Why they again failed to invade Italy remains a mystery. In the meantime, the Teutones remained in Gaul. There, they suffered their first defeat, not at the hands of a Roman army, but against a Celtiberian coalition. Instead of immediately gathering their allies and marching on Rome, the Cimbri proceeded to Hispania. For the Cimbri and Teutones it was a great (though temporary) triumph. The Battle of Arausio was the costliest defeat Rome had suffered since Cannae and, in fact, the losses and long-term consequences were far greater. Only Caepio, Maximus, and a few hundred Romans escaped with their lives across the carnage-choked river. Thousands more were slain trying desperately to rally and defend his poorly positioned camp. The now isolated and demoralized troops of Maximus were then easily defeated. The overconfident Caepio foolishly attacked without support from Maximus his legions were wiped out and his undefended camp overrun. The consuls led their armies on their own armed migration to the Rhône River near Orange, Vaucluse, where, disliking and distrusting each other, they erected separate camps on opposite sides of the river by so doing they left their disunited force open to separate attack. The force consisted of over 80,000 men, along with tens of thousands of support personnel and camp followers in two armies, one led by each consul.
In 105 BC, Rome and its new consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus and the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio, in order to settle the matter once and for all, gathered the largest force it had fielded since the Second Punic War, and possibly the largest force it had ever sent to battle. That same year, they defeated another Roman army at the Battle of Burdigala (modern day Bordeaux) and killed its commander, the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravalla. In 107 BC, the Romans were defeated again, this time by the Tigurini, who were allies of the Cimbri whom they had met on their way through the Alps. In 109 BC, they invaded the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis and defeated the Roman army there under Marcus Junius Silanus. Italy was now open to invasion, yet for some reason, the Cimbri and their allies moved west over the Alps and into Gaul. Infuriated by this treachery, they attacked and, at the Battle of Noreia, annihilated Carbo's army, almost killing Carbo in the process. The Cimbri initially set about complying peacefully with Rome's demands, but soon discovered that Carbo had laid an ambush against them. The following year the 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 that the Cimbri and their allies leave the province immediately. Unable to hold back these new, powerful invaders on their own, the Taurisci called on Rome for aid. In 113 BC they arrived on the Danube, in Noricum, home to the Roman-allied Taurisci. Together they defeated the Scordisci, along with the Boii, many of whom apparently joined them. Migrations and conflicts Īccording to some Roman accounts, sometime around 120–115 BC, the Cimbri left their original lands around the North Sea due to flooding ( Strabo, on the other hand, wrote that this was unlikely or impossible ) They supposedly journeyed to the south-east and were soon joined by their neighbours and possible relatives the Teutones. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebelling gladiators during the Third Servile War. Rome was finally victorious, and its Germanic adversaries, who had inflicted on the Roman armies the heaviest losses that they had suffered since the Second Punic War, with victories at the battles of Arausio and Noreia, were left almost completely annihilated after Roman victories at Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae.
The Cimbrian threat, along with the Jugurthine War, inspired the landmark Marian reforms of the Roman legions. 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. The timing of the war had a great effect on the internal politics of Rome, and the organization of its military. The Cimbrian War was the first time since the Second Punic War that Italia and Rome itself had been seriously threatened. The Cimbrian or Cimbric War (113–101 BC) was fought between the Roman Republic and the Germanic and Celtic tribes of the Cimbri and the Teutons, Ambrones and Tigurini, who migrated from the Jutland peninsula into Roman controlled territory, and clashed with Rome and her allies.
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