In Troubadour-Land/Chapter X
THE CAMPAIGN OF MARIUS.
- The Trémaïé—Representation of C. Marius, Martha, and Julia—The Gaïé—The Teutons and Ambrons and Cimbri threaten Italy—C. Marius sent against them—His camp at S. Gabriel—The canal he cut—The barbarians cross the Rhone—First brush with them—They defile before him at Orgon—The rout of the Ambrons at Les Milles—He follows the Teutons—The plain of Pourrières—Position of Marius—The battle—Slaughter of the Teutons—Position of their camp—Monument of Marius—Venus Victrix—Annual commemoration.
The two oldest and most interesting monuments of Les Baux have been unnoticed in the last chapter. These are the sculptured stones of Trémaïé and Gaïé. They are two limestone blocks fallen from the precipices above, lying on the flounce of rubble near the bottom of the promontory of Les Baux, the one on the east the other on the south. That on the east, La Trémaïé, consists of a block of shell-limestone about twenty-five feet high, in which, twelve feet from the soil, is sculptured a semicircular headed niche, five and a half feet high by four and a half feet wide, that contains a group of three personages, a bearded man on the left of the observer, a tall woman in the centre wearing a mitre, and on the right another woman. At first glance, I confess I supposed this was a bit of sculpture of the eleventh century, but on climbing to the roof of the chapel erected beneath the niche, some forty-five years ago, I was able to examine the group minutely, and satisfied myself that the work is of the Classic period.
What gave me the first impression that it was of later date was the use of the honeysuckle ornament at the crown of the arch, and at the capitals of the pillars supporting it, which was adopted by architects of the eleventh century from Classic work. But on close examination I found that, not only were the figures dressed in pure Classic tunics and togas, but that the drapery is modelled in conformity with that of the same epoch, and is quite distinct from the modelling by the Mediæval artists. This is specially noticeable where the statues have been protected by the sides from weathering.
Moreover, below the figures is an inscription in letters, the date of which is unmistakable, though unfortunately it can be only partially deciphered. It runs:—
........F. CALDVS
.....AE POSVIT. P...
The three figures are life-size. The central one is very peculiar, owing to the mitre or diadem it wears, which, however, is utterly unlike the episcopal mitre of the eleventh century. Moreover, there is no doubt about the person wearing it being a female.
Popular belief, also, does not err as to her sex; it has made a mistake relative to that of the man on her right, and when some forty-five years ago the curé of Les Baux erected the chapel under the rock, he believed that these figures represented the Three Marys.
The man is in consular habit, the toga, neque fusa neque restricta, worn till the time of Augustus. His feet appear beneath the tunic. Unfortunately the face is too much weathered to present any features. Not so the tall, mitred central figure, whose right hand is raised, as is thought, to hold a staff wreathed with chaplets. Her mantle, the [Greek: himation], is clasped on the shoulder of her right arm. The third figure is that of a Roman matron.
Now it has been supposed, with a great degree of probability, that these three figures represent C. Marius, his wife Julia, and the prophetess Martha, who attended him in his campaign against the Teutons and Ambrons. Plutarch says: "He had with him a Syrian woman named Martha, who was said to have the gift of prophecy. She was carried about in a litter with great solemnity, and the sacrifices which he offered were all by her direction. When she went to sacrifice she wore a purple robe, lined with the same, and buttoned up, and held in her hand a spear adorned with ribands and garlands."
I confess that the staff with ribands and chaplets seen by some in this sculpture, were not distinguishable by myself. At the same time I was puzzled with certain ornaments below the raised hand of the diademed lady, which I could not explain. It is said that the staff is only visible when the morning sun strikes the weathered surface. It may be there—but I think that a fold of drapery has been mistaken for a staff. Yet—the wreath or buckle below her hand in such a case remains unaccounted for.
