[Sidenote: Plan of the invaders.] The plan of the invaders was that one body, consisting of the Teutones, Ambrones, and Tugeni, should descend into Italy on the west, the Cimbri on the east. Whence the Teutones had come to join the Cimbri we do not know. They joined them in South Gaul. [Sidenote: The Ambrones.] The Ambrones may have been a clan of the Helvetii, as the Tugeni were. [Sidenote: Plan of Marius.] Marius waited for the western division at the confluence of the Isara and the Rhone, near the spot where Fabius had defeated the Arverni, his object being to command the two main roads into Italy, over the Little St. Bernard and along the coast. He did not follow the example of his old commander Scipio Aemilianus, in expelling soothsayers from his camp; for he had a Syrian woman, named Martha, with him to foretell the future. The soldiers had their own pet superstitions. They had caught two vultures, put rings on their necks and let them go, and so knew them again as they hovered over the army. When the barbarians reached the camp they tried to storm it. But they were beaten back, and then for six days they filed past with taunting questions, whether the Romans had any messages to send their wives. Marius cautiously followed, fortifying his camp nightly. They were making for the coast-road; and as they could not have taken their wagons along it, they were marching, as Marius had seen, to their own destruction. His strategy was masterly, for he was winning without fighting; but accident brought on an engagement. [Sidenote: Scene of the battle of Aquae Sextiae.] East of Aquae Sextiae (the modern Aix) Marius had occupied a range of hills, one of which is to this day called Sainte Victoire. The Arc flowed below. The soldiers wanted water, and Marius told his men that they might get it there if they wanted it, for he wished to accustom them to the barbarians' mode of fighting. Some of the barbarians were bathing; and on their giving the alarm, others came up, and a battle began. The first shock was between the Ambrones and Ligurians. The Romans supported the latter, and the Ambrones fled across the Arc to the wagons, where the women, assailing both pursuers and pursued with yells and blows, were slain with the men. So ended the first day's fight.