The Crisis of Rome

by Gareth Sampson

  [Marius] exhorted the soldiers to stand their ground and when the enemy had gotten within reach to hurl their javelins, then take to their swords and crowded the barbarians back with their shield; since the enemy were on precarious ground, their blows would have no force and the locking of their shield no strength, but the unevenness of the ground would prevent them from standing firm in a line.380

  Thus, the tribesmen rushing up the hill were met with a hail of pila and slowly forced back down the hill into the plain, with heavy casualties. As they were forced down, Marcellus sprung the ambush and attacked the tribesmen from the rear, thus trapping them between the two Romans forces and throwing the whole opposing force into chaos.

  Those in the rear forced along those who were in front of them, and quickly plunged the whole army into confusion, and under this double attack they could not hold out long, but broke ranks and fled. The Romans pursued them and either slew or took alive over 100,000 of them.381

  Orosius quotes higher figures for the enemy losses:

  Two hundred thousand of the Gallic soldiers, according to reports, were slain in the battle, 8,000 were captured and barely 3,000 fled. Their general [chieftain] Teutobodus was killed.382

  Whether it was 100,000 or 200,000, the tribal casualties were massive and must have included a large number of civilians, caught up in the fighting or the flight. In one battle the Teutones and Ambrones who had left their homeland had been wiped out. By any measure it was a massive victory for the Roman Republic and for Marius.

  The extent of the tribal casualties can be seen by a story reported by Plutarch:

  it is said that the people of Massilia fenced their vineyards round with the bones of the fallen, and that the soil, after the bodies had wasted away in it and the rains had fallen all winter upon them, grew so rich and became so full to its depths of the putrefied matter that sank into it, that it produced an exceedingly great harvest in the years that followed.383

  Plutarch further reports that the kings, or chieftains, of the Teutones and Ambrones survived the battle and fled, but were captured in the Alps by a Roman allied tribe, the Sequani.384 This is confirmed by Florus who interestingly names one of them as Teutobodus, despite the fact that Orosius reports him dead in battle.385 We are not told of how many casualties the Romans sustained, or even what their total force was in the battle. Following the battle, Marius set up a massive pyre of enemy weapons and possessions as an offer to the gods. Plutarch reports that just as he was about to light the pyre messengers arrived confirming his re-election as consul for 101 BC.386 Whatever the timing, the confirmation that the remaining tribes were moving towards Italy would have meant that Marius would have no longer needed subterfuge and tricks to secure a continuation of his consulships. Nevertheless, he would not have had too much time to savour the victory as the other tribal army of the Cimbri, by far the larger and most dangerous of the northern tribes, was also heading for Italy by a separate route and he would have to support his colleague Catulus in his defence of Italy.

  Summary

  After a period of over ten years of fighting in the Northern Wars, Rome had finally won a victory in the northwest. Furthermore, this was not just any victory, but had seen one of the two main tribal armies, albeit the smaller of the two, obliterated. We have to ask ourselves what was it that separated Marius from all of his predecessors, who had overseen catastrophic failures. The one factor that strikes any observer of this campaign of 102 BC is the extraordinary patience and level-headedness that Marius showed. On the three previous occasions of 113, 109 and 105, the Roman commanders had apparently attacked the enemy without putting any thought into how they were going to negate the vastly superior numbers they faced. They faced the tribesmen on open ground, with apparently nothing more than a firm belief in the superiority of the Roman legionary. Whilst this was certainly the case in a one-on-one situation, the tribes they faced had sheer weight of numbers of their side, which could translate itself into steamrollering the Romans in a face-to-face charge, or the ability to flank or surround them.

  Marius on the other hand showed incredible patience, firstly by not meeting the enemy in the Rhone valley, and then by carefully selecting a battleground that negated the enemy numbers and brought his infantry superiority into play. Whether this counts as tactical genius or simple common sense is for each individual to decide. Furthermore, as was always the case, the Romans benefited from having one sole commander, who had been with his army for a period of time, establishing discipline and a bond of trust between the two. This allowed for greater discipline when Marius’ cautious tactics seemed like an unwillingness to fight and for a greater awareness of his tactics and how the soldiers would benefit from them.

