Caius Marius and the Great Battle

It was still early when I had finished with these sights and took the long straight road to Trets on my way to Aix. The sky was very clear and cold, and the country was flat and open. For a long time, whenever I looked back, I could see the great church standing up across the plain, and it was a long time before I ceased thinking about it.

But gradually another interest began to take its place, for I was passing through country where scenes had been enacted that changed the current of history long before the legend of which my mind had been full had had its beginning. Indeed, centuries were to elapse before the legend was to emerge out of the twilight of rumour and tradition and to rest upon documentary evidence, and yet the one story seems to go back to the dim ages of history while the other far earlier one is as plain in its main facts as if it were of yesterday. For it is of the Roman occupation of this country, and our feet are on the solid rock of history.

After two thousand years, the name of the great deliverer, Caius Marius, is still alive in Provence. Twice alive, indeed, if the very legend of the Marys which permeates the country can be traced back to the tradition of the Marii, of which there seems little doubt. But to that we shall come when we visit Les Baux and the monuments there.

In the year 102 b.c. Caius Marius gained a great victory over the Ambrons and Teutons at a spot between Saint-Maximin and Trets which I was to pass that morning. It was one of the decisive battles of the world, and to judge by the number of the slain one of the fiercest. You may read all about it in Plutarch, and here on the very spot you may follow the details of the parallel march of the Romans and the barbarians until they came to the place of the great slaughter, with recognition at every step, finding indeed here and there actual traces of the battle itself. Certain doubtful points have been cleared up and the story told by the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, who went over the whole ground, Plutarch in hand, and published his results in a chapter of his interesting book, "In Troubadour Land."

In the year 113 b.c. the northern frontiers of Italy were threatened by a vast horde of barbarians, of whom the chief were the Cimbri and the Teutons. They did not, however, cross the Alps, but swept westwards into Gaul, carrying with them other tribes, among whom were the Ambrons.

They reached the RhÔne three years afterwards and defeated the governor of the Roman province. Three successive consuls were sent against them from Rome, and were also defeated. Their chiefs exalted by success consulted as to whether they should march into Italy and exterminate or enslave the Romans, but although they devastated the province they could not yet make up their minds to march upon Rome.

The Cimbri divided from the rest and poured into Spain, which they ravaged. A few years later they returned, and it was now decided to invade Italy. The Cimbri were to enter it by way of the Brenner Pass, the Teutons and Ambrons by the Maritime Alps.

The menace of the barbarians had been hanging over Rome for ten years, and the utmost consternation now prevailed. Marius was despatched into Provence, as the only man who could cope with the danger there. The barbarian horde had not yet reached the RhÔne on their eastward march, but were moving slowly in that direction, and Marius had a winter in which to organize the demoralized Roman troops and to choose his positions.

In the spring, when the grass had grown enough to provide food for their horses and oxen, the barbarians put themselves in motion. Marius left the Cimbri to take their agreed-upon route to the north-east, and waited for the Teutons and Ambrons. He allowed them to cross the RhÔne, and they drew up before his fortified camp at St. Gabriel on the westernmost spur of the Alpilles, and shouted defiance and insult to his troops. But he restrained the Romans from attacking them. Their ambition, he told them, should not now be for triumphs and trophies but to dispel the dreadful storm that hung over them and to save Italy itself from destruction.

The barbarians made a half-hearted attack upon the Roman camp, which was easily repulsed, and then moved on. It was said that though they moved forward without pause it took them six days to pass the camp, so vast were their numbers. They were indeed nations and not only armies on the march. The cumbrous house-wagons with which they moved were their homes, for their wives and families were with them, and none had been left behind.

The hot-blooded Romans were by now inured to their insults, one of which was to shout the question whether they had any commands for their wives in Italy, for they would shortly be with them. One can picture them sulkily watching from the high ground, where they were encamped, the interminable rabble moving on day after day, and wondering whether they would ever end. But directly the barbarians had passed Marius struck camp and followed them, not by the straight Roman road which they had taken along the valley, but by the heights to the south, and observed all their movements, himself out of sight.

At Aix the Ambrons detached themselves from their allies to make a descent upon Marseilles. Marius had fixed upon a hill for his camp at Les Milles, four miles to the south of Aix. It was unexceptionable in point of strength, but afforded little water. By this circumstance, says Plutarch, they tell us he wanted to excite his soldiers to action, and when many of them complained of thirst he pointed to the river Arc, which ran close by the enemy's camp, and told them that thence they must buy water with their blood.

It was this lack of water that precipitated the contest. The soldiers obeyed the order first of all to fortify their camp, but the servants of the army could not be restrained from going down to the river for water. Some of the enemy were bathing in the hot springs that well up in this place, others were eating. These were cut off by the camp-followers, others came to their assistance, and the Roman soldiers rushed down from the hill to rescue their servants. The engagement became general, and the Ambrons were beaten with great loss, the river being choked with their dead.

This was a good beginning, but the Romans spent the night in fear of attack, for their camp was not yet fortified. "There remained yet many myriads of the barbarians unconquered; and such of the Ambrons as escaped mixing with them, a cry was heard all night not like the sighs and groans of men, but like the howling and bellowing of wild beasts. As this came from such an innumerable host the neighbouring mountains and the hollow banks of the river returned the sound, and the horrid din filled all the plains. The Romans felt a sense of terror, and Marius himself was filled with apprehension at the idea of a tumultuous night engagement."

