Allobroges

Gallic People, the Allobroges was Celtes and spoke originally the Celtic Langue whose patois kept some words. It was people of proud and hard warriors, gathering many tribes, which became sedentary and were devoted to agriculture. The name Allobroge would come from the roots hello (other) and brog (country), is the people come from other countries . Courageous combatants, these people Celtic would have settled in the Alps of North at the beginning of third century BC. The Greeks will call them " Allobriges".

Allobroges and Allobrogie

The territory of Allobroges extended on most of the countries from Savoy (the " Sapaudia" or " country of the sapins") and in the north of Isere. But, in the east, in the mountains, of the independent people, the Ceutrons, occupied the Tarentaise (valley of Isere) and high the Vallée of Arve and the Médulles occupied the valley of the Arc.

Allobrogie usually considered by the historians as inhabited by homogeneous people, actually consists of many territories separated by borders indicated by Gallic toponyms which exist still today. Allobroges, like good of other Gallic people, are, them also, a " confédération". In fact, the Romans gave, by convenience or ignorance, the name of Allobroges to the whole of the Gallic people alive in the civitate (quoted) of Vienna, in the west and the south of the Sapaudia . These tribes were in fact a mixture of various tribes of which most important were the Ambarres cousins of the Éduens, the Cavares and the Voconces cousins of the Allobroges. These pseudo-Allobroges adopted Vienna like capital and federated. The whole of Allobrogie is thus usually defined like the territory corresponding mainly to the current departments of both Savoy, the Isere and the canton of Geneva.

Allobroges were famous being of good warriors, of which some were mercenaries during centuries - Gésates, well-known as a Gaulle cisalpine where they helped the Gallic ones to resist to the Romans. They fought naked (Polybe, II, 6) with the battle of Télamon which marked the end of Gaulle cisalpine. After the conquest of Allobrogie by the Romans in 121 av. J. - C., Allobroges did not accept the presence of the Roman invader and especially their taxes; they carried out several revolts (- 77, -61,-43).

Allobroges seen by the Romans

Various testimonys describe Allobroges like one of the people among richest and most powerful of the Gaulle, with a many population. They plowed with a coarse plow and cultivated a considered wheat, but also rye and the vine. They practiced the breeding and manufactured cheese, exploited their vast forests, and extracted from the ores. They controlled part of the Vallée of the Rhone (Viennese) and were with the outlet of all the ways which crossed the the Alps, of which international ways, on which they practiced toll.

About the year -150 or -130, the Greek historian Polybe evokes the first Allobroges, at the time of the account of the passage of the the Alps by the army of the general Hannibal in -218, when they in vain tried to bar the passage to him.

Tite-Live reports that the dwellings, in the mountains, formless, were placed on the rocks, that the mules and the cattle were engourdis by the cold and that the men were hairy and without care. It makes, can be there, reference to the high valley of Maurienne or Tarentaise.

Pline and Strabon evokes the Marmotte S, Lièvre S, Chevreuil S, stag S, Chamois, Bouquetin S and horses wild. Pline also reports that the three month old corn is known in all Alps, and that the cheese “vatusic” of the Ceutrons is famous with Rome, that the Vache S, in spite of their small size, give much milk and that the Bœuf S are harnessed by the head and not by the neck. (Aime Bocquet, Savoy of the origins at the year millet ).

The Roman conquest

Allobroges were a long time rebels with the Roman authority and the conquest of the territory of Allobroges by the Romans was made in several stages between -122 and -60 before J. - C.:

  • At second century BC, the Romans having conquered part of Gaulle, in the north of Marseilles, started to go up along the valley of the Rhone, to extend their conquest to it. Feeling Allobroges threatened were combined with the Arvernes (Gallic of Auvergne) and with other Gallic tribes to stop the Romans. But the Gallic troops were beaten with Vindalium , close to the Durance, where the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus frightened them with a troop of elephants charged armed men and in rout in the year -122 put them before J. - C.)

  • In -121, Allobroges rose again masses some and delivered to the confluence the Rhone and Isere, a hard battle against the Consul Fabius Maximus, which will take the nickname of “Allobrogique”: nearly one hundred twenty thousand combatants (?) Allobroges remained on the ground. This victory opened to the Romans the conquest country of Allobroges, and its incorporation with the Roman province of the Narbonnaise.