  On the Teutones/Ambrones side, they made the basic mistake of underestimating their enemy, poor intelligence (not scouting the sides of the battlefield) and the fundamental error of allowing the enemy to choose the ground that played to his strengths and weakened them. If their superiority came from their vast numbers then attacking uphill and on a narrow field played right into Marius’ hands. Had they remained in the plain or moved on and forced a battle elsewhere, then we may well have seen a different outcome.

  Furthermore, we have to question the two-pronged attack on Italy which divided the tribes’ numbers. Although this was designed to split the Roman forces, it also split their numbers and allowed Marius the opportunity to face the two main tribes separately, though we must always be watchful for the benefit of hindsight creeping in. Nevertheless, although the Teutones and Ambrones had been wiped out the Cimbri presented a different matter, being the largest of the three northern tribes and by far the most deadly.

  Chapter 10

  The Northern Wars: The Battle of Raudian Plain (Vercellae) (101 BC)

  Catulus and the Cimbric Invasion of Italy

  While the Teutones and Ambrones moved to invade Italy from the west, via the Rhone Valley, the Cimbri planned to invade Italy from the eastern Alps (via modern Austria). To meet this dual thrust, while Marius was to intercept the western attack, his consular colleague of 102 BC, Q. Lutatius Catulus, who was in command of Italy, moved to the eastern Alps to intercept the Cimbri. What little detail we have from our surviving sources is further complicated by the fact that Catulus wrote a history of the conflict, widely available at the time and to later historians (see Appendix V), which naturally inflated his own contribution, as we shall soon see.

  Aside from his literary endeavours, we know that Catulus hailed from a consular plebeian family, which we can trace back to the First Punic War.387 However, it appears that the family had fallen into the political wilderness, with no consuls recorded between 220 and 102 BC. Furthermore, Cicero informs us that he was defeated in the consular elections for three years running (106, 105 and 104) before securing election in 102, possibly (or only) with the assistance of Marius.388 We hear nothing of any prior military service or the prior offices he must have held. In short we know little of his record prior to his consulship, but we must assume that the Roman electorate had little faith in his abilities. Plutarch sums him up as ‘a worthy man, but too sluggish for arduous contests’.389

  Nevertheless, Catulus’ initial strategy appears to have been to guard the eastern Alpine passes and prevent the Cimbri from crossing into Italy. Plutarch’s Life of Sulla once again furnishes us with some details of the activities of Catulus’ forces in the region, as by 102 BC, Sulla had been transferred to Catulus’ command.390

  He [Sulla] not only subdued in war a large part of the barbarians of the Alps, but when provisions ran low, he undertook the task of furnishing them, and made them so abundant, that the soldiers of Catulus lived in plenty…391

  As always, we treat Plutarch’s Life of Sulla with caution, given that it was partly based on Sulla’s own memoirs, but it appears that Catulus’ army conducted campaigns to subdue some of the local Alpine tribes, whose loyalty to Rome was always weak at best, not withstanding numerous defeats to the Cimbri. Plutarch t
ells us that he had an army of 20,000 men (legionaries and allies combined). Yet at some point, most likely during the winter of 102/101 BC,392 Catulus withdrew from the high Alps and took up a defensive position on the River Adige.

  The latter [the Cimbri] drove back from the Alps and put to flight the proconsul Q. Catulus.393

  For Catulus, who was facing the Cimbri, gave up trying to guard the passes of the Alps, lest he should be weakened by the necessity of dividing his forces into many parts, and at once descended into the plains of Italy. Here he put the River Atiso between himself and the enemy, built strong fortifications on both banks of it to prevent their [the Cimbri] crossing, and threw a bridge across the stream, that he might be able to go on the other side in case the barbarians made their way through the passes and attack the fortresses.394

  Furthermore, Frontinus provides us with an interesting, and frustrating, fragment involving Catulus’ army:

