Cimbri, exhaufted and difpirited, were quickly routed. A precaution, which they had taken to prevent their being difperfed, only ferved to forward their ruin: they had linked the foldiers of the foremoft ranks to one another with chains; in thefe they were entangled, and thereby expofed the more to the blows of the Romans. Such as could fly, met with new dangers in their camp; for their women who fat upon their chariots, clothed in black, received them as enemies, and maffacred without diftinction their fa- thers, brothers and hufbands: they even car- ried their rage to fuch a height, as to dafh out the brains of their children; and compleated the tragedy, by throwing themfelves under their chariot wheels. After their example, their hufbands in defpair turned their arms againft one another, and feemed to join with the Romans in promoting their own defeat. In the dreadful flaughter of that day, a hundred and twenty thousand are faid to have perifhed; and if we except a few families of the Cimbri, which remain- ed in their own country, and a fmall num- ber who efcaped, one may fay, that this fierce and valiant nation was all mowed down at one fingle ftroke. This laft vic- tory procured Marius the honours of a triumph, and the services he thereby rendered the commonwealth appeared so great,
