The Gracchi Marius and Sulla eBook

[Sidenote:  The Cimbri.] Meanwhile Catulus was waiting for the Cimbri on the east.  A son of M. Aemilius Scaurus fled before them in the pass of Tridentum, and in 102 B.C., about the time of the battle of Aquae Sextiae, they poured down the valley on the east of the Athesis (Adige).

[Sidenote:  Catulus on the Adige.] Catulus was posted just below Verona on the west bank, with a bridge connecting him with a smaller force on the other side.  When the foe appeared his men took to flight; but the detachment on the east side stood its ground, and kept the enemy from crossing the bridge in pursuit.  The Cimbri admired their bravery, and when they had forced the bridge let its defenders go.  Pursuing Catulus, they cut him off from a river for which he was making, probably the Ticinus, though according to some, the Po.  He then pretended to encamp on a hill as if for a long stay.  The Cimbri dispersed over the country, and Catulus immediately came down, assaulted their camp and crossed the river, where he was joined by the victorious army of Gaul and by Marius, who had been to Rome. [Sidenote:  Battle with the Cimbri, July 30, 101 B.C.] The village festival on the hill of Sainte Victoire was held in May.  The battle with the Cimbri was fought on July 30, 101.  More than a year therefore had elapsed since the Teutones were defeated.  But it was the barbarians’ custom not to fight in winter, and they were in a rich country which had not been invaded for a century, where they were revelling in unwonted comforts.  So they spread themselves over the land as far as the Sesia; and when Marius came, they sent, it is said, and asked for land for the Teutones whom they were awaiting. [Sidenote:  Story of the Cimbric embassy to Marius.] Marius replied that their brothers had all the land they wanted already.  Upon which they requested him to name a field and a day for battle.  Marius answered that Romans never consulted their foes on such points, but he would humour them, and named the Campi Raudii, near Vercellae.  Such a story bears falsehood on the face of it.  It is absurd to suppose that the Cimbri had not heard of the defeat of the Teutones, which had taken place more than a year before.  Very likely they asked for land, and finding that they would only get hard blows, determined to bring matters to a crisis at once.  Sulla’s memoirs were Plutarch’s authority for what followed, and Sulla hated Marius. [Sidenote:  Story of Marius’s jealousy of Catulus.] He said that Marius, expecting that the fighting would be on the wings, posted his own men there, that they might gain the glory, but that the brunt of the battle was borne by Catulus in the centre; and that such a dust rose that Marius was for a long time out of the battle, and knew not where he was.  It seems that the barbarian cavalry feigned a flight, hoping to turn and take the Romans between themselves and their infantry.  But the Romans drove back the cavalry on the infantry. [Sidenote:  Circumstances