If these three figures represent Caius Marius, Martha, and Julia, then we can understand the name given the group—Les Trémaïés—the three Marii; Caius Marius, Martha Marii, and Julia Marii, which has since been altered into Les Trois 'Maries, and the figures assumed to be those of Mary the wife of Salome, Mary Magdalen, and Martha the sister of Mary. In the belief that such is the case, Mass is said in the chapel on the 25th of May, and there is a concourse of devotees assembled from the neighbourhood around the little chapel and memorial stone.
The second sculptured block lies about three hundred paces to the south, and is called Les Gaïé, i.e., Caii imagines. It resembles hundreds of similar Roman monuments to a husband and wife, found in the museums of Rome, Arles, Nimes, and Avignon.
Here also there is a niche, four feet wide by two feet four inches high. On the right of the observer is a bearded man holding a roll in his left hand, and with his right he clasps the right hand of his wife. He is in consular habit; unfortunately both heads have been damaged. At some time or other a Vandal thought that the upper portion of the block would serve his purpose as a step or threshold, and drove a crowbar into the face of the stone between the two heads, and split off the cap, thus exposing the sculpture to the ash of the rain.
Beneath the figures is an inscription no longer legible. It is possible that this monument may represent Caius Marius and his wife Julia. A somewhat lively French imagination has taken the figure of the man to be Martha with her staff and mitre, but I examined the sculpture under a favourable light, and satisfied myself that this figure is that of a man. The face was apparently struck by the crowbar, which has broken off a film of the limestone, and destroyed the nose.
The Caldus whose name appears on the Trémaïé is probably Caius Cælius Caldus, who belonged to the party of Marius, was created tribune B.C. 107, and who was one of the lieutenants of Marius in the war against the Cimbri, and signed a disgraceful treaty with the Ligurians to save the remnant of the army, after the death of the consul Cassius. He was named consul B.C. 97, and some medals struck by him exist. Possibly Caldus erected this monument in honour of Marius, who had made the platform of Les Baux and the range of the Alpines the vantage ground whence he watched the march of the Teutons and whence he swooped down to destroy them.
The great figure of Caius Marius overshadows the whole of Provence, and it is not possible for one who has any interest in the past not to feel its influence and be inspired by it. Stirred by the sight of these sculptures at Les Baux, I resolved to go over all the ground of his campaign, Plutarch in hand, and I venture to think that what I saw and discovered will not only interest the reader, but help to elucidate the history of that memorable struggle.
In the year B.C. 113, there appeared to the north of the Adriatic, on the right bank of the Danube, a vast horde of barbarians ravaging Noricum—the present Austria, and threatening Italy. Two nations prevailed, the Cimbri, Kaempir, i.e., warriors, perhaps Scandinavian, and the Teutons, pure Germans. They had come from afar, from the Cimbric peninsula, now Jutland and Holstein, driven from their homes by an irruption of the sea. For a while they roamed over Germany. The consul Papirius Carbo was despatched in all haste to defend the menaced frontier of Italy. The barbarians pleaded to be given lands on which to settle. Carbo treacherously attacked them, but was defeated. However, the hordes did not yet venture to cross the Alps. They inundated the Swiss valleys, and as they flowed west swept along with them other races, amongst which was that of the Ambrons, a German race, whose name meets us again as Sicambrians, of which stock later was Chlodovig (Clovis). When Clovis was about to enter the font, S. Remigius thus addressed him: "Bow thy head, haughty Sicambrian; adore what thou hast burned; burn what thou didst adore."
