By what route these barbarians crossed the Alps on their march to invade north-eastern Italy there has been as much discussion as over the question of the original inhabitants of Tyrol. And, although the event to which we refer occurred scarcely a century prior to the conquest of Tyrol by the Romans there is little information other than of a speculative character to throw light upon the question at issue. For many years the weight of opinion was in favour of the contention that the Cimbri entered Southern Tyrol and eventually reached the Venetian plains by the Reschen Scheideck and the Vintschgau, but the later researches of Mommsen have served to give additional, if not absolutely conclusive, weight to the view that the Brenner was the route taken by the Cimbri[1] on their way southward from their Germanic fastnesses, just as it was undoubtedly the route, but, of course, reversed, chosen by the Romans under Drusus by which to enter Tyrol on their march of conquest. One piece of evidence which would appear to be of considerable weight, and as conclusively favouring Mommsen's view, is the fact that the Brenner route forms not only the one of lowest altitude, but also the only one by which the whole Alpine system and its parallel chains can be crossed by passing over one chain alone, and in no other spot in the range do two valleys on either side cut so far into the centre of the principal chain of the Alps. Moreover, from Plutarch's "Marius" one learns the spot where the Roman general, Quintus Lutatius Catullus, and his legions, which were sent from panic-stricken Rome to check the advance of the invaders, first encountered the Cimbri on the banks of the River Adige between Verona and near the foot of the Brenner. The encounter ended in the triumph of the host of skin-clad invaders who descended the snow-slopes of the mountains with an onslaught so terrible that even the trained and well-armed hosts of Rome had to give way before them. But the power of Rome was not easily shaken, and the triumph of the Cimbri was but brief. Their southward march was destined very soon to meet with so severe a check that further advance on Rome, or into the heart of Italy, was rendered impossible. In 101 B.C., the year following their appearance in the beautiful province of Venetia, where they created, so historians tell us, a terrible panic, the Roman arms triumphed at Vercelli, when the invaders, led by Bojorich, suffered a crushing defeat in one of the bloodiest battles ever fought, in which it is said 320,000 were slain, and were driven out of Italy.