Allobroges

The Allobroges held the country between the Rhone and the Alps around Vienna, now Vienne, and were the first Gaulish people north of the Mediterranean coast to be conquered by Rome - in 121 BC, sixty years before Caesar, as part of the campaign that created the province of Gallia Narbonensis. They had backed the Arverni, and their defeat ended Arvernian hegemony and gave Rome its land bridge to Spain. Being conquered early gave them a particular place in Roman history: they were provincials, subject to Roman governors and Roman tax farmers, at a period when the rest of Gaul was independent. The experience was not happy. In 63 BC an Allobrogian delegation was in Rome complaining about debt and official extortion when the Catilinarian conspirators approached them for support, offering an alliance against the Republic. The envoys considered it and then informed Cicero, who used their written evidence to arrest the conspirators - the documentary proof that made the case. Their reward was inadequate, and they revolted in 61 BC and were put down. They stayed loyal through Caesar's wars, supplying cavalry, and were among the first Gauls to receive Latin rights and then citizenship. Vienne became one of the wealthiest cities of southern Gaul, and an Allobrogian senator was among those Claudius cited when arguing for admitting Gauls to the Senate. The Allobroges are therefore both the earliest Gaulish subjects of Rome and among the earliest Gaulish Romans, which is the same process seen from two ends. Their territory covered what is now Savoy and the Dauphine. Vienne's Roman theatre and temple still stand, and the city was a metropolitan see by the fourth century.

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