Cimbrian War (113-101 BC): Germanic Migrants Threaten Rome

The Cimbrian War (113–101 BC) was a series of campaigns between the Roman Republic and migrating peoples from northern Europe, chiefly the Cimbri and the Teutones. For more than a decade these wandering tribes defeated one Roman army after another, culminating in the catastrophe at Arausio in 105 BC, until Gaius Marius destroyed them at Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae. The war spread terror in Italy, reshaped the Roman army and launched the career that made Marius the dominant figure of his age.

Background: peoples on the move

The Cimbri most likely came from the Jutland peninsula in what is now Denmark, where the name survives in the region of Himmerland. The Teutones probably lived nearby. Around 120 BC, perhaps a little earlier, large groups left their homes and moved south with wagons, women, children and cattle. Ancient writers later blamed a flood on the North Sea coast, but the real reasons, whether hunger, overpopulation or pressure from neighbours, remain unknown.

These were not raiding bands but whole peoples looking for land. Ancient figures of hundreds of thousands are surely inflated, yet the migrants were numerous enough to field armies of tens of thousands. Along the way they were joined by other groups, including the Ambrones and the Tigurini, a section of the Celtic Helvetii.

Rome in this period was also fighting the Jugurthine War in North Africa, and its politics were bitterly divided after the murders of the Gracchi brothers. Many Romans blamed aristocratic commanders for incompetence and corruption, a feeling the Cimbrian disasters would sharpen.

The early Roman defeats

In 113 BC the Cimbri reached Noricum, in modern Austria, whose people were friends of Rome. The consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo tried to trap them near Noreia, but was badly defeated and only a storm saved his army from destruction. Curiously, the Cimbri did not march on Italy. Instead they turned west into Gaul.

In 109 BC they defeated the consul Marcus Junius Silanus in southern Gaul after he refused their request for land. In 107 BC the Tigurini killed the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus and routed his army in the region of the Garonne, forcing the survivors to pass under a yoke of spears in humiliation.

In 106 BC the consul Quintus Servilius Caepio captured the town of Tolosa (Toulouse), which had joined the rebels, and seized a vast treasure stored in its temples. The “gold of Tolosa” disappeared on its way to Rome. Caepio was suspected of stealing it, and the phrase became a Roman byword for ill-gotten wealth that brings bad luck.

Disaster at Arausio

In 105 BC the Cimbri and Teutones approached the Rhône. Two Roman armies stood against them: one under Caepio, now proconsul, and one under the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, a “new man” without noble ancestors. Caepio despised his colleague and refused to cooperate, camping separately.

On 6 October 105 BC, at the Battle of Arausio near modern Orange, the migrants destroyed the two armies one after the other. The summary of Livy claims 80,000 soldiers and 40,000 servants and camp followers died. These numbers are probably exaggerated, but historians agree it was one of the worst defeats in Roman history, comparable to Cannae.

Panic swept Italy. The phrase terror Cimbricus, the Cimbrian terror, was remembered for generations. Yet once again the Cimbri did not invade. They moved into Spain, where the Celtiberians drove them back, while the Teutones wandered in Gaul.

Marius takes command

The Romans turned to Gaius Marius, the victor over Jugurtha. Breaking with custom, which normally required ten years between consulships, they elected him consul for 104 BC and then every year until 100 BC, five times in a row.

Marius used the breathing space to train his troops hard in southern Gaul. He had already enrolled men without property as volunteers in 107 BC, and his reorganisation, later grouped as the Marian Reforms, gave Rome a tougher, more uniform army. His soldiers carried their own equipment and were mockingly called “Marius’s mules”. They also dug a canal at the mouth of the Rhône to ease supplies.

Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae

In 102 BC the migrants split to invade Italy by two routes. The Teutones and Ambrones, led by King Teutobod, marched along the coast towards the western Alpine passes. Marius refused battle at first, letting his men grow used to the sight of the enemy, then followed them to Aquae Sextiae (Aix-en-Provence).

There, in two days of fighting, the Romans first defeated the Ambrones at a river and then the main Teutonic force, using a hidden detachment to strike them from behind. Ancient sources give 100,000 to 200,000 killed and captured, figures that are likely too high. Teutobod was taken prisoner.

Meanwhile the Cimbri crossed the Alps further east, probably by the Brenner Pass. The consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus could not hold the Adige valley, and his army fell back south of the Po, leaving northern Italy exposed over the winter.

In 101 BC Marius joined Catulus. On 30 July they fought the Cimbri on the Raudine Plain near Vercellae. The Battle of Vercellae was a complete Roman victory: King Boiorix was killed and the survivors were killed or enslaved. Plutarch describes Cimbrian women killing their own children and themselves rather than be captured.

Key people

• Gaius Marius (c. 157–86 BC): a “new man” from Arpinum who became consul seven times, hailed as the third founder of Rome after his victories.
• Quintus Servilius Caepio: the aristocratic commander blamed for Arausio and the lost gold of Tolosa; he was later condemned and went into exile.
• Quintus Lutatius Catulus: Marius’s colleague at Vercellae, who later quarrelled with him over credit for the victory.
• Boiorix and Teutobod: kings of the Cimbri and Teutones, known only from Roman and Greek accounts.
• Lucius Cornelius Sulla: then a junior officer serving under Marius and later Catulus, who would become Marius’s bitter enemy.

Consequences

The war left Marius at the height of his power, but his repeated consulships set a precedent for dominant individuals that would later be exploited by Sulla, Pompey and Caesar. The army that defeated the Cimbri increasingly recruited poor volunteers who looked to their generals, rather than the state, for rewards and land.

The slaughter at Arausio and the scandals that followed deepened the hostility between the Senate’s leaders and the popular politicians. Prosecutions of failed commanders became a weapon in Roman politics. Julius Caesar, whose aunt Julia was Marius’s wife, would later draw on memories of the Cimbrian threat when justifying his own wars in Gaul.

Timeline

• c. 120 BC: The Cimbri, later joined by the Teutones, begin migrating south from northern Europe.
• 113 BC: Gnaeus Papirius Carbo is defeated near Noreia in Noricum.
• 109 BC: Marcus Junius Silanus is defeated in southern Gaul.
• 107 BC: The Tigurini kill the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus in Gaul.
• 106 BC: Caepio captures Tolosa; its temple treasure vanishes.
• 105 BC, 6 October: Roman armies are destroyed at Arausio.
• 104–100 BC: Marius holds five consecutive consulships and retrains the army.
• 102 BC: Marius destroys the Teutones and Ambrones at Aquae Sextiae.
• 101 BC, 30 July: Marius and Catulus annihilate the Cimbri at Vercellae.

Why it matters

The Cimbrian War was the first time peoples from beyond the Rhine and Alps seriously threatened Italy, foreshadowing the later frontier struggles of the Roman Empire. It exposed the weakness of Rome’s citizen militia and its quarrelling aristocratic generals, and it raised Gaius Marius to a level of power that helped set the Republic on the path to civil war.