From the 3rd century BC, facing the Roman legions was synonymous with suicide and it is not just an expression. There were several cases in which those who did it and were defeated chose to get out of the way before the black future that awaited them; we all remember Numancia, obviously, or, in later times, Masada. At the end of the second century there was another such episode, when three hundred Teutonic women preferred to take their own lives (and those of their children) rather than be handed over to the enemy. The curious thing is that, before, many Ambron warriors who were desperately fleeing from the legionnaires suffered insults from their wives, who considered them cowards. It was the Battle of Aquae Sextiae.
It all started in the year 107 B.C., when the news that a great mass of Germans was traveling to the south of Europe, destroying everything in its path, led Gaius Marius to obtain his second consulship, somewhat unexpectedly because he was in Africa as a proconsul waiting for be called to Rome to celebrate his triumph over the Numidians. His supporters in the metropolis were trying to get a new mandate, but legally they could not because the mandatory ten years had not yet passed since the previous one. However, this growing external danger brought to mind the Gallic invasion suffered in 390 BC, an experience that no one wanted to repeat.
Therefore, Mario's candidacy began to be postulated, which before the people had a double endorsement:on the one hand, the effectiveness demonstrated during the first consulate; for another, his plebeian background had earned him military stripes for experience, not like the patrician generals. The fact that he was absent did not constitute a major problem for the election, since there were several precedents, and as in extreme circumstances "the law yielded to the common interest" (Plutarch dixit ), Gaius Marius returned to the consulship at the age of fifty-two as the man appointed to save Rome once more. His triumphal parade, exhibiting the Numidian king Jugurtha in chains, served to calm the popular fear that had spread in the face of imminent danger.
That danger was formed by three Germanic peoples:Cimbri, Teutons and Ambrones, who had crossed the Alps and marched on Rome after crushing the consul Gnaeus Malius Maximus in Arausio. The first, which arrived from the center, came from what Tacitus described as "Germania bosom, close to the ocean" and Plutarch a “shady and wooded territory, in which the rays of the sun do not penetrate at all” (they were talking about what is now Schleswig-Holstein), while the second came from the territory between the mouth of the Elbe and the Baltic beaches, and the third came from the coastal environment of the Rhine and the Frisian Islands, in the northern part from Holland.
If the Cimbri advanced through the center, through the Alps, Teutons and Ambrones did so from the west and all of them were joined by the Helvetii Tigurines and Toygens from present-day Switzerland, from the east. But it was not only their armies that traveled but also their families, since it was not exactly a campaign of conquest but a mass migration, as Plutarch explains again:
Tito Livio considered them to be nomads but in reality they had reached a certain sedentary lifestyle, as the archaeological record shows, and if they decided to set out on the march it was for natural reasons:climate change that since the 5th century B.C. It had cooled the north of Europe combined with a rise in sea level - caused by strong storms -, which produced serious flooding of farmland, as Strabo would later review. In any case, that massive exodus altered the places through which it passed, producing a domino effect that had the last token in Rome.
The barbarians marched towards the Italian peninsula after having devastated Gaul and Hispani; that the aforementioned consul Máximo and his proconsul Quinto Servilio Cepión were crushed in Arausia in 105 only aggravated the situation. Not surprisingly, panic spread among the Romans, to the point that human sacrifices were made again - the last time they would be made - to attract the favor of the gods. Likewise, while Mario arrived, all those under twenty-five years of age were recruited and offered to join the capiti censi (free citizens without property, poor, who from then on would be the base of the army), subjecting them to intense training by gladiator trainers provided by the lanistas. Likewise, the ports were closed to prevent escapes and slaves were freed on the condition that they enlist, in addition to bringing in troops stationed abroad.
When the consul finally arrived, he spent two years thoroughly training his legionnaires individually and tactically, transforming the army into a professional one. In 102, re-elected for his fourth term, he left for Gaul Narbonense forcing the troops to make long marches carrying his equipment in silence - hence they were nicknamed Mario's mules -, to arrive in time to find a suitable place to stop his enemies, taking advantage of the fact that they had made the mistake of dividing their forces. However, the Germans were still very numerous and Mario only had about six legions, that is, around thirty or thirty-five thousand men (the "only" is in comparison, since it was an estimable figure for the time), so he carefully chose the terrain where he would present battle.