In the year B.C. 110 all together entered Gaul, and then, continuing their wanderings and ravages in central Gaul, at last reached the Rhone and menaced the Roman province. There, however, the fear of Rome arrested their progress; they applied anew for lands, but Silanus, the Governor, answered them haughtily, that the commonwealth had neither lands to give nor services to accept from barbarians. He attacked them and was defeated. Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servilius Cæpio, and Cn. Manlius, sent in all haste against them, successively experienced the same fate. With the barbarians victory bred presumption. Their chieftains met, and deliberated whether they should not forthwith cross into Italy and exterminate or enslave the Romans. Scaurus, a prisoner, was present at this deliberation. He laughed at the threat, and cried to his captors, "Go, but the Romans you will find are invincible." In a transport of fury one of the chiefs present ran him through with his sword. Howbeit the warning of Scaurus had its effect. The barbarians scoured the Roman province, but did not as yet dare to invade the sacred soil of the peninsula.
Then the Cimbri broke off from their comrades and passed into Spain, as an overswollen torrent divides, and disperses its waters in all directions.
After ravaging Spain, the Cimbri returned, and the re-united hordes resolved no longer to spare Italy. The Cimbri were to invade it by way of the Brenner pass and the Adige, the Teutons and Ambrons by the Maritime Alps.
The utmost terror prevailed in Rome, and throughout Italy. There was but one man, it was said, who could avert the danger. It was Marius, low-born, but already illustrious, esteemed by the senate for his military genius and successes; swaying at his will the people, who saw in him one of themselves; beloved and feared by the army for his bravery, his rigorous discipline, and for his readiness to share with his soldiers all toils, and dangers; stern and rugged, lacking education, eloquence, and riches, but resolute and dexterous in the field. His father had been a farmer, and his hands had been hardened in youth at the plough. But as a free-born Latin he had been called to serve in war, and his skill and genius had advanced him, from step to step. He was consul in Africa at the time when summoned to save his country from the danger threatening it from the barbarian hordes.
On reaching Provence, he found the soldiers demoralised by disaster, and with discipline relaxed. The barbarians had not as yet reached the Rhone, they were moving east slowly, and during the winter remained stationary. He had therefore time to organise his troops and choose his positions.
Now the old Græco-Phoenician road along the coast, that had been restored by the consul Cn. Domitius, and thenceforth bore his name, deserted the coast as it approached the mouths of the Rhone, the region of morasses, stony deserts, lagoons, and broad streams; kept to the heights, and reached Nimes, whence, still skirting lagoons, it ran along the high ground of limestone to Beaucaire. The Rhone was crossed to Tarascon, and thence the road followed the Durance up to Orgon, where it branched; one road to the left went to Apt, and crossed the Alps into Italy by Pont Genèvre, the other turned south to Aix and Marseilles. The road, afterwards called the Aurelian way, led from Aix up the river Are, over a low col to S. Maximin, and reached the coast by the valley of the Argens, that flows into the sea at Fréjus. It was a little doubtful to Marius which course the barbarians would pursue. Accordingly he formed a strong camp at Ernaginum, now S. Gabriel, at the extreme limit of the chain of the Alpines, to the west.
Almost certainly all the inhabitants of Arles, Tarascon, Glanum, and Cavaillon, all Græco-Gaulish towns, took refuge on the plateau of the limestone hills. The barbarians could not go south of the Alpines, because the whole region was desert, or was covered with lagoons. In order to victual his camp, Marius set his soldiers to work to convey a branch of the Durance[1] past Ernaginum into the lagoons below, and he cut a channel of communication between these lagoons, and opened a mouth into the sea through the Etang de Galéjon. By this means vessels from Rome or Marseilles could reach the walls of his camp with supplies.
In the spring of 102 B.C. the Teutons and Ambrons packed their tents and began to move east. The grass had grown sufficiently to feed their horses and oxen. Marius allowed them to traverse the Rhone without offering resistance; and they began their march along the road that ran at the foot of the precipitous Alpines.
They soon appeared, "in immense numbers," says Plutarch, "with their hideous looks and their wild cries," drawing up their chariots, and planting their tents in front of the Roman camp. They showered upon Marius and his soldiers continual insult and defiance. The Romans, in their irritation, would fain have rushed out of their camp, but Marius restrained them. "It is no question," said he, with his simple and convincing common sense, "of gaining triumphs and trophies, but of averting this storm of war and of saving Italy."
