In Troubadour-Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc Part 10

Three consuls, L. Ca.s.sius, C. Servilius Caepio, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s and the Adige, the Teutons and Ambrons by the Maritime Alps.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Caius Marius. (_From a bust in the Vatican._)]

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 ill.u.s.trious, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Orgon and the Durance.]

Now the old Graeco-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 mora.s.ses, 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 Genevre, the other turned south to Aix and Ma.r.s.eilles. 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 Frejus. 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 Graeco-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 Galejon. By this means vessels from Rome or Ma.r.s.eilles could reach the walls of his camp with supplies.

[Footnote 1: Plutarch says the Rhone, but he is almost certainly mistaken.

The ca.n.a.l 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.]

In the spring of 102 B.C. the Teutons and Ambrons packed their tents and began to move east. The gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed, 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 Ma.r.s.eilles.

Possibly Aix had been given up to ravage by the Teutons, and the Ambrons were bidden find their spoil in Ma.r.s.eilles. 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; [1] 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.'

[Footnote 1: 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.]

"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 a.s.sistance, 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 Caepio, 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 a.s.sistance, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mont Victoire and the Plain of Pourrieres.]

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 Annonae_, 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 Annonae, 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 un.o.bserved 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sketch plan of the battle fields.]

In the meantime the Romans had approached from the south, from Trets, making a slight detour, 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 ma.s.sed unperceived. Here it was, I suspect, that Marius pa.s.sed 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 [1] the Roman cavalry were discovered by the Teutons drawn up on the slope.

[Footnote 1: My reason for fixing the day I shall give in the sequel.]

"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 s.h.i.+elds.

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 pa.s.s it, but was sufficient to break their order, and to give the Romans the first advantage over them.

Having driven back the a.s.sailants, 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 Annonae, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Monument of Marius, Position of Marius, Treta.]

"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 G.o.ds. 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 t.i.tle 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 Pourrieres, the neighbouring village.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Venus Victrix.]

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 ma.s.s 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 chateau. 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 workmans.h.i.+p. 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 princ.i.p.al ornaments of the Avignon Museum. The statue, to my mind, proves that this monument was raised by Julius Caesar; there is an indirect compliment to his own family in it. Venus was the ancestress of the Julian race, and Caesar 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 Caesar'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 Caesar 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, Ma.s.s 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 d.y.k.es, 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 gra.s.s could be had for their horses and cattle, and they would desire to reach the plains of Italy before the great summer heats.

[Ill.u.s.tration: March of S. Victoire (23rd March). Harmonised by F. W.

BUSSELL, Esq., M.A.]