He raised the castrum on the Montagnette hills, near Avignon, endowing it with profuse defense systems:fields planted with thistles and stakes, ditches, embankments, palisades. He also ordered the legionnaires to dig a canal to receive supplies by river, thus keeping both their muscles and minds busy. The latter was essential because of the fear that the appearance of the barbarians produced in them, despite the fact that many were veterans of the Numidian war. And it is that the enemy was already in front of them, challenging them, but Mario categorically forbade leaving the enclosure, under pain of harsh punishments; he even turned down a personal challenge himself. That impasse it lasted three days.
The Teutons attempted to storm the camp, but were forcefully repulsed and desisted; they could not wait any longer because, unlike the Romans, who were well supplied, they lacked food. Thus, they left the place following their way to the Italian peninsula. By then, as Mario had calculated, the legionnaires had lost their fear and considered this a flight, so they yearned to go out and finish the job. The legions then left their camp and followed the enemy, keeping their distance until they approached a hot spring called Aquae Sextiae. Name due to the proconsul Sextius Calvin, founder of a colony, was near the city of Massilia (Marseille).
That was the point chosen by Mario for the confrontation. There, on top of a hill, he raised a new castrum while the galearii (armed slaves) had a first clash with the enemy rearguard for control of the river. It was the ambrones who were there and they were caught by surprise, while they were eating and bathing, so luck was against them, especially when a contingent of Ligurian auxiliaries arrived in support of the slaves. But, at the same time, Ambron reinforcements also appeared and as this put their servants in danger, the Romans launched the attack without their leader being able to contain them. In this curious way, what was initially a simple skirmish turned into a pitched battle.
Despite his fearsome cries of “Ambrones! Ambrones!" , which the Ligurians replied in a duel of voices, the Germans could not order their ranks and suffered a riot, being forced to cross the river and flee to their camp to protect themselves behind the carts where they moved their belongings and which also served them From home. It was during that every man for himself when his women armed themselves with swords and axes, protecting their escape while insulting them for cowards and «tearing the shields off the Romans with their bare arms and clinging to the swords, enduring the blows and the cuts of his body with unwavering courage until the end» as Plutarch explains.
The victorious legionnaires returned to the safety of their hill having inflicted thousands of casualties on their adversary, but it was not over yet; the Teutons were missing. Of course, the Romans were full of victory, which confirmed what the omens had predicted, hence the psychological tactics of the Germans (they spent the night singing gloomy songs) made less and less of a dent in them. In addition, they had to rally their scattered forces, which gave Marius time not only to reinforce the defenses of his position on the slope of Sainte-Victoire but also to send a detachment that night that scared the others out of sleep. Likewise, he hid in the rear of the adversary a small force of three thousand men, commanded by Marco Claudio Marcelo, so that his surprise attack would sow confusion when the time came.
At dawn, the consul lined up his men on the hillside with the order to hold out "on firm footing" . Provoked by the cavalry, the Teutons charged up the slope, smashing into the shield wall and pile of the Romans. In that adverse terrain they were unable to take advantage of their numerical superiority and the failed attack forced them to go down to the plain, where they were able to better organize themselves and resist the onslaught of the legions. However, there were two factors that determined their final defeat:on the one hand, after several hours under the sun, thirst was raging and they had no water; on the other hand, Marcelo's planned intervention made them believe that another army was coming and, panic-stricken, they broke their ranks, escaping in all directions.
The casualties they suffered are estimated at tens of thousands, not counting the number of prisoners, estimated at about seventeen thousand. In his Epitome , Lucio Aneo Floro tells that, in those dramatic moments, three hundred married women requested to be exempted from slavery in exchange for professing as Vestal Virgins, but the proposal was rejected and they preferred to commit suicide together with their children. The Teutonic chieftain, Teutobod, was sent captive to Rome with the others, and Marius donated the profit from the sale of the slaves to his soldiers. Earlier, in honor of the goddess Victoria, he had ordered the weapons and shields of the German warriors to be burned on a pyre, lighting the fire himself.
During that ceremony, news reached him that he had been elected consul for the fifth time, and he marched to Rome to take office, though he barely had time to enjoy the moment because he refused to parade without his men and because he had to go to his aid. General Quintus Lutatius Catullus, defeated by the Cimbri. The matter was definitively settled in Vercellae the following year. It was said that those fields of Aquae Sextiae gave excellent harvests some time later, fertilized by the decomposition of the large number of bodies of the fallen.