| Cimbrian War | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The migrations of the Cimbri and the Teutons. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Roman Republic | Cimbri, Teutons |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Gaius Marius, Lutatius Catulus, Servilius Caepio, Mallius Maximus, Papirius Carbo |
Boiorix, Teutobod Lugius |
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| Strength | |||||||
| Varied, ranging from around 40,000 to over 80,000 | Varied but estimated at around 300,000 maximum | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Estimated between 150-180,000 | 300,000, Both tribes annihalated |
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The Cimbrian War (113-101 BC) was fought between the Roman Republic and the Proto-Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and the Proto-Germanic Teutons (Teutones), who migrated from northern Europe into Roman controlled territory, and clashed with Rome and her allies. Noricum, in ancient Geography, was a Celtic kingdom (perhaps better described as a federation of by tradition twelve tribes stretching over the area of Gaul (Gallia was the Roman name for the region of Western Europe comprising present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a Republican form of government a period which began with the overthrow of the The Cimbri were a Celtic or Germanic tribe who together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late The Teutons or Teutones (from Proto-Germanic * Þeudanōz) were mentioned as a Germanic tribe by Greek and Roman authors This article is about the Roman statesman who reorganized the army and was seven times Consul For the Roman poet see Catullus Quintus Lutatius Catulus ( Latin: Q·LVTATIVS·Q·F·CATVLVS was a Roman Quintus Servilius Caepio the Elder was a Roman statesman and general Consul in 106 BC, Proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul 105 BC Gnaeus Mallius Maximus was a Roman politician and general He was a Novus homo when he was elected to the consulship of the Roman Republic Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (c 130s BC - 82 BC was a Consul of Ancient Rome. Boiorix was a king of the Cimbri tribe His most notable achievement was a spectacular victory against the Romans at the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC Teutobod (or Theudobod) was King of the Teutons. In the late 2nd century BCE, together with their neighbors allies and possible relatives the Lugus was a deity apparently worshipped widely in antiquity in the Celtic -speaking world The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a Republican form of government a period which began with the overthrow of the Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English The Cimbri were a Celtic or Germanic tribe who together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English The Teutons or Teutones (from Proto-Germanic * Þeudanōz) were mentioned as a Germanic tribe by Greek and Roman authors The Cimbrian War was the first time since the Second Punic War that Italia and Rome itself had been seriously threatened. The Second Punic War (referred to as "The War Against Hannibal" by the Romans lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western Italia, under the Roman Republic and later Empire, was the name of the Italian peninsula. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2
The timing of the war had a great effect on the internal politics of Rome, and the organization of its military. The war contributed greatly to the political career of Gaius Marius whose consulships and political conflicts challenged many of the Roman republic's political institutions and customs of the time. This article is about the Roman statesman who reorganized the army and was seven times Consul Consul (abbrev cos; Latin plural consules) was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a Republican form of government a period which began with the overthrow of the The Cimbrian threat, along with the Jugurthine War, inspired the Marian reforms of the Roman legions, which would have a significant effect on the history of the later Republic. The Jugurthine War takes its name from Jugurtha, nephew and later adopted son of Micipsa, King of Numidia. The Marian reforms of 107 BC were a group of military reforms initiated by Gaius Marius, a statesman and general of the Roman republic. For other uses see Legion The Roman Legion (from Latin legio "military levy Conscription,"
Rome eventually won the protracted and bloody war — which inflicted heavier losses on the Roman armies than they had suffered since the Second Punic War — with the victories at Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae resulting in the almost complete annihilation of the two Proto-Germanic tribes. The Battle of Aquae Sextiae ( Aix-en-Provence) took place in 102 BC. The Battle of Vercellae, or Battle of the Raudine Plain, in 101 BC was the Roman victory of Consul Gaius Marius over the Germanic
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Migrations and conflicts
For unknown reasons (possibly due to climate change, see Pre-Roman Iron Age) sometime around 120-115 BC, the Cimbri left their original lands around the Baltic sea in the Jutland peninsula and Southern Scandinavia. The Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe ( 5th / 4th century BC - 1st century BC) designates the earliest part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia The Baltic Sea is a Brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N Latitude and from 20°E to 26°E Longitude. This article is about the region of Denmark. For the World War I naval battle see Battle of Jutland. Terminology and usage As a cultural term "Scandinavia" has no official definition and is subject to usage by those who identify with the culture in question as well They journeyed to the southeast, and were soon joined by their neighbors and possible relatives the Teutones. Together they defeated the Scordisci tribe, along with the Boii, many of whom apparently joined them. Scordisci were in ancient geography a war-like tribe inhabiting the southern part of lower Pannonia, comprising parts of the present-day countries Austria, Boii ( Latin plural singular Boius; Greek) is the Roman name of an ancient Celtic tribe, attested at various In 113 BC they arrived on the Danube, in Noricum, home to the Roman allied Taurisci. The Danube (In Donau from earlier Danuvius, Celtic *dānu, meaning "to flow run" Slovak and Polish Dunaj Noricum, in ancient Geography, was a Celtic kingdom (perhaps better described as a federation of by tradition twelve tribes stretching over the area of Unable to hold back these new, powerful invaders on their own, the Taurisci called to Rome for aid.