  When Quintus Lutatius Catulus had been repulsed by the Cimbrians, and his only hope of safety lay in passing a stream the banks of which were held by the enemy, he displayed his troops on the nearest mountain, as though intending to camp there. Then he commanded his men not to loose their packs, or put down their loads, and not to quit the ranks or standards. In order the more effectively to strengthen the impression made upon the enemy, he ordered a few tents to be erected in open view, and fires to be built, while some built a rampart and others went forth in plain sight to collect wood. The Cimbrians, deeming these performances genuine, themselves also chose a place for a camp, scattering through the nearest fields to gather the supplies necessary for their stay. In this way they afforded Catulus opportunity not merely to cross the stream, but also to attack their camp.395

  Among modern historians, Lewis argued that this excerpt describes the first battle Catulus fought, as mentioned by the Periochae of Livy above, in which Catulus was repulsed from holding the Alps and forced to retreat to a defensive line on the Adige, managing a cunning counterattack on the Cimbri as he retreated.396 Plutarch’s account makes no mention of this first engagement and tries to argue that Catulus suddenly realized that there were a number of passes through the Alps and after marching his men up the hills, turned around and marched them down again.397

  Given that we know the Romans were keeping a close watch on the army of the Teutones, we must assume that the same was true for the Cimbri and that Catulus had a good idea of the route they would take. This is especially the case given that the Cimbric force was composed of women and children and would have been far slower than any Roman army. Furthermore, Plutarch’s account seems to ignore his own evidence of the activities of Sulla in the Alps earlier in the campaign.

  Thus, we can combine the various fragments to see the most logical strategy for Catulus. He initially moved into the Alpine region to meet and hopefully check the Cimbric advance through the Alps. Whilst he was waiting for the Cimbri, Catulus (via his legate Sulla) took the opportunity to ensure that the local tribes were reminded where their loyalties lay and did not aid the Cimbri. Nevertheless, when the Cimbri did arrive, it appears that the Romans were driven back and routed from whichever pass they were trying to hold (as stated by Livy, with added detail by Frontinus398, probably by sheer weight of numbers. Catulus’ ruse enabled him to regroup and gained him time to create a fresh defensive line on the River Adige, in a second attempt to halt the Cimbric advance.

  However, it is clear from our few sources that this second defensive position was no more successful than the first. According to Plutarch, rather than an outright assault on the Roman position, the Cimbri apparently used their natural surroundings to their advantage:

  After they [the Cimbri] had encamped near the river and examined the position, they began to dam it up, tearing away the neighbouring hills, like the giants of old, carrying into the river whole trees with their roots, fragments of rock and mounds of earth, and crowding the current out of its course. They also sent heavy objects whirling down the river against the piles of the bridge and made them shake with the impact, until at last the greater part of the Roman soldiers played the coward and abandoned the main camp and began to retreat.399

  At this point in Plutarch’s narrative we have an outrageous pro-Catulan interpretation of the Roman retreat:

  And now Catulus, like a consummately good commander, showed that he had less regard for his own reputation than for that of his countrymen. For finding that he could not persuade his soldiers to stand, and seeing them flee in terror, he ordered his standard to be taken up, and run to the foremost of the retiring troops, and put himself at their head, wishing that the disgrace should attach to himself and not to his country and that the soldiers, in making their retreat, should not appear to be running away, but following their general.400

  According to Plutarch, when faced with a Roman army which broke in the face of the enemy, the Cimbri were allowed free access to Italy. Fortunately for Rome, not all of Catulus’ men showed the same sentiments as their commander, and both Plutarch and the Periochae of Livy note a valiant stand made by the soldiers garrisoning the fort. Although both Plutarch and the Periochae of Livy report the incident, they differ quite markedly. First Plutarch:

  The barbarians attacked and captured the fort on the farther side of the Atiso [Adige], and they so admired the Romans there, who showed themselves the bravest of men and fought worthily of their country, that they let them go, making them take an oath upon a bronze bull. This was subsequently captured after the battle and was carried, we are told, to the house of Catulus, as the chief prize of the victory.401

