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.
[Footnote 1: 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.]
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; [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.'