Initial Roman defeats
The following year Roman Consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, led the legions into Noricum, and after making an impressive show of force, took up a strong defensive position and demanded the Cimbri and their allies leave the province immediately. Consul (abbrev cos; Latin plural consules) was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, son of Gaius Papirius Carbo, was Consul in 113 BC together with Gaius Caecilius Metellus Caprarius. For other uses see Legion The Roman Legion (from Latin legio "military levy Conscription," The Cimbri set about to peacefully comply with Rome's demands, when they discovered Carbo had laid an ambush against them. Infuriated by this treachery, they attacked and at the Battle of Noreia nearly caught and slayed Carbo and annihilated his army. The Battle of Noreia in 112 BC, was the opening action of the Cimbrian War fought between the Roman Republic and the migrating Proto-Germanic
Italy was now open to invasion, yet for some reason, the Cimbri and their allies headed west over the Alps and into Gaul. Gaul (Gallia was the Roman name for the region of Western Europe comprising present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western In 109 BC, they invaded the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis and defeated the Roman army there under Marcus Junius Silanus. Gallia Narbonensis ( Narbonese Gaul) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. That same year, they defeated another Roman army at Burdigala (modern day Bordeaux) and killed its commander the Consul Gaius Cassius Longinus Ravalla. ( Gascon: Bordèu) is a port city in southwest France, with one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area at a 2008 estimate In 107 BC, the Romans lost again, this time to the Tigurines, who were allies of the Cimbri they had met on their way through the Alps.
Disaster at Arausio
In 105 BC, Rome and its new consuls Quintus Servilius Caepio and Gnaeus Mallius Maximus decided they had had enough of these invaders. The Battle of Arausio took place on October 6 105 BC at a site between the town of Arausio (modern day Orange, Vaucluse) and the Rhône River Quintus Servilius Caepio the Elder was a Roman statesman and general Consul in 106 BC, Proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul 105 BC Gnaeus Mallius Maximus was a Roman politician and general He was a Novus homo when he was elected to the consulship of the Roman Republic So to settle the matter once and for all, the Republic gathered the largest force it had fielded since the Second Punic War, possibly the largest force it had ever sent to battle, with over 80,000 troops along with tens of thousands of support personnel and camp followers in two armies, one led by Caepio and one led by Maximus.
The consuls led their armies on their own armed migration to the Rhône River near Orange, Vaucluse where they made separate camps on opposite sides of the river. The Rhone, or the Rhône is one of the major Rivers of Europe, running through Switzerland and France. Orange ( Provençal Occitan: Aurenja in classical norm or Aurenjo in Mistralian norm norm is a town and commune in the The two Roman commanders disliked and distrusted one another, consequently their armies, instead of acting as a single, overwhelming force, would be separate entities for the Cimbri, Teutones and their allies to destroy in detail. The overconfident Caepio foolishly attacked without support from Mallius Maximus, and his legions were wiped out and his undefended camp overrun. The now isolated and demoralized troops of Maximus were then easily defeated. Thousands more were slain trying desperately to rally and defend his poorly positioned camp. Only Caepio, Maximus and a few hundred Romans escaped over the carnage-choked river with their lives. The Battle of Arausio was the costliest defeat Rome had suffered since Cannae. The Battle of Arausio took place on October 6 105 BC at a site between the town of Arausio (modern day Orange, Vaucluse) and the Rhône River For the 11th century battle in the Byzantine conquest of the Mezzogiorno, see Battle of Cannae (1018. In fact the losses were far greater and so were the long term consequences. For the Cimbri and Teutones it was a great triumph, yet in it and in their failure to follow up on it were to be sown the seeds of their destruction. Instead of immediately gathering their allies and marching on Rome, the Cimbri went on to Hispania, while the Teutones remained in Gaul. Hispania was the name given by the Romans to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal, Spain, Andorra, Gibraltar Why they did not, for a second and fatal time, invade Italy remains a mystery. Perhaps they thought easier plunder could be found in Gaul and Spain. Possibly too, they might have suffered heavy casualties in their triumphs over the Romans and felt they were not yet strong enough to take them on their home grounds. With their reckless battle tactics, even their victories could have been rendered costly. Theodor Mommsen describes their methods of war thusly:
Their system of warfare was substantially that of the Celts of this period, who no longer fought, as the Italian Celts had formerly done, bareheaded and with merely sword and dagger, but with copper helmets often richly adorned and with a peculiar missile weapon, the -materis-; the large sword was retained and the long narrow shield, along with which they probably wore also a coat of mail. Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen ( 30 November 1817 &ndash 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, They were not destitute of cavalry; but the Romans were superior to them in that arm. Their order of battle was as formerly a rude phalanx professedly drawn up with just as many ranks in depth as in breadth, the first rank of which in dangerous combats not unfrequently tied together their metallic girdles with cords. 1
So with all these tactical disadvantages, they had to rely on superior numbers, their own fearsome courage and mistakes by Roman commanders to bring them victories. Yet they would soon be faced with a Roman General who seldom made mistakes at the head of a new Roman army which would prove a much deadlier foe.
Marius takes command
Following the devastation of the Arausio, fear shook the Roman Republic to its foundations. The terror cimbricus became a watchword, as Rome expected the Cimbri at its gates at any time. In this atmosphere of panic and desperation, an emergency was declared. The constitution was ignored and Gaius Marius, the victor over Jugurtha of Numidia was elected consul for an unprecedented, and technically illegal, five years in a row, starting in 104 BC, and appointed Imperator, supreme commander of the army, with unprecedented powers which he would use to transform the Roman army. This article is about the Roman statesman who reorganized the army and was seven times Consul Jugurtha (ca 160 &ndash 104 BC was a Libyan King of Numidia, born in Cirta. Numidia (202 BC – 46 BC was an ancient Berber kingdom in present-day Algeria and part of Tunisia ( North Africa) that later alternated The Latin word Imperator was a title originally roughly equivalent to commander during the period of the Roman Republic. The Roman army was a set of military forces employed by the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and later Roman Empire as part of the Roman military
Up until this time the army had been a well trained, well regulated Militia of all able-bodied, land-owning male citizens. The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary Citizens to provide defense emergency law enforcement or Paramilitary service Marius replaced this with a standing, professional force made up mostly of able bodied but landless volunteers. He would improve and standardize training, weapons, armor and equipment. He would improve the command structure and make the Cohorts the main tactical and administrative units of the legions. A cohort (from the Latin cohors, plural cohortes) is a fairly large military unit generally consisting of one type of soldier Along with these new arrangements would come new standards and symbols- the Aquila which he taught his troops to revere and never allow to fall into enemy hands. The signa militaria were the Roman military Ensigns or standards The most ancient standard employed by the Romans is said to have been a handful ( maniple
While the panicked Senate and people of Rome gave Marius the power he needed to undertake his military reforms, the failure of the Cimbri and Teutones to follow up on their victory would give him the time he needed to finish them. They would soon be confronted by an army of organized, highly trained, professional soldiers under the leadership of a brilliant and ruthless commander.
The Roman Republic strikes back
By 102 BC, Marius was ready to move against the Teutones. He chose his ground carefully and built a well fortified camp on the top of a hill near Aquae Sextiae, where he enticed the Teutones and their Ambrones allies to attack him. The Battle of Aquae Sextiae ( Aix-en-Provence) took place in 102 BC. The tribe of the Ambrones appears briefly in the Roman sources relating to the 2nd century BC. Once they did, they were attacked in the rear by a select force of five cohorts Marius had hidden in a nearby wood. The Teutones were routed and massacred and their king, Teutobod, placed in Roman chains. Teutobod (or Theudobod) was King of the Teutons. In the late 2nd century BCE, together with their neighbors allies and possible relatives the But Aquae Sextiae had only evened the score: while the Teutones had been eliminated, the Cimbri remained a formidable threat.