  • But the Romans crush the country of heavy taxes. In -69, a delegation of Allobroges goes to Rome to complain about the Fonteius governor, defended by Cicéron. In -63, a delegation again will complain in Rome. It misses being implied in the Conjuration of Catilina, but denounces entreated with the Roman Sénat.

  • In -62, Allobroges revolt in the tectonic foreland Viennese and with at their head the chief Catugnatos (of the Gallic catu , combat) take again the weapons. He carried out his troops against Narbo and Massalia (Narbonne and Marseilles) with an aim of plundering them. Being opposed to the legions Manlius Lentinus, it tightened a trap to them on Isere and crushed them, but it was in its turn beaten in -60 in a place named " Solo" near to Ventia . These places would probably have to be interpreted as being the oppidum of Malpas with (07) are located opposite Valence (Ventia/Valentia).

Allobrogie was thus conquered a long time before remainder of Gaulle which became Roman only in -50 before J. - C. Become Viennese at the time Roman, Allobroges equipped with capital, Vienna, which was one of the most sumptuous cities of the Roman Occident, whose territory was enamelled great rural fields where could thrive of the agglomerations commercial and industrial like Boutae (Annecy), Aoste or Genua (Geneva).

Under the influence of Roman civilization, the Celtic language disappeared little by little and was replaced by popular Latin whom spoke the Roman merchants and soldiers. It is from there that came the Savoyard patois as the of Provence one to which it is attached linguistically.

However, the people independent of the mountains, remained a long time permanent rebels with the Roman authority, Atrox coelum, perinde ingenium , their character is as terrible as their climate. When in -58 the general Romain Jules César passed the Alps by the collar of the Small Saint-Bernard to go to drive back in their mountains Helvètes, populates Celtic then living part of the current French-speaking Switzerland, which threatened the Roman Gaulle of an invasion, Allobroges let to him cross their country, but they helped the people of the Helvètes and supplied them when Jules César starved them to conquer them. They were conquered only by one difficult countryside of Auguste (16 with 12 av. J. - C.) who registered the names of these alpine people on the Trophy of Turbie and the arc of Suse.

Allobrogie Roman

Gaulle after the conquest of Jules César took the name de Gaulle transalpine and Allobrogie became part of the Roman province of Vienna. Rich person Roman patricians families were established in this new Roman territory and the country covered villas tiled, Roman camps, temples with the marble columns, paved roads furrowed by the tanks, of bridges of stone, monuments. New cities took their rise like Boutae (Annecy), and Aquae grationae (Aix-the-Baths) or Romilia (Rumilly).

Towards the end of the Roman empire, at the 4th century, the old country of Allobroges, started to be called Sapaudia (country of the fir trees), from where the names derived from Sabaudia , then Savogia , Savoye , then finally Savoy .

At the 5th century, the province of Vienna and sudden Sapaudia, as the remainder of Gaulle, the pressure then the invasion of the large Cruel tribes, while starting with the Burgondes.

Culture of Allobroges

The redécouverte of the culture of Allobroges goes up in 1818 at the time of the first excavation of a tomb Gallic found in Savoy.

Even after the Roman conquest, Allobroges continued to cultivate their characteristics - lifestyles adapted to the mountain, beliefs, religious cérémonials, hierarchical social organization, craft industry - while adapting to the habits of the Roman conquerors, showing a marked intelligence and artistic talents, which one finds in the various objects discovered: statues and statuettes, models, tools and jewels.

Among the remarkable parts and constructions:

  • of the statuettes of the " type; étrusques" (second age of iron) found with Menthon-Saint-Bernard;
  • a statue out of wooden of a warrior " héroïsé" (100-50 av. J. - C.) found on the edges of the Lake Léman;
  • of the jewels (bracelets, Fibule S and collars) found in a tomb with Corsier (Swiss);
  • a ceramics vase in form of rabbit (Ier century) found in a tomb with Voiron;
  • the aqueduct of Albens (Ier century);
  • thermal baths of Boutae (Annecy) (Ier century) and its warehouses including one of 2.000 m ²;
  • the sanctuary of Châteauneuf-the-Drinks (Ier century).
  • In 2005, during the preliminary works to the building site of the future highway A 41, was discovered with the foot of the Sion Mount a Gallo-Roman site composed of ten temples and a crowned enclosure.

See too

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