Geneva
Geneva Caesar (Caes. Gal. 1.6) describes Geneva as the furthest town of the Allobroges, and nearest to the borders of the Helvetii. The Rhodanus was the boundary between the Allobroges and the Helvetii; and a bridge over the Rhone at Geneva connected the two territories.
Since the time of Aldus the editors have kept the reading Geneva
in Caesar's text; but there is hardly any good MSS. authority for it. The best MSS. have Genua,
which reading Schneider has in his edition of the Gallic War. The authority for Geneva is an inscription of doubtful age, which has GENEVENS. PROVINCIA: but two other inscriptions have GENAVENSIBVS. The Greek version of Caesar has Γενοΐα and Γενουΐα. (Schneid. ed. Caesar.) In the Antonine Itin. the form Cenava occurs, and Cennava or Gennava in the Table. Neither Strabo nor Ptolemy mentions Geneva. The French form of the name is Genève, and the German is Genf. After Caesar's time we hear no more of Geneva for about 400 years. There is no authority for naming it Colonia Allobrogum.
The operations of Caesar in the neighbourhood of Geneva are described under the article HELVETI.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.