A Teuton chief came one day up to the very gates of the camp, and challenged him to fight. Marius had him informed that if he were weary of life, he could go and hang himself. As the barbarian still persisted, Marius sent him a gladiator.
However, he made his soldiers, in regular succession, mount guard on the ramparts, to get them familiarised with the cries, appearance, and weapons of the barbarians. The most distinguished of his officers, young Sertorius, a man whose tragic story is, itself, a romance, and who understood and spoke Gallic well, penetrated in the disguise of a Gaul into the camp of the Ambrons, and informed Marius of what was going on there.
At last, the barbarians, in their impatience, having vainly attempted to storm the Roman camp at Ernaginum, struck their own, and put themselves in motion towards the Alps.
Marius followed them along the heights, out of reach, ready to rush down on their rear, observant of their every movement. They reached Orgon. There the limestone precipices rise as walls sheer above the plain, now crowned by a church and a couple of ruined castles. It was probably from this point that Marius watched the hordes defile past. For six whole days, it is said, their bands flowed before the Roman position. The Teutons looked up at the military on the cliffs and flung at them the insolent question: "Have you any messages for your wives in Italy? We shall soon be with them."
The soldiers, still restrained by Marius, waited till all had passed, and then the general struck his camp, and crossing the dip at Lamanon, where the overspill of the Durance had once carried its rolled stones into the Crau, he regained the heights on the farther side of the Touloubre, at Pelissanne, the ancient Pisavis.
Still keeping to the heights, now of red sandstone, Marius again came on the barbarians at Les Milles, four miles to the south of Aix. He had observed all their movements, and had seen that the Ambrons had detached themselves from the Teutons at Aix, so as to make a descent on Marseilles. Possibly Aix had been given up to ravage by the Teutons, and the Ambrons were bidden find their spoil in Marseilles. At Les Milles the red sandstone cliff stands above the Are, which makes here a sweep, leaving a green meadow in the loop. Here, from under the rocks ooze forth countless streams; some were, like those at Aix, hot;[2] now I will again quote Plutarch. "Here Marius pitched on a place for his camp, unexceptionable in point of strength, but affording little water; and when his soldiers complained of thirst, he pointed to the river that flowed by the enemy's camp, and told them, 'that they must thence purchase water with their blood.' 'Why then,' said they, 'do you not immediately lead us thither, before our blood is quite parched?' To which he replied, in a milder tone, 'So I will; but first of all let us fortify our camp.'
"The soldiers, though with some reluctance, obeyed. But the camp-followers, being in great want of water for themselves and their cattle, ran in crowds to the stream, some with pick-axes, some with hatchets, and some with swords and javelins, along with their pitchers; for they were resolved to have water, even if forced to fight for it. These were, at first, encountered by only a small party of the enemy; for of the main body, some, having bathed, were engaged at dinner, and others were still bathing, the country there abounding in hot wells. This gave the Romans a chance of cutting off a number of them, while they were indulging themselves in these delightful baths. Their cry brought others to their assistance, so that now it was no longer possible for Marius to restrain the impetuosity of his soldiers, who were uneasy for the fate of their servants. Besides, these were the Ambrons, who had defeated Manlius and Cæpio, that they saw before them." The contest became general. The Ambrons rushed across the river, yelling "Ambra! Ambra!" their war-cry, which was at once retorted on them by a body of auxiliaries in the Roman camp, who heard their own cry and name. After a furious engagement, the Romans remained victors, the little river Are being choked with the bodies of the barbarians.
Those who retreated to their camp were pursued by the Romans. There the women, with loud cries, armed themselves, and made a desperate resistance, catching at the swords with their naked hands, and suffering themselves to be hacked to pieces.