In 101 BC, the Cimbri returned to Gaul and prepared for the final act of their drama with Rome. Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps ( March 3 1803 &ndash August 22 1860) was a French painter. For the first time they penetrated through the Alpine passes, which Marius' co-consul for that year, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, had failed to fortify, into northern Italy. For the Roman poet see Catullus Quintus Lutatius Catulus ( Latin: Q·LVTATIVS·Q·F·CATVLVS was a Roman Catulus withdrew behind the Po River, leaving the countryside open to the invaders. The Po ( Latin: Padus, Po Ligurian: Bo, Greek: Eridanus) is a river that flows 652 km(405 miles (682 km by considering But the Cimbri took their time ravishing this fertile region, which gave Marius time to arrive with reinforcements — his victorious legions from Aquae Sextiae. It would be at Vercellae near the confluence of the Sesia River with the Po on the Raudine Plain, where the superiority of the new Roman legions and their cavalry would be clearly demonstrated. The Battle of Vercellae, or Battle of the Raudine Plain, in 101 BC was the Roman victory of Consul Gaius Marius over the Germanic The Sesia (Latin Sesites or Sessites) is a river in north-western Italy, tributary to the Po. In the devastating defeat the Cimbri were virtually annihilated, and both their main leaders, Boiorix and Lugius, fell. Boiorix was a king of the Cimbri tribe His most notable achievement was a spectacular victory against the Romans at the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC The women killed both themselves and their children in order to avoid slavery. Thus the war which began with migration, ended in genocide and mass suicide.
Aftermath
The Cimbri were not completely wiped off the face of the map or from the pages of history. A small remnant population of Cimbri and Teutones remained in northern Jutland, southern Scandinavia and the Baltic coast at least until the 1st century. Their allies, the Boii, with whom they intermixed, settled in southern Gaul and Germania and would be there to welcome and confront Julius Caesar, Marius' nephew, in his campaigns of conquest. Boii ( Latin plural singular Boius; Greek) is the Roman name of an ancient Celtic tribe, attested at various
It would be over a century later before Rome would suffer another great defeat at the hands of Germanic tribes, at the Teutoburg Forest. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest took place in the year 9 A And it would be several centuries more before Germanic migrations would again seriously breach the Roman frontiers and threaten the Eternal City itself.
The political consequences resulting from the war, however, would have a much more immediate and lasting impact on Rome. The end of the Cimbrian war would mark the beginning of the rivalry between Marius and Sulla, which would eventually lead to the first of Rome's great civil wars. Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix ( Latin: L•CORNELIVS•L•F•P•N•SVLLA•FELIX (c List of Civil wars involving Rome. There were several Roman civil wars, especially during the time of the late Republic. Moreover, following the final victory at Vercellae, and without first asking permission from the Senate, Marius granted Roman citizenship to his Italian allied soldiers, claiming that in the din of battle he could not distinguish the voice of Roman from ally from the voice of the law. Henceforth all Italian legions would be Roman legions and henceforth the allied cities of the Italian peninsula would seek a greater say in the external policy of the Republic, leading eventually to the Social War. This article is about the conflict between Rome and her Italian allies between 91 and 88 BC For the Athenian conflict with its allies between 357 and 355 BC see
Marius may have saved Rome from the Proto-Germanic people, but he had also initiated the beginning of the end of its Republican form of government. The new soldier class he created of landless, often impoverished legionaries, though they swore an oath to the SPQR, really owed their loyalty to the generals who raised, led and, most importantly, paid them. SPQR is an initialism from a Latin phrase Senātus Populusque Rōmānus ("The Senate and the People of Rome" or "The Generals such as Marius himself, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Mark Antony, and of course Octavian, would lead the way from Republic to Autocracy. Marcus Licinius Crassus ( Latin: M·LICINIVS·P·F·P·N·CRASSVS (ca Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, commonly known as Pompey /'pɑmpi/ Pompey the Great or Pompey the Triumvir ( Classical Latin abbreviation Marcus Antonius (in Latin: M·ANTONIVS·M·F·M·N ( c January 14 83 BC&ndash August 1, 30 BC known in English as Mark Augustus ( Latin: IMPERATOR·CAESAR·DIVI·FILIVS·AVGVSTVS September 23 63 BC – August 19 AD 14) born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, was An autocracy is a Form of government in which the Political power is held by a single self-appointed ruler
References
- Mommsen, Theodor, History of Rome, Book IV "The Revolution", pp 66-72.
- Dupuy, R. Ernest, and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia Of Military History: From 3500 B. C. To The Present. (2nd Revised Edition 1986) pp 90-91.
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