[Sidenote: The Cimbri move off towards Spain.] But fortune helped the Romans more than all these precautions. The Cimbri, after wilfully destroying every vestige of the spoils they had taken, in fulfilment, probably, of some vow, wandered westward on a plundering raid towards the Pyrenees, the road thither having been lately provided, as it were, for them by Domitius. [Sidenote: Beaten back by Celtiberi, they are joined by the Teutones in South Gaul.] In the Celtiberi they met with foes who sold too dearly the little they had to lose, and again they surged back into South Gaul, where they were joined by the Teutones, and once more threatened Italy. [Sidenote: How the Romans had been occupied meanwhile.] But meantime the generals of the Republic had not been idle. Rutilius Rufus, the old comrade of Marius, had been diligently drilling troops, having engaged gladiators to teach them fencing. Probably Marius was engaged in the same work at the beginning of 104, and then went to South Gaul, where, as we hear of Sulla capturing the king of the Tectosages, he was no doubt collecting supplies and men, and suppressing all disaffection in the province. He also cut a canal from the Rhone, about a mile above its mouth, to a lake supposed to be now the Étang de l'Estouma; for alluvial deposits had made access to the river difficult, and he wanted the Rhone as a highway for his troops and commissariat. [Sidenote: Marius consul in 103 and 102 B.C.] In 103 he was made consul for the third time, and again in 102. And now he was ready to meet the invaders.