The night was spent by the Romans in some alarm, for though they had defeated their foes and penetrated to their camp, yet they had not time to fortify their own position; and they dreaded lest the Ambrons should make head during the night, call the Teutons to their assistance, and charge up the hill. "A cry was heard from the defeated Ambrons all through the night, not like the sighs and groans of men, but like the howling and bellowing of wild beasts."
Two days after this a second and decisive battle ensued. The narrative in Plutarch is a little confused, and it is only by familiarity with the sites that the whole story becomes unfolded clearly before us. Thus, it is only on the spot that one sees how it was that Marius, striking from the chain of the Alpines, came up over against the Ambrons on the hill above Les Milles, and how he pursued his course thence. Plutarch, though he speaks of the two battles, does not distinguish the sites effectually.
The Teutons, as already said, were making their way east from Aix. The road ran through the broad basin of the Are; to the north rise, precipitously, the bald white precipices of the limestone Mont Victoire, to the height of 3,000 feet, with not a ledge on the sides where a shrub can find root. Between these cliffs and the plain are, however, two low sandstone ridges, the higher of which forms an arc, and dives into the wall of Mont Victoire, about half way through the plain. On the southern side of the river are low hills; at the extreme north-east is a conical green hill named Pain de Munition, which is fortified much like the Hereford Beacon, with walls in concentric rings. To the south-east is the chain of Mont Aurelien, and there, on the Mont Olympe, is another fortified position, beneath which is the town of Trets, an ancient Roman settlement.
Now the barbarians followed the road on the north side of the river Are, to the Roman station on it named Tegulata, the first station out of Aix, their numbers swelled by the discomfited Ambrons. Marius, however, being at Les Milles, crossed the river, and kept to the south side of it till he reached Trets. Then he had a fortified position in his rear, the camp of Mont Olympe; moreover, the barbarians were encamped on three tofts of red sandstone on the north side of the river, at the station Tegulata, with, at their back, the Roman fortified position of Panis Annonæ, now called Pain de Munition, where one may conjecture Marius had his stores and reserves. They were probably unaware of the trap into which they had walked. Marius, however, had despatched on the day before Claudius Marcellus, with three thousand men, up the long valley of the Infernet, to the north side of Mont Victoire, so as to reach and strengthen the fortress of Panis Annonæ, and secure his stores, and next day to descend the height and fall on the rear of the enemy.
The slopes along which Marius marched were probably well-wooded, and he was unobserved by the Teutons.
They had spent one whole day in pacing along the straight flat Roman road under Mont Victoire. As they approached the station Tegulata, a singular blood-red splash on the white sides of Mont Victoire emerged from behind the lower wooded sandstone road, a signal of warning to them that they were approaching a place of peril. Moreover, the sandstone deepened in colour, till at Tegulata the little streams that oozed from under the sandstone ran like blood about their feet. Of these they could not drink, therefore they halted at Tegulata, where they again reached the river, and where there was a bridge; they there encamped on the three tofts already mentioned, the surfaces of which are of hard, dry, yellow sandstone, superposed on beds of friable red sand. Here the river flowed sparkling and clear, and supplied them with what water they required. Everything points to this spot as their camp. It is one day's march from Aix. It is the first point at which drinkable water is reached. The sandstone tofts stand up above the plain, then undrained and marshy, as a dry base for their tents. Finally, the monument of Marius is opposite them, on the farther side of the river.
In the meantime the Romans had approached from the south, from Trets, making a slight détour, following the tactics of Marius as before, to keep to the south of the horde, and with now a river between him and them. At Trets the ground inclines from south to north, with a broken edge of sandstone—invisible from the river, serving as a screen behind which troops could be massed unperceived. Here it was, I suspect, that Marius passed that spring night, the second after the defeat of the Ambrons. The broken edge of sandstone is not eighteen feet high. From the top the ground slopes down for a mile, and then ensues a gully cut in the sandstone by a small blood-red confluent of the Are. Another mile, or mile and a half beyond, is the river, and close to the river, on the farther bank, was the camp of the Teutons.
