Cimbrian Wars
The Cimber Wars describe the armed conflicts between the Roman Empire on the one hand and the Germanic tribes of the Cimbri , Teutons and Ambrones on the other. The latter had at the end of the 2nd century BC BC abandoned their northern European settlement areas and moved south. Between 113 and 105 BC They inflicted serious defeats on the Romans before they finally fell in 102 and 101 BC. Were crushed.
Leaving the settlement areas
The Cimbri as well as the Teutons were originally located in what is now Jutland . Why they were around the year 120 BC Chr. These settlement areas left is unknown. The Roman sources see environmental changes and the resulting crop failures in the North Baltic Sea area as the reason. They migrated south, with the tribe of the Ambrones also joining them. In search of new settlement areas in which they could settle as farmers, they traversed Silesia, Bohemia and today's Austria. On their move they probably met other tribes, e. B. the Celtic Boier in today's Silesia. Science assumes that fighting with other tribes must have occurred again and again, but nothing has been reported about the outcome. The entourage was able to grow by joining other tribes (Ambrones, Tigurines , parts of the Helvetii), according to Roman sources.
Meet the Romans
Noreia - Agen - Arausio - Aquae Sextiae - Vercellae
They met in the eastern Alpine region in 113 BC. For the first time on the Romans. The consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo advanced into the Noricum with two legions of 6,000 men each . There he received messengers from the Teutons, who presented themselves peaceably. Carbo gave them two guides to help them find suitable new settlement land. In fact, the leaders were supposed to lure the Germans into an ambush. In the battle of Noreia, however, the numerically superior Cimbri and Teutons defeated the Roman army. An upcoming thunderstorm prevented a complete annihilation of the Roman legions. After that, however, the Teutons did not move to Italy, but to Gaul .
On their way, parts of the Helvetian tribes of the Tigurines and Tougener 111 BC joined. On the hiking trail. It is estimated that around 300,000 people were on the move. Since these marching armies could not move through the wooded area of southern Gaul, it split up. A mixed tribes army was led by the Tigurin prince Divico . He led it through the territory of the Celtic Nitiobrogen towards the city of Tolosa . The Romans sent a new army to southeast Gaul, led by the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus and the consular Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus . In the summer of 107 BC They were ambushed by Divico near the place of today's Agen on the banks of the Garonne . In the Battle of Agen the two Roman leaders fell and the Roman troops had to surrender.
The trek, led by the Cimbrian King Boiorix , moved south from the Rhone Valley towards the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis . To prevent an intrusion into the Roman Empire, two legions were sent under the command of the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio and the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus . On October 6, 105 BC BC came to the battle of Arausio . Since the two Roman leaders had fallen out, the Roman army split into two camps of equal size that followed different strategies. As a result, first the army of Caepio and then that of Maximus were defeated. Allegedly 80,000 legionnaires and 40,000 escorts fell. Again, the winners did not move to Italy, but split up. The Cimbri migrated towards Spain and the Teutons northwards into the interior of Gaul. That was a decision of King Teutobod : Due to the size of the march pillars, supplies were threateningly scarce. That is why he wanted to let the tribes move on one by one in order to have enough provisions for both marching columns.
As a result of the defeats, the Roman consul Gaius Marius initiated an army reform. So far there has been about six years of compulsory military service for the owning citizens. With the reform, a professional army was created for the first time with a long service life, which was also open to the poor lower class.
Neither the Cimbri nor the Teutons managed to find a new home. So the two migratory movements reunited in northern France and marched south towards the Roman Empire. In front of the Alps, the Cimbri split off again and tried to invade Italy via the Brenner Pass , while the Teutons and Ambrones tried to overcome the mountains along the Mediterranean coast . 102 BC In BC Gaius Marius and about 35,000 soldiers were finally able to destroy the Teutons and Ambrones in the battle of Aquae Sextiae . The Cimbri, on the other hand, drove out the army of the consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus on the Adige and moved to the Po Valley , where they asked the Roman Senate to settle . After the arrival of Marius' troops, on July 30, 101 BC it happened. For the battle of Vercellae with the Cimbrian warriors under the leadership of Boiorix. In this battle, too, the Romans achieved a complete victory. They killed 120,000 barbarians and forced 60,000 into slavery.
The trace of the Cimbri and Teutons is then lost in the historical sources. Caesar later describes the Aduatuk tribe as "descendants of the Cimbri and Teutons". According to this, the Aduatuk descendants of the 6,000 men guard who were part of the Cimbri and Teuton trains in 113/105 BC. Were left behind to guard their belongings. After numerous disputes with neighboring tribes that lasted for many years, they would have chosen the area around the fortified city on Mont Falhize as their place of residence after a peace agreement. In total, the two tribes covered 7,000 kilometers in around 20 years. About 270 years would pass before larger Germanic tribes ( Marcomanni ) invaded Italy again.
Individual evidence
- ↑ To this in detail: Bengt Melin: Die Heimat der Kimbern , Uppsala 1960.
- ↑ De bello Gallico, II 29: consensu eorum omnium pace facta hunc sibi domicilio locum delegerant
- ↑ Cf. Bruno Bleckmann: Die Germanen , Munich 2009, p. 163.
literature
- Hans-Werner Goetz (Hrsg.): Altes Germanien - Excerpts from the ancient sources about the Germanic peoples and their relations to the Roman Empire , Part 1, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1995. (= Selected sources on the German history of the Middle Ages , Vol. 1)
- Bengt Melin: The homeland of the Cimbri , A.-B.-Lundequistska Bokhandeln, Uppsala 1960. (= Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift 5/1960)
- Kai Rohrschneider: The war against Cimbri and Teutons 113-101 BC Chr. , In: Mars - Yearbook for Defense Policy and Military 6 (2000), pp. 469-522.
- Theodor Mommsen : The Roman History. Volume IV, pp. 66-72.
- Christian Liebhardt: The train of the Cimbri and Teutons: Background, process and conclusions. Saarbrücken 2013.