Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• A scholar reinterpreting historical and archaeological evidence in present-day Switzerland believes the Helvetians retained autonomy despite being part of the Roman empire.
• While the Helvetian army adopted Roman styles of equipment and dress over time, they still made their own decisions.
• The Helvetian independence included paying their own military force.

The Roman Empire may not have gobbled up every community in its path. A Columbia University historian argues that the Helvetians in eastern Gaul were not just passive subjects getting folded into the imperial system. Even deep into the first century C.E., they appear to have remained a functioning political community with real autonomy, their own military traditions, and enough administrative muscle to raise, equip, and pay armed men on their own from within the Roman empire.

In a new study published in the Journal of Roman Studies, the historian John Ma reinterprets existing archaeological and written historical evidence to claim that the Helvetians retained military, cultural, and administrative oversight on the Swiss Plateau even while they were part of the Roman Empire. The example offers a case study showing that imperial rule wasn’t always a one-way deal, and countless other communities may mirror the model.

Ma wrote that the “capacity of Gallic civitates in the first century C.E. to operate as state-like entities shaped the practice and the experience of [the] empire.” In Gaul, these administrative districts of the Roman empire were often based on the territory of a pre-existing Celtic tribe, and they took an active role in paying their own army, dressing their own military, and guarding their own forts.

A key turning point in this understanding comes from an account of a battle between the Helvetians and Romans in 69 C.E. written by the Roman historian Tacitus. Combined with excavated finds—a 1948 dig uncovered a grave full of weapons, military equipment, and coins likely used to pay fighters—Ma said the site in modern-day Switzerland wasn’t a distant Roman outpost full of auxiliary soldiers, but a truly autonomous political community—a civitas—that governed itself during the first century C.E.

Tacitus’s text chronicles how the Helvetian military guarded a fort with soldiers in their employ while the Roman troops attempted to seize money intended for the Helvetian-paid garrison. This portrayal implied that Helvetians held local control of administrative affairs. Ma wrote that the resulting picture of the Helvetian civitas as a “political community endowed with autonomy and state-like capacities within the Roman empire” marks it as more than an auxiliary service.

Monetary evidence in the excavations supports the theory, as the localized coins were likely for paying soldiers, mercenaries, or even for tribute. No matter the recipient, the payment system was part of a localized effort.

Past excavations in the area were commonly interpreted as Roman in style, leading experts to mark them as Roman in function. Ma argued that just because over time the Helvetians adopted Roman design in military dress and equipment doesn’t mean they fully knelt to the whims of the Romans. Instead, he believes the artifacts and historic accounts point to a different outcome in which the Helvetians retained autonomy while working inside the Roman Empire.

The Helvetians may not quite have been able to completely ward off Roman culture. Military style evolved, and fighters started adopting Roman-style equipment and appearance, taking on the Roman military look in everything from swords to belts. But that doesn’t mean they had become Romans themselves in any simple sense. It may instead show a local society updating its tools while trying to preserve its own institutions. In other words, the Helvetians became more Roman-looking even as they held onto a distinct political identity. While the Romans projected their influence, the final choices—at least for the Helvetians—were left to the locals.