Fortunately, however, the barbarians did not attack, but after a day and a night moved on and joined the Teutons, who were passing along the road to the north of the river Arc. At this point Plutarch's narrative becomes confused, for he does not effectually distinguish the fields of the two battles, which were fought two days apart. It is here that Mr. Baring-Gould's careful investigations are valuable in elucidating the narrative.

The barbarians halted at the Roman station Tegulata, now the hamlet of La Petite PugÈre, a day's march from Aix. Marius crossed the river and kept to the south of it till he reached Trets. At his rear he had a fortified camp on Mount Olympus, to the north of the barbarians was another fortified Roman camp, Panis AnnonÆ, still called Pain de Munition. To this he had sent the day before an officer with three thousand men, who had made their way to it protected by the range of Mont Victoire. His plan must have been made long before, from a careful consideration of the route the enemy was likely to take, and the commanding positions fortified and provisioned. The barbarians were in a trap, but did not yet know it.

In the morning the enemy awoke to see the bulk of the Roman army drawn up on the slope of a hill to the south of their camp. They could not contain their impatience until the army advanced into the plain, and received their first setback by rushing up to attack it. Marius sent his officers among the troops with orders to stand still and await the onslaught. When the enemy was within reach they were to throw their javelins, and then, sword in hand, press them down with their shields. He knew that the slope was so slippery that the blows of the enemy would be delivered with no great force and that they could not keep any close order.

When this attack had been repulsed the Romans crossed the river and fell upon the main body of the enemy, who was beginning to form again. But at the same time the ambushed troops descended from Panis AnnonÆ in the rear, and panic seized the barbarians. The slaughter was terrific. Plutarch gives the number of killed as a hundred thousand of the enemy alone. Some accounts double the number, and give that of the prisoners as another eighty thousand. It is said also that three hundred thousand of the camp-followers and women were either killed or sold into slavery. It was the extermination not of an army but of a nation.

So frightful was the carnage that the field of battle was known as Campi Putridi, and the neighbouring village is still called PourriÈres. It was said that the inhabitants of Marseilles walled in their vineyards with the bones they found in the field, and that the rain which fell the winter following soaked in the moisture of the putrefied bodies and the ground was so enriched by it that it bore a prodigious crop.

"After the battle, Marius selected from among the arms and other spoils such as were elegant and entire, and likely to make the greatest show in his triumph. The rest he piled together, and offered as a splendid sacrifice to the gods. The army stood round the pile, crowned with laurel; and himself, arrayed in his purple robe, and girt after the manner of the Romans, took a lighted torch. He had just lifted it up with both hands towards heaven, and was about to set fire to the pile, when some friends were seen galloping towards him. Great silence and expectation followed. When they were come near, they leaped from their horses and saluted Marius as consul for the fifth time, delivering him letters to the same purpose. This added great joy to the solemnity, which the soldiers expressed by acclamations and by clanking their arms; and while the officers were presenting Marius with new crowns of laurel, he set fire to the pile and finished the sacrifice."[6]

How different from the sort of corroboration brought to bear upon the later Christian history of Provence is the fact that the spot on which this great holocaust took place two thousand years ago has lately been identified by the ashes, melted lead and other metals, and fragments of burnt pottery discovered there!

Here also was erected a monument to Marius, which existed in its entirety up to the time of the Revolution, and was then partially destroyed, one would like to know why. And here was found some five and twenty years ago a beautiful Greek marble statue of Venus Victrix, but without head and arms, which is now in the museum at Avignon. Mr. Baring-Gould considers that this proves that the monument was raised by Julius CÆsar, for there would be 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."

On the top of Mount Victoire, which overlooks the scene of the terrific battle, a temple was erected and dedicated to Venus Victrix. This became a Christian church, and Venus Victrix became St. Victoire. Right up to the time of the Revolution the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages ascended the mountain on March 23rd, bearing boughs of box and shouting "Victoire! Victoire!" and Mass was celebrated. Then a bonfire was lit, and the peasants with garlands on their heads danced the farandole round it. The beautiful ancient music to which the peasants made their progress is still preserved; so hard does tradition die in this land of long memories.

I should have liked to make a stay at Trets, and to explore this country. There is so much to see in connection with the battle—the ruins of the church on Mont Victoire, the ruins of the trophy on the field itself, the traces of the fortifications on the Pain de Munition, and perhaps the very hill slope of slippery marl upon which the Romans first bore back the attacking enemy. But I wanted to get on to Aix, the first large ProvenÇal city in my itinerary, and thence to Arles and NÎmes and the rest of the beautiful places that are like a cluster of jewels in the country's diadem. So I contented myself with identifying the mountain heights which played their part in that grim struggle twenty centuries ago.

There was the great range running parallel to the road on the south, with Mount Aurelian rising up and overlooking Saint-Maximin, and Mount Olympus due south from the field of battle. There was the bold rampart of Mont Victoire away to the north, and the hills among which is the Pain de Munition, on the other side of the plain on which the battle was fought. I could picture it alive with the tents and wagons of the vast horde of barbarians, so soon to be exterminated, and then strewn with their dead or mangled bodies. I knew that I was looking upon the same everlasting hills as those thousands upon thousands of dying eyes looked upon centuries ago; and there was more of a thrill in that than in the sight of the blackened skull in the church of Saint-Maximin.

For this mighty conflict happened here, without a doubt, and the plain and the hills upon which our eyes look today were a part of the happening. There is something for the imagination to rest and work upon.