Battle of Vercellae

The place of slaughter in northern Italy

date	July 30, 101 BC Chr.
place	Vercellae (today: Vercelli ), Northern Italy
output	Roman victory

Parties to the conflict
Cimbri	Roman Empire
Commander
Boiorix †	Gaius Marius , Quintus Lutatius Catulus
Troop strength
180,000-200,000; including 15,000 riders	52,300
losses
120,000 dead; over 60,000 prisoners (according to Plutarch)	unknown, but probably not more than 1000

The migration of the Cimbri and Teutons

The Battle of Vercellae , also known as the Battle of the Raudian Fields , was the final decisive battle in the war between the wandering people of the Cimbri and the Romans . The battle took place on July 30, 101 BC. Chr. And ended with the total defeat of the Cimbri, which thus ceased as a closed tribal union to exist.

prehistory

After the Cimbri, Teutons and Ambrones had roamed Europe in search of new settlement areas , presumably because of storm surges and climate deterioration in their home on the North Sea , the Cimbri, who had separated from the other tribes, finally invaded northern Italy . They had previously successfully defeated the Romans in several battles, including the Battle of Noreia in 113 BC. And the battle of Arausio in 105 BC. Chr.

The Roman general Quintus Lutatius Catulus had the task of protecting the Alpine passes . When the Cimbri nevertheless poured over the Alps , he gave up the passes and, in order not to spread his army too much, withdrew behind the Adige and holed up there. The Cimbri attacked the last defenders on the other side of the Adige. Full of admiration for their bravery, they granted the defenders free retreat, but then devastated the surrounding areas.

At the same time, Gaius Marius , who a year earlier had defeated the Teutons in the battle of Aquae Sextiae , moved with his reformed army (the soldiers had to carry all their luggage themselves and were therefore called muli Mariani - "mules of Marius") to northern Italy to unite with the troops of Catulus. The leader of the Cimbri, Boiorix , made Marius an offer of peace: The Cimbres would forego a fight if they were allowed to keep the land. Marius, who knew the strength of his armed forces, rejected the treaty and instead brought the captured Teuton king Teutobod before the Cimbri - only now did the Cimbri learn of the annihilation of the brother people. Thereupon Boiorix asked Marius to determine the battle location. He decided on the Raudische fields near Vercellae (today Vercelli ).

Course of the battle

Lineup

Catulus' army amounted to 20,300 men, Marius had 32,000 men. Catulus 'legions stood in the middle, half of Marius' forces marked the flanks. Marius supposedly ordered his legions this way because experience shows that the center got a deepening during the fight and was thus less active and he would get the glory for the victory.

On the other hand, there was the Cimbri people, who numbered around 160,000 men, women and children, with the Cimbres having a 15,000-strong cavalry . According to Plutarch , the Cimbri were very well equipped: they wore armor made of iron , white shields and helmets that were shaped like wild animals and had large plumes. They used spears with two hooks as projectiles and a large, powerful sword for the scuffle .

Marius had apparently chosen noon unintentionally as the time of the event, as the sun shone on the faces of the Cimbri advancing from the north , so they had to hold their shields in front of their eyes. Shortly before the start of the battle, Marius and Catulus sacrificed a cattle and Marius vowed 100 more cattle to the gods in the event of a victory.

Combat action

The Cimbrian horsemen did not attack the Romans head-on, but swiveled to the right to gradually bring the Romans between them and their infantry, who were standing on the left. The Roman generals understood the ruse, but could no longer hold back their men who had marched off after someone had claimed that the enemy wanted to flee. Shortly after the attack began, huge dust rose from the dry plain, so that Marius and his troops first missed the enemy and wandered around for a while until they encountered the enemy from behind. Meanwhile the main army, the foot soldiers of the Cimbri, encountered Catulus. The dust contributed significantly to the increase of courage on the part of the Romans. You just saw the opponents in front of you without recognizing the majority of the Germans.

The Cimbri, who were more used to the cool climate of the north, continued to struggle enormously with the heat and humidity of the southern countries. The Romans, on the other hand, were so hardened through their years of training that it did not cause them any problems. In addition, the sun was shining straight towards the Cimbri, so that they had to hold their shields in front of their faces and saw their opponents badly. The greater part of the Kimber fell on the actual battlefield, which was determined by the Romans at their request, the whale field. To keep their battle line from tearing apart, the fighters on the first line had forged chains attached to their belts to prevent them from escaping.

