The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

BUT THIS HAPPY news was about to be blotted out by an unfathomable disaster in the north. The Cimbri had first arrived in 113, defeated the Romans at Noreia, and then moved on. After a four-year hiatus, they had come down the Rhône river in 109 and defeated the Romans again. Now, after yet another four-year cycle, the Cimbri came back around in 105, once again migrating down the Rhône toward the Mediterranean coast. The Senate was understandably spooked by the return of this enemy that had bested them twice.30 Though now widely suspected of playing a role in the disappearance of the Tolosa gold, the Senate extended Caepio’s command in the north and kept his army intact—two full Roman legions plus twice as many Italian allies and Gallic auxiliary forces—bringing his combined numbers up to somewhere around thirty-five thousand. To double the number on the northern front the Senate instructed one of the consuls for 105, Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, to gather an army of equal strength. This time the Cimbri must be destroyed. It was a good thing the property requirements had been dropped or Rome might not have been able to muster the strength to put the sixty to eighty thousand men through the Alps while simultaneously maintaining the legions in Numidia.31