On the morning of the 23rd March[3] the Roman cavalry were discovered by the Teutons drawn up on the slope.
"On seeing this, unable to contain themselves," says Plutarch, "nor stay till the Romans were come down into the plain, they armed themselves hastily and advanced up the hill. Marius sent officers throughout the army, with orders that they should await the onslaught of the enemy. When the barbarians were within reach, the Romans were to hurl their javelins, then draw their swords, and advance, pressing the enemy back by their shields. For the place was so slippery that the enemy's blows could have little weight, nor could they preserve close order, where the declivity of the ground made them lose their balance." One can see exactly where this took place, it was where the confluent of the Are formed a natural protection to the position of the Romans; the hollow cut in the greasy red marl was too insignificant to prevent the Teutons from attempting to pass it, but was sufficient to break their order, and to give the Romans the first advantage over them.
Having driven back the assailants, the Romans now crossed the natural moat and bore down on the Teutons. At the same moment the well-designed manoeuvre of Marius, in despatching Marcellus to the fort on Panis Annonæ, produced its result. Marcellus had descended the hill, screened by the trees, and had suddenly fallen on the rear of the camp of the Teutons.
Thus attacked, both in front and in the rear, the barbarians were seized with panic. A frightful carnage ensued. No quarter was given. Women and children were mown down; the dogs furiously defending their masters' bodies were also slaughtered.
"After the battle, Marius selected from among the arms and other spoils such as were elegant and entire, and likely to make the most brilliant show in his triumph. The rest he piled together, and offered them as a splendid sacrifice to the gods. The army stood around the hill crowned with laurel; and he himself, arrayed in a purple robe, girt after the manner of the Romans, held a lighted torch. He had just raised it with both hands towards heaven, and was about to set fire to the pyre, when some men were seen approaching at a gallop. Great silence and expectation followed. On their coming up, they leaped from their horses and saluted him with the title of Consul for the fifth time, and presented letters to the same purport. This added joy to the solemnity, which the soldiers expressed by acclamations and by clanking of arms; and, while the officers were presenting Marius with new crowns of laurel, he set fire to the pile, and finished the sacrifice."
According to some accounts the number of Teutons slain numbered two hundred thousand, and that of the prisoners is stated to have been eighty thousand. The most moderate computation of the slain is fixed at one hundred thousand. In any case the carnage was great, for the battle-field, where all the corpses rested without burial, rotting in the sun and rain, got the name of Campi Putridi, the Fields of Putrefaction, a name still traceable in that of Pourrières, the neighbouring village.
On the site of the battle, on the south bank of the river, over against the camp of the enemy, where also was the pyre in which the waggons, chariots, arms and vesture of the invaders was consumed, a monument to Marius was erected, which was tolerably perfect before the French Revolution, but which now presents a mass of ruins. It consists of a quadrangular block of masonry, measuring fifteen feet on each side, within an enclosing wall fourteen feet distant. This quadrangular block sustained a pyramid, with statues at the angles, as it still figures upon the arms of the Commune and on some Renaissance tapestry in a neighbouring château. Here, three or four years ago, was found a beautiful statue in Parian marble of Venus Victrix, unfortunately without head and arms, but quite of the best Greek workmanship. The city of Avignon bought it of the proprietor of the field for one thousand eight hundred francs, and it is now one of the principal ornaments of the Avignon Museum. The statue, to my mind, proves that this monument was raised by Julius Cæsar; there is an indirect compliment to his own family in it. Venus was the ancestress of the Julian race, and Cæsar perhaps insinuated, if he erected the statue, that the success of Marius was due to the patronage of the divine ancestress and protectress of the Julian race, and of Julius Cæsar's aunt, the wife of Marius, quite as much as to the genius in war of Marius himself.
We know, moreover, that the trophies erected to Marius for his Cimbric and Teutonic victories were overthrown by Sulla, and that they were re-erected by Julius Cæsar in A.D. 65.
