Marius remained inert, and observed the enemy cross the Rhone
without making an effort to prevent the passage, to the surprise and
indignation of his troops. The barbarians in vain attempted to draw him
into an engagement. Then they defiled along the Roman road to the north
of Les Alpines, passing under the palisades of the camp, shouting
derisively, “We are on our way to Rome! Have you any messages for your
wives and children?” Six days were spent in the march past.
With difficulty Marius restrained his men. Only when the last of the
Ambrons, who brought up the rear, had gone by did Marius break up his
camp. He had along with him his wife, Julia, and a Syrian sorceress
named Martha. This woman, gorgeously attired, wearing a mitre, covered
with chains of gold, and holding a javelin hung with ribbons, was
now produced before the soldiery, and, falling into an ecstasy, she
prophesied victory to the Roman arms. Marius now moved east, following
the horde, keeping, however, to the high ground, the summit of the
limestone cliffs, and he came suddenly upon the Ambrons at Les Milles,
four miles to the south of Aix. At this point red sandstone heights
stand above the little river Are, and from under the rocks ooze
innumerable streams. Here the Ambrons were bathing, when the Roman
legionaries appeared above.
Marius saw that the Ambrons had become detached from the Teutons,
who were pushing on to Aix. He had now no occasion to restrain his
soldiers, who poured down the hill and cut the enemy to pieces.
Then he thrust on in pursuit of the Teutons. He knew the ground
thoroughly. The road beyond Aix ran through a basin—a plain bordered
by mountain heights, those on the north sheer precipices of yellow and
pink limestone, those on the south not abrupt, and clothed with coppice
and box shrubs. He detached Claudius Marcellus to make a circuit to
the north of the limestone range, with the cavalry, and to take up a
position where the road emerges from the basin, at its eastern limit.
He, with the main body of his army, by forced marches outstripped the
Teutons, be moving to the south, out of sight in the brushwood, and
came out where stands now the town of Trets. Thence he advanced down
the slope towards the plain, which is red as blood with sandstone and
clay, and where were tile works, Ad Tegulata. The Teutons had already
encamped, when they saw the Romans. An engagement at once began. Whilst
it was in progress, Marcellus came down in their rear with his cavalry.
The result was a rout and a slaughter. Few were spared among the
fighting men. Over 100,000 were slaughtered or made prisoners. Their
wives and children, their camp, and all their plunder, fell to the
victors. So great was the carnage, that the putrefying remains of the
Germans gave to the spot the name of Campi Putridi, now corrupted into
Pourrières.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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