| Battle: Noreia | Cimbri+Teutones/Papirius (6) | 113 |
| Battle: Narbonensis | Cimbri/Junius (8) | 109 |
| Battle: Burdigala | Tigurini/Cassius (3)+Calpurnius (7) | 107 |
| Battle: Arausio (1st) | Cimbri/Aurelius (3) | 105 |
| Battle: Arausio (2nd) | Cimbri+Teutones+Ambrones/Servilius (8) | 105 |
| Battle: Arausio (3rd) | Cimbri+Teutones+Ambrones/Mallius | 105 |
| Battle: Isere River | Teutones+Ambrones=Marius (1) | 102 |
| Battle: Aquae Sextiae | Marius (1)/Teutones+Ambrones | 102 |
| Battle: Vercellae | Marius (1)/Cimbri | 101 |
During the late second century BC a rise in the ocean level inundated large tracts of the Danish coast, forcing a number of tribes to seek homelands elsewhere. Two Germanic tribes, the Cimbri and Teutones, migrated southwards along the Elbe, then eastwards along the Danube. In Bohemia they encountered the Boii, whose resistance persuaded the Cimbri and Teutones to move south into the Balkans. Here they clashed with the Scordisci and were deflected westwards towards Italy to threaten the Celtic kingdom of Noricum which was a centre for trade with the Romans and served as a buffer state between Italy and central Europe.
In 113 BC the consul 06Papirius Carbo occupied the Alpine passes and dispatched legates to inform the Germans of the friendship that existed between Noricum and Rome. As the tribes prepared to withdraw, Carbo attacked them not far from the Noricum capital of Noreia but his army was defeated. After their victory the Cimbri and Teutones did not press on towards Italy but marched into southern Gaul.
In 109 BC the Cimbri moved into the Narbonensis, not far from the Rhone. They are said to have asked for a place to settle in Roman territory in Gaul, but were refused this concession by the Senate. The consul 08Junius Silanus was sent to deal with them but again a Roman army was defeated.
The Tigurini were a tribe of the Helvetii (a Gallic tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau) and situated on the right (east) bank of the Rhine. After Silanus’ defeat, the Tigurini crossed the Rhine into Gaul. Led by their chief Divico, they raided Roman territories along the Rhone and in 107 BC joined with Volcae Tectosagii of Tolosa (=Toulouse) in southwest Gaul, who had revolted and were besieging the garrison. The consul 03Cassius Longinus marched to Tolosa and pursued the Tigurini along the Garonne Valley, but he was ambushed approaching Burdigala (=Bordeaux) and killed together with his legate 07Calpurnius Piso (cos.112 BC) and most of his army. The survivors and his other legate 05Popillius Laenas were allowed to retreat to Narbo.
In 106 BC the consul 08Servilius Caepio managed to persuade Divico to make a peaceful withdrawal. Caepio recovered Tolosa and looted the temple of fantastic amounts of gold and silver (rumoured at 100,000 lb of gold and 110,000 lb of silver) which disappeared on its way to Massilia; Caepio was suspected of having appropriated it.
By October 105 BC there were three Roman armies gathered on the banks of the Rhone, near Arausio (=Orange): Caepio, now proconsul, on the east (left) bank; the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus the west; and stationed ahead of Maximus was his legate 03Aurelius Scaurus (cos.108 BC). The first engagement took place when cavalry led by Scaurus met with an advance party of Cimbri. His force was overwhelmed and he was captured. Boiorix, the leader of Cimbri, had him killed.
Back at the main Roman position, Maximus ordered Caepio to join him on the west side of the river. The aristocratic Caepio resented taking orders from the humbly born Maximus, who was the first member of his family (i.e. a novus homo or ‘new man’) to become a consul. The combined armies would have greatly outnumbered the enemy, but when he crossed the river Caepio set a separate camp closer to the barbarians (for the Romans this referred to any hostile people, especially the German tribes) and refused to obey any more orders.
On 6 October he attacked the army of the Cimbri, Teutones, and Germanic Ambrones from southern Scandinavia. Ready with an attack of their own the barbarians, with the Ambrones under their chief Teutobod in the lead, smashed through the Roman lines. Caepio escaped but his army was destroyed.
The barbarians then attacked and overwhelmed the force commanded by Maximus; his two sons were among those who were killed in the slaughter that followed but he escaped by crossing to the opposite bank in a boat. Some estimates give the total number of Roman soldiers killed at Arausio at more than eighty thousand. Once again the barbarians did not descend into Italy: the Teutones and the Ambrones continued to ransack Gaul, while the Cimbri moved towards Spain.
After the Jugurthine War there was a major change, accredited to Marius, to the armies of Rome. From the time of the army reforms after the disaster at Caudine Forks three centuries earlier, the legions had fought in maniples of 60-120 men drawn up in three differently equipped lines. Now, the size of the maniple was increased and grouped into threes of 600-men cohorts; the three differently equipped lines were done away with and every soldier was armed with a pilum and a gladius (a short sword); and the Roman light infantry and Roman cavalry was disbanded. Thus, Marius’ new 6000-men legions were not only larger than the 4500-men legions of Camillus’ day but consisted entirely of heavy infantry.