The anniversary of the battle was annually celebrated in a little temple dedicated to Venus Victrix on the apex of Mont Victoire, that overhangs the plain.
When Provence became Christian the temple was converted into a chapel, Venus Victrix became transformed into S. Victoria; and the procession remained unaltered, the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages ascended the mountain bearing boughs of box, which they waved and shouted "Victoire! Victoire!" On reaching the chapel, Mass was celebrated. This took place annually on March 23rd till the Revolution, when the chapel was suffered to fall into ruin. I was on the battlefield on the day which is traditionally held to have been that when this decisive battle took place. A brilliant day. The frogs were croaking in the marshes and dykes, the tones of some like the cawing of young rooks. The ground was strewn with grape-hyacinth, and white star of Bethlehem, the rocks were covered with rosemary in pale grey bloom, the golden chains of the broom waving over the blood-red sandstone rocks.
That the tradition is correct, or approximately so, I think probable, for towards the end of March would be the suitable time for the barbarians to set themselves in motion for the invasion of Italy. Sufficient grass could be had for their horses and cattle, and they would desire to reach the plains of Italy before the great summer heats.
I talked a good deal to peasants working in the fields. They were all of one mind as to where the battle had raged—from north to south, they said, between Trets and Pourrières. The tradition is only worth anything in that it is based on the fact that along this line the greatest amount of weapons has been turned up by the spade, and pick, and plough.[4] A French writer, referred to in the footnote, says that if a little rill trickling into the Are be examined where it flows in, opposite the monument of Marius, the banks will be found at first to be full of broken Roman pottery, but if the course of the stream be pursued a little farther up it will be found to flow through beds of charcoal and molten masses of metal—clearly the site of the pyre raised by Marius. I accordingly searched the locality. I found the pottery, and picked out fragments of Samian ware; the bank is from three to nine feet deep in them. Farther on, I came, as M. Gilles said, to remains of charcoal and cinder. I was perplexed. I followed the stream farther up, and found that it crossed a road that was metalled for half a mile with cinder, and that the cinder lay on the road and on the road only. I instituted inquiries and ascertained that this was all brought from a steam mill a mile and a half off along this road. But though these remains of charcoal and scoria are not ancient, yet the little rill does ooze from the plateau on which I believe Marius raised the pyre. It is exactly opposite his monument, between his position and the Panis Annonæ, whence swept down Marcellus with his cavalry. It was the site at once of the camp and of the pyre. No remains could possibly be found on it of camp or pyre, as the sandstone is in constant disintegration, and the whole surface has been many times washed bare and renewed during the nineteen hundred and ninety-two years that have elapsed since the battle.
The story how Marius, having destroyed the hordes of Ambrons and Teutons, and secured Italy on the west, returned to the Peninsula, and finding that the Cimbri were streaming down from the north-east, met them near Vercellæ, and there defeated and slaughtered them also, I leave for other pens to describe. That battle took place on July 30th. ***
- I have given (ante) what may interest the musical reader,
the traditional march performed on the day of the battle of Pourrières, when the pilgrims ascended the mountain to return thanks for the victory of Marius.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ Plutarch says the Rhone, but he is almost certainly mistaken. The canal was afterwards probably that called Les Lonnes (lagunes), the dried-up bed of which can be distinguished in places still. The line from Tarascon to Arles runs beside it for a little way. See Appendix B.
- ↑ Whether so at present I am unable to state, not having been able to test them. All the hot springs have been reduced in temperature considerably since Roman times.
- ↑ My reason for fixing the day I shall give in the sequel.
- ↑ M. Gilles, "Campagne de Marius dans la Gaule," Paris, 1870, thinks that Marius pursued the Teutons along the Aurelian road, and that the battle was fought on the north side of the river. I do not hold this. The monument of Marius is on the south side, and I think he would naturally secure a fortified camp in his rear.