Battle of Vercellae

The Battle of Vercellae, or Battle of the Raudine Plain, was fought on 30 July 101 BC on a plain near Vercellae in Gallia Cisalpina (modern day Northern Italy). A Germanic-Celtic confederation under the command of the Cimbric king Boiorix was defeated by a Roman army under the joint command of the consul Gaius Marius and the proconsul Quintus Lutatius Catulus. The battle marked the end of the Germanic threat to the Roman Republic. In 113 BC, a large migrating Germanic-Celtic alliance headed by the Cimbri and the Teutones entered the Roman sphere of influence. They invaded Noricum (located in present-day Austria and Slovenia) which was inhabited by the Taurisci people, friends and allies of Rome. The Senate commissioned Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, one of the consuls, to lead a substantial Roman army to Noricum to force the barbarians out. An engagement, later called the battle of Noreia, took place, in which the invaders completely overwhelmed the Roman Legions and inflicted a devastating loss on them. After the Noreia victory, the Cimbri and Teutones moved westward towards Gaul. In 109 BC, they moved along the Rhodanus River towards the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul. The Roman consul, Marcus Junius Silanus, was sent to take care of the renewed Germanic threat. Silanus marched his army north along the Rhodanus River to confront the migrating Germanic tribes. He met the Cimbri approximately 100 miles north of Arausio where a battle was fought and the Romans suffered another humiliating defeat. The Germanic tribes then moved to the lands north and east of Tolosa in south-western Gaul. To the Romans, the presence of the Germanic tribes in Gaul posed a serious threat to the stability in the area and to their prestige. Lucius Cassius Longinus, one of the consuls of 107 BC, was sent to Gaul at the head of another large army. He first fought the Cimbri and their Gallic allies the Volcae Tectosages just outside Tolosa, and despite the huge number of tribesmen, the Romans routed them.