The Tigurini were a pagus of the Helvetii.«Die Helvetier zwingen die Römer unter dem Joch hindurch» ("The Helvetians force the Romans to pass under the yoke"). Romantic painting by Charles Gleyre (19th century) celebrating the Tigurini victory over the Romans at Agen (107 BCE) under Divico's command.
The Tigurini were a clan or tribe forming one out of four pagi (provinces) of the Helvetii.[1][2]
The Tigurini were the most important group of the Helvetii, mentioned by both Julius Caesar and Poseidonius, settling in the area of what is now the Swisscanton of Vaud, corresponding to the bearers of the late La Tène culture in western Switzerland.
Their name has a meaning of "lords, rulers" (cognate with Irish tigern "lord"). The other Helvetian tribes included the Verbigeni and the Tougeni (sometimes identified with the Teutones), besides one tribe that has remained unnamed.
The name of the Tigurini is first recorded in the context of their alliance with the Cimbri in the Cimbrian War of 113–101 BCE. They crossed the Rhine to invade Gaul in 109 BCE,[3] moved south to the Roman region of Provence in 107 BCE and defeated a Roman army under Lucius Cassius Longinus near Agen.[4][5]
The Tigurini followed the Cimbri in their campaign across the Alps, but they did not enter Italy, instead remaining at the Brenner Pass. After the end of the war, they returned to their earlier homes, settling in the western Swiss plateau and the Jura mountains north of Lake Leman.[6]
The names of the Tigurini and the Helvetii had retained a connotation of a "barbarian" threat from the north for the Romans, employed by Julius Caesar as a motivation for his expedition to Gaul by suggesting that these tribes were "on the move again". In 58 BCE the Helvetii encountered the armies of Caesar, and were defeated and massacred in the battles of the Arar and the Bibracte, allegedly leaving 228,000 dead.[7] These battles were the initial events in the Gallic Wars, fought between 58 and 49 BCE.
After the Roman conquest, the Helvetii participated in the uprising of Vercingetorix in 52 BC, losing their status as foederati. As a means of asserting control over the military access routes to Gaul, the Romans established the Colonia Iulia Equestris at the site of the Helvetian settlement of Noviodunum (Nyon). There was still a fortified oppidum in Bois de Châtel in the later 1st century BC, but it was destroyed in the early 1st century AD, its population presumably moving to the newly established Helvetian capital of Aventicum.
The Helvetii seem to have retained their division into four pagi, and a certain autonomy, until the 60s AD. They supported Galba in the civil war following the death of Nero in AD 68. Their forces were routed at Bözberg Pass (Mount Vocetius) in AD 69. After this, the population was quickly romanized, losing its former tribal identity.
Tigurum instead of Turicum: Zürich's Neo-Latin name had been made up by scholars. It was used between c. 1500 and 1800. (½ thaler, 1721)
In the early 16th century, humanist scholars associated the name of the Tigurini with the city of Zürich (called Turicum in Roman times). Therefore, the city was referred to as TiguruminNeo-Latin texts (eg the legends on coins minted in the city[8]), and the adjective Tigurinus became common.[9]Huldrych Zwingli always used the name Tigurum for the city in his writings, and either the adjective TigurinusorTigurensis.[10] The territory belonging to Zürich was called pagus Tigurinus.[11]
After the discovery of a Roman tombstone on Lindenhof hill in 1747, which proved that the original Roman name was Turicum and the adjective Turicensis, Tigurum and Tigurinus were used less frequently and finally discarded towards the end of the 18th century.[12]
Moneta reipublicae Tigurinae: "coin of the Republic of Zürich"
Tiguri: "Printed in Zürich" (work by Justus Jonas, 1523)
^One of the earliest examples is MONETA NOVA REIPVBLICAE TIGVRINAE on a 2-thaler coin from 1651. In the 16th century, the original Latin adjective T(h)uricensis had been used, eg MON(eta) NO(va) TVRICENSIS CIVIT(atis) IMPER(ialis) on a thaler coin from 1560.
^Search for "Tiguri" (as place of printing, "in Zürich") and "Tigurinus"ine-rara.ch. The earliest examples found date from 1523 and 1518 respectively.
^Vögelin, Friedrich Salomon (1890). Zürich in römischer Zeit. p. 92 (online).
^For example on a map printed in Paris in 1660: Tigurini sive ("or") Tigurinus Pagus in Helvetiis – le Zurichgow en Suisse… (see picture in Wikimedia Commons). The caption of an etching of the city dating from 1581 reads: TIGVRUM, sive Turegum, Caesari, ut plerique existimant, Tigurinus pagus, vulgo Zürÿch; urbs in Helvetijs ut vetustissima, ita maxima, et omnium celeberrima.『TIGVRUM, or Turegum, called by Caesar, as most people believe, Tigurinus pagus, commonly Zürÿch; the oldest as well as largest city in Switzerland, and the most famous of all.』(See picture.)
