In Troubadour-Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc

by S. Baring-Gould

[Illustration: Sketch plan of the battle fields.]

In the meantime the Romans had approached from the south, from Trets, making a slight détour, 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 massed unperceived. Here it was, I suspect, that Marius passed 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 shields. 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 pass it, but was sufficient to break their order, and to give the Romans the first advantage over them.

Having driven back the assailants, 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 Annonæ, 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.

[Illustration: 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 gods. 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 title 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 Pourrières, the neighbouring village.