As there were increasingly fewer peasant farmers willing to leave their farms to fight in extended campaigns, Marius started to recruit his army from landless volunteers (capite censi). The Senate refused to take responsibility for army recruits with no land to return to, so the soldiers looked to Marius for rewards at the end of a campaign, tying them to their general and not the Senate. This and the fact that henceforth the Roman army would rely on foreign auxiliaries for its light infantry and cavalry, created problems in the future.
For the war against the Cimbri, Marius used fresh troops raised and trained by 01Rutilius Rufus (cos.105 BC), who had a reputation as a military theorist. Marius was concerned that the baggage train that accompanied Roman armies on the move had grown too large and was now inconvenient. He therefore devised a cross-shaped pole (furca) for each soldier to carry his own food and equipment; his men consequently became known as muli Mariani (‘Marius’ mules’).
In 103 BC the news came that the barbarians were planning a three-pronged attack on Italy: the Teutones and Ambrones, led by Teutobod, were to march down the eastern side of the Rhodanus (=Rhone) then eastwards along the coast and enter Italy through the western Alps; the Cimbri, led by Boiorix, were to invade central northern Italy via the Brenner Pass; and the Tigurini were to cross the eastern Alps into Venetia.
In 102 BC Teutobod crossed the upper Rhone and marched southwards until he found Marius waiting for him south (left bank) of the estuary of the Isere River. Marius did not oppose the barbarian crossing the river and remained within the safety of his well-defended camp. The barbarians attacked as soon as they were across the river, but the Romans held the higher ground and repulsed the barbarians with missile fire. Twice more the barbarians attacked, but unable to dislodge the Romans or draw them into an open fight they called off the attack and moved off towards the coast.
Marius used his army’s superior mobility to get in front of the barbarians’ cumbersome wagon train and reached a strong position on the slopes of the Pourrieres Hills, east of the Roman military outpost at Aquae Sextiae. Here, he began to establish a camp with an inner circuit wall comprising the spoil from the outer ditches being dug around the camp. The next day Marius ordered some three thousand men under a lieutenant of his, 19Claudius Marcellus, to slip into a wooded area and wait in preparation for battle the following day.
The next day Marius led his army out onto the heights before the camp and awaited the enemy onslaught. The barbarians attacked uphill and the Romans followed their normal practice of disordering the enemy with pila, barging them with scuta (shields) and closing with gladii. The barbarians were driven back down the slope where, while they were fully engaged, they were struck from behind by Marcellus’ force emerging from the woods. The enemy, caught between two forces, dissolved and were utterly defeated. About one hundred thousand of them were killed or captured. The Teutones and the Ambrones were finished as a threat to Rome.
In spring 102 BC the Cimbri, estimated at around three to five hundred thousand, had descended into Italy via the Brenner Pass and the Adige Valley. In front of them the Romans were commanded by the consul 02Lutatius Catulus (62: fl.102-87 BC), who was accompanied by Marius’ former quaestor Lucius 31Cornelius Sulla (cos.88 BC) as second-in-command. Catulus, fearing that he would be outflanked in unfamiliar territory, had withdrawn from the mountain passes and taken position just below Tridentum (=Trento) on the west (right) bank of the Adige. When the barbarians appeared, Catulus was forced to retreat and take up a defensive position south of the Po River.
The Cimbri spent the winter of 102/1 BC camped near Venetia, enjoying its produce and climate. Marius returned to Rome to announce his victory then moved immediately north of the Apennines to join forces with Catulus. Plutarch mentions that in the coming battle the Roman javelin which had its head fastened to the staff by two nails, was replaced by one that had one iron nail and one wooden plug. This meant that on impact the javelin head snapped away from the shaft making it unusable for further use as a javelin by the enemy.
It was the Cimbri who were the first to attack, but they little headway against the fortified camp of the Romans. It is said that Boiorix then challenged Marius to decide on a day on which they might settle their claim for Italy, clearly a challenge to single combat between the leaders or their champions. Marius declined this invitation, but a day for the battle was chosen and at a place named as the ‘Plain of Raudine’, a site identified by some as being not far from Verona. However, the battle itself later became known as that at Vercellae (=Vercelli), further west and higher up the Po Valley.
The following day Marius decided to take the offensive. He put himself on the right wing and placed legions in the centre under Catulus with instructions to fall back if the need arose; it is not known who commanded the left wing.
The Cimbri advanced with fifteen thousand armoured cavalry in the centre leading a massive square of infantry. Probably gaining from various previous encounters, they moved obliquely to the right with the intention of drawing the opposing left wing away from centre to open a gap through which the Cimbri could pour to attack the opposing centre from the side and rear. The Cimbri cavalry threw up a dust cloud that brought a premature end to this phase. Marius, leading the right wing, missed the enemy in a dust storm and most of the fighting occurred in the centre. The Cimbri were forced back with huge losses and the Roman centre pursued them back into their encampment where a massacre ensued of the men, women and children. Plutarch says that sixty thousand prisoners were taken and double those numbers were killed. On learning of this latest disaster the Tigurini turned for home.
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