  Livy, has it thus:

  This cohort [at the fort] however, extricated itself by its own unaided gallantry and overtook the fleeing proconsul and his army.402

  Not only do the two accounts clash, but the Periochae of Livy almost seems to be going out of its way to refute the story presented in Plutarch, which must have been in circulation in Livy’s day (see Appendix V). There is no way to combine the two accounts, other than to say that the garrison fought well against the Cimbri and managed to escape, whether by treaty or military prowess. There are several other short notes in the sources concerning the retreat. Whilst Pliny records a celebrated act of bravery in the part of a group of retreating soldiers, the more famous story concerned Catulus’ cavalry which retreated all the way back to Rome.403 The group were led by the son of M. Aemilius Scaurus, who refused to acknowledge his son for his cowardice, with the young man committing suicide in shame.

  With Cisalpine Gaul lost to the Cimbri, Catulus retreated to yet another defensive position (his third), this time south of the River Po. Nevertheless, no matter how much Plutarch, or his source, may want to dress these events up with noble sacrifices and tales of heroism, once again a Roman army had been routed by the Cimbri. Catulus had failed to stop them on two occasions and took flight with his army, leaving the region (modern Venetia) to be sacked by the Cimbri. The stark facts are that despite everything a ‘barbarian’ army had successfully invaded Italy for the first time in a century. A century earlier it had been Hannibal, whose victories on Italian soil had been forever etched into the Roman consciousness. Before that it had been the Gauls, who had sacked Rome; now came the Cimbri.

  Marius and the Cimbric Invasion of Italy.

  During the winter of 102/101 BC, whilst Catulus was engaging the Cimbri and failing to hold them, it appears that Marius made his way back to Rome without his army. According to Plutarch, he was only summoned to Rome when news of Catulus’ reverses was received, but it was likely that he had made his way there following his victory at Aquae Sextiae. Plutarch further informs us that he did not celebrate his triumph for the victory as expected, which given the uncertain outcome of Catulus’ engagements was understandable.404 He entered into his fifth consulship (for 101 BC) and had with him a trusted old lieutenant, M. Aquilius, as fellow consul.

  That he left his army is interesting; it is possible that he returned to Rome to await the result of Catulus’ enga
gement. If Catulus did manage to keep the Cimbri from crossing the Alps, then he would be able to rejoin his army and fight the decisive battle away from Italy. We are not told where he stationed his army, but he must have been aware of the distinct possibility that Catulus would not be able to stop the Cimbri and thus needed to keep his own forces on the Italian side of the Alps in readiness. Certainly, when called upon, his forces were able to intercept the Cimbri apparently with ease, though again the Cimbri would be far slower than Marius’ forces on the march, given the large numbers of women and children, not to mention baggage.

  This leads us onto one of the key issues when dealing with the Cimbri in 101 BC, namely their actions, or the lack of them, after defeating Catulus, and their eventual location when they faced Marius in battle. Florus sums the situation up and contains a number of useful flaws:

  If they had immediately marched on Rome with hostile intent, the danger would have been great; but in Veneteia, a district in which the Italian climate is almost at its softest, the very mildness of the country and of the air sapped their vigour. When they had been further demoralized by the use of bread and cooked meats and the delights of wine, Marius opportunely approached them.405

  Thus Florus assumes that the Cimbri became enamoured of the soft life and could have attacked Rome, but did not. Yet Florus, as is quite common in this war, misunderstands the nature of Rome’s enemy. The Cimbri were not a foreign army on a set campaign, but comprised whole tribes, including women and children. In the past few years they had been driven out of Spain and marched across the Alps in winter. It is hardly surprising that they chose to make a protracted stay in a warm, safe and plentiful region. Furthermore, although we have no direct evidence for it, the Venetia region offered the Cimbri everything they needed for a new homeland to settle in. That region of Italy, north of the Po, had only been pacified by Rome earlier in the century and had for centuries been inhabited by Gauls.