale migrations of Alemannians penetrated south of the Rhine during the 6th and 7th centuries.
In the preceding period of crisis from the end of the 18th century to the mid-19th century, the
confederation integrated the French- and Italian-speaking cantons and large rural areas, which earlier
had been dominions of oligarchic or democratic regimes. The grapevine was introduced despite
attempts by Roman legislators to prevent wine from being produced north of the Alps. But less than 30
years after Charlemagne’s death, the Treaty of Verdun (843) divided his empire, including Switzerland,
among his grandsons. The Burgundians already were Roman Catholic, but the Franks let Irish and
Scottish monks do missionary work among the Alemannians; the followers of one Irish monk, St. The
Celts were noted for their metalwork, original ceramics, and superb jewelry crafted from gold. Villas, a
type of fortified farmstead, were built, providing bases for agricultural exploitation and for spreading
Roman influence into the surrounding countryside.

New fruits, plants, and vegetables were brought from the south. It modernized its political structures in
its 1848 constitution, successfully adopting liberal principles such as individual rights, separation of
powers, and parliamentary bicameralism enshrined in the French Revolution (1789) and the U.S. The
first stone implements discovered in Switzerland are more than 250,000 years old, and early human
Neanderthal hunting settlements date from about 50,000 BCE. Constitution. To facilitate increasing
exports of wheat, cattle, and cheese, as well as to provide better lines of communication for military
purposes, roads connecting Rome and the northern outposts of the empire were extended and
improved across the Mittelland. With Venice, Genoa, and the Netherlands, the confederation formed
the republican exception in Europe, and it developed political structures less as a unified nation than on
the level of the 13 cantons that the Swiss Confederation comprised by the time of the Reformation.
Thus, Switzerland avoided breaking apart like other traditional states on mountain ridges such as
Navarre or Savoy, which were destroyed by the idea of “natural boundaries,” or the Habsburg empire,
which was eventually torn apart and reduced to its German element by those espousing nationalism.
The different cantons (traditionally called Orte in German) were to a large extent independent states
that remained united through the shared defense of liberty, which was understood as the protection of
imperial privileges and franchises. Defeated by Julius Caesar at Bibracte (modern Mont Beuvray, France)
in the opening campaign of the Gallic Wars, the Helvetii survivors returned to their Swiss lands as
dependent but privileged allies (foederati) of Rome and thus filled a vacuum that otherwise might have
precipitated further Germanic encroachment.

Roman Switzerland

Caesar Augustus annexed present-day Switzerland to the Roman Empire in 15 BCE. By 1000 the Swiss
territories belonged to 12 different bishoprics, the largest of which were Lausanne, Konstanz
(Constance), Sion, and Chur. They first lived on single farms or in villages (of about 400 inhabitants,
according to Caesar), and later they established larger towns (oppidum). Toward the end of the Würm,
about 12,000 BCE, Homo sapiens appeared; after the melting of the glaciers, Neolithic cultures
established corn (maize) growing and animal breeding in parts of the Rhône and Rhine valleys (about
5000 BCE). The early modern confederation also included, with reduced say, the Zugewandte Orte,
districts and towns (such as Geneva and Graubünden) that were allied to and subsequently became a
party of the confederation.

Switzerland was (along with San Marino) the only early modern republic to survive the reign of
Napoleon I. The Romans enlarged old Celtic settlements or built new military camps and towns, such as
Augusta Raurica (now Augst), on the Rhine east of Basel; Genava, Julia Equestris (Nyon), and Lousonna
(Lausanne), on the shores of Lake Geneva; Aventicum (Avenches), near Lake Morat; Eburodunum
(Yverdon), on the southwest shore of Lake Neuchâtel; and Vindonissa (Windisch) and Turicum (Zürich),
where the Limmat flows north out of Lake Zürich (Zürichsee). A rough boundary between the tribes ran
from Lake Constance to the San Bernardino by way of the Linth valley. Although the Romans were able
to temporarily reestablish the border at the Rhine, by 400 CE Roman Switzerland had disintegrated, and
the lands of the Romanized Celts were occupied by Germanic tribes such as the Burgundians,
Alemannians, and Langobardians (in Ticino). From the 6th to the 13th century, Germanic hegemony
slowly penetrated westward from the Reuss River to the Sarine. During the last glacial period in Alpine
Europe, the Würm stage, which began about 70,000 years ago, the country was covered with ice, many
thousands of feet deep, that flowed down from the Alps. Animal figures carved on antlers and bones
(e.g., those found in Kesslerloch date from about 10,000 BCE) prove that during interglacial periods
nomadic hunters had camps in caves of the ice-free areas of the Jura and the Mittelland and followed
their prey, mainly reindeer and bear, into the high mountain valleys. Much of what is now known about
the Celts in western Europe during the period from approximately 400 to 50 BCE was pieced together
from information and artifacts gleaned from excavations at the lakeside encampment of La Tène, near
the modern city of Neuchâtel. They retained political control in Switzerland but lost contact with their
former homelands and were assimilated into the Roman Celtic population. Unlike all similar
confederations (e.g., the Hanseatic and Swabian leagues) and despite endemic internal strife, especially
after the Reformation in the 16th century, the Swiss Confederation survived the formation of (princely)
modern states without adapting to it. From about 1800 BCE, Bronze Age settlements were scattered
throughout the Mittelland and Alpine valleys.

Celtic Switzerland

During the Iron Age, from about 800 BCE on, the area that was to become Switzerland was inhabited by
Celts in the west and Raetians in the east. Most of the cities of the Swiss Mittelland and of the
transverse Alpine valleys were originally settled by Celts.

The Helvetii, one of the most powerful of the Celtic tribes, controlled much of the area between the Jura
and the Alps. By erecting new churches and imposing their own counts and bishops, the Franks
integrated the territory that later became Switzerland into the Carolingian empire. The middle kingdom
of Lothar I included the Burgundian settlement area west of the Aare River; it became part of an
independent Burgundian kingdom that lasted until 1033, when it again joined the Holy Roman Empire.
Today in the valleys of the Graubünden (Grisons), the descendants of these Celts speak Romansh, the
least-prevalent of Switzerland’s four official languages.

During the late 5th and early 6th centuries, Burgundians and Alemannians came under the control of the
Franks and thus became part of Charlemagne’s resuscitated Holy Roman Empire in the 9th century.
Economic prosperity largely followed as Switzerland adapted well to the Industrial Revolution and the
growth of international finance markets, despite internal social strife in the decades around the turn of
the 20th century.

Switzerland before confederation

Prehistoric Switzerland

Until the late Middle Ages, the territory constituting modern Switzerland never formed a single political
or cultural unit. Alemannia, north and south of the Rhine, and Raetia were assigned in 843 to the East
Frankish kingdom of Louis II (the German). The Alemannians also pushed farther into the upper Rhine
valley, driving the Celts deeper into the Alps. More numerous than the Burgundians and in direct
contact with their kin north of the Rhine, the Alemannians colonized lands that had been only partially
under Roman influence, which thus facilitated the imposition of their culture and language on the Celts.
Few in number, the Burgundians occupied the lands of western Switzerland. Switzerland’s history is one
of a medieval defensive league formed during a time and in an area lacking imperial authority.