German Memories - Victory of Roman Forces Over Germanic Teutons & Cimbri

In 103 BC, the Cimbri and their Proto-Germanic allies, the Teutons, had turned towards Spain where they pillaged far and wide. During this time Roman general Gaius Marius had the time to prepare and in 102 BC, he was ready to meet the Teutons and the Ambrones at the Rhone River. These two tribes intended to go into Italy through the western passes, while the Cimbri and the Tigurines were to take the northern route across the Rhine and later across the Tyrolian Alps.

At the estuary of the Isere River, the Teutons and the Ambrones met Marius, whose well-defended camp they did not manage to overrun. Instead, they pursued their route, and Marius followed them. Marius took up a strong position on a carefully selected hill and enticed the Teutones to attack him there using his cavalry and light infantry skirmishers by using the allied Ligurians. The leading Teutone elements, the Ambrones, took the bait and attacked. They were soon foolishly followed by the rest of the horde.

Meanwhile, Marius had hidden a small Roman force of 3,000 nearby. At the battle's height this force launched an ambush, attacking the Teutones from behind, and throwing them into total confusion. In the ensuing massacre 90,000 Teutones were slain including their King Teutobod, captured.

The captured women committed mass suicide, which passed into Roman legends of Germanic heroism: By the conditions of the surrender three hundred of their married women were to be handed over to the Romans. When the Teuton matrons heard of this stipulation they first begged the consul that they might be set apart to minister in the temples of Ceres and Venus; and then when they failed to obtain their request and were removed by the lictors, they slew their little children and next morning all were found dead in each other's arms having strangled themselves in the night.

The Cimbri, however, had penetrated through the Alps into the areas of today's northern Italy. However, the consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus had not dared to fortify the passes, but instead he had retreated behind the Po River, and so the land was open to the invaders. However, the Cimbri did not hurry, and the victors of Aquae Sextiae had the time to arrive with reinforcements.

The Cimbri desired battle, and according to their custom sent to the Romans to settle the time and place for it; Marius gratified them and named the next day - it was the 30th July 653 (101 BC) - and the Raudine plain, a wide level space, which the superior Roman cavalry found advantageous for their movements.

Here they fell upon the enemy expecting them and yet taken by surprise; for in the dense morning mist the Cimbrian cavalry found itself in hand-to-hand conflict with the stronger cavalry of the Romans before it anticipated attack, and was thereby thrown back upon the infantry which was just making its dispositions for battle. A complete victory was gained with slight loss, and the Cimbri were annihilated. The Cimbri were virtually wiped out, with over 140,000 killed and 60,000 captured, including large numbers of women and children in the fateful battle of Vercellae in the Raudine Plain near the settlement of Vercellae (modern Vercelli) around 101 BC.

Thereafter the human avalanche had alarmed for several decades the nations from the Danube to the Ebro, from the Seine to the Po, rested beneath the sod or toiled under the yoke of slavery; the forlorn hope of the German migrations had performed its duty; the homeless people of the Cimbri and their comrades were no more.