The fighters fleeing from other sectors of the front were driven to their camp by the Romans, where their soldiers watched, shaken, as the Cimbrian women killed their men, sons or brothers who had fled, killed and strangled their children and then, to escape slavery , themselves killed by hanging themselves from their chariots or throwing themselves under the hooves of their mounts . Many of the surviving Cimbrian men tied themselves by the horns or feet of the ox to be hanged or dragged to death.

aftermath

Despite so many perishing in battle, it is said that over 60,000 prisoners were taken and sold into slavery . After the fighting ended, there were disputes between Marius and Catulus about who had the greater share in the victory. After a dispute also arose among the soldiers about this, the MPs from Parma who were just present were elected as a kind of arbitrator. Catulus' people showed them around and showed that most of the dead Cimbri had been killed with spears with the name "Catulus" carved on their shafts. Nevertheless, partly the previous victory, partly the higher dignity, caused the whole work to be ascribed to Marius. He was then proclaimed by the people as the “third founder of Rome” (after Romulus and Camillus). From the booty Marius donated two temples, one for Honos and one for Virtus . Catulus also built a temple, which he demonstratively dedicated to another deity: Fortuna - the goddess of happiness. The descendants of the prisoners are said to have joined the rebellious slave train of Spartacus , who had escaped from a gladiator school near Capua, 30 years later as gladiators together with Teutonic fellow sufferers .

Artistic processing

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps The Defeat of the Cimbri , (1833), Louvre (Paris)
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo The Battle of Vercellae , (between 1725 and 1729)
Anselm Feuerbach storming the Germanic camp on the Raudic fields , (1845)

literature

Wolf-Dietrich von Barloewen: History of the Teutons up to 376 AD. In: ders. (Ed.): Abriss der Geschichte - Antike Randkulturen . Munich 1961, pp. 41-44.
Thomas F. Carney: Marius' choice of battlefield in the campaign of 101 . In: Athenaeum . 36: 229-237 (1958).
Erich Koestermann: The train of the Cimbri . In: Gymnasium . 76: 310-329 (1969).
Johannes Kromayer , Georg Veith : Army and warfare of the Greeks and Romans. ( Handbook of Classical Studies IV, 3, 2). Munich 1928.
RG Lewis: Catulus and the Cimbri 102 BC In: Hermes . 102: 90-109 (1974).
Rainer Loose : Cimbri on the Brenner? In: Chiron . 2 (1972), pp. 231-252.
Franz Miltner : The Germanic attack on Italy 102/101 BC Chr. In: Klio . 33 (1940), pp. 289-307.
Theodor Mommsen : Roman history. 14th edition. Berlin 1934. ( online )
Jules van Ooteghem: Caius Marius . Brussels 1964, pp. 215-231.
Emil Sadée: The strategic connections of the Cimbrian War 101 BC From the invasion of Veneto to the battle of Vercellae . In: Klio. 33 (1940).
Karl Völkl : How strong were the Cimbri at Vercellae (101 BC)? In: Anzeiger für die Altarwissenschaft . 6 (1953), pp. 253-256.
Karl Völkl: On the tactical course of the battle of Vercellae 101 BC Chr. In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie . 97 (1953), pp. 253-256. ( online, PDF )
Jacopo Zennari: I Vercelli dei Celti nella valle Padana e l'invasione Cimbrica della Venezia . In: Annali della biblioteca governativa e libreria civica di Cremona . 4, Fasc. 3 (1951), pp. 1-78.

Web links

"The Cimbri and Teutons migrate"
Chapters 11 - 27 from the Marius biography by Plutarch ( Memento from 23 August 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

↑ According to Plutarch , Marius , 25 Marius deliberately placed the troops in this way, in the hope that the columns of the enemy should throw themselves especially on the wings and flanks, so that the victory would only be attributed to his soldiers, but Catulus would not take part in the battle , could still attack because the center, as is usually the case with a large front, would be deepened. Catulus himself is said to have pointed this out in his defense and accused Marius of malicious deception against him.
↑ [1] . Duden online, accessed on June 25, 2013.

[1] According to Plutarch , Marius , 25 Marius deliberately placed the troops in this way, in the hope that the columns of the enemy should throw themselves especially on the wings and flanks, so that the victory would only be attributed to his soldiers, but Catulus would not take part in the battle , could still attack because the center, as is usually the case with a large front, would be deepened. Catulus himself is said to have pointed this out in his defense and accused Marius of malicious deception against him.

[2] [1] . Duden online, accessed on June 25, 2013.