native tribes and especially of the Celtiberians, flowed back again
over the Pyrenees and thence, as it appears, passed along the shore
of the Atlantic Ocean, where everything from the Pyrenees to the
Seine submitted to the terrible invaders. There, on the confines
of the brave confederacy of the Belgae, they first encountered serious
resistance; but there also, while they were in the territory of the
Vellocassi (near Rouen), considerable reinforcements reached them.
Not only three cantons of the Helvetii, including the Tigorini
and Tougeni who had formerly fought against the Romans at the Garonne,
associated themselves, apparently about this period, with the Cimbri,
but these were also joined by the kindred Teutones under their king
Teutobod, who had been driven by events which tradition has not
recorded from their home on the Baltic sea to appear now on the
Seine.(24) But even the united hordes were unable to overcome the
brave resistance of the Belgae. The leaders accordingly resolved,
now that their numbers were thus swelled, to enter in all earnest on
the expedition to Italy which they had several times contemplated.
In order not to encumber themselves with the spoil which they had
heretofore collected, they left it behind under the protection of a
division of 6000 men, which after many wanderings subsequently gave
rise to the tribe of the Aduatuci on the Sambre. But, whether from
the difficulty of finding supplies on the Alpine routes or from other
reasons, the mass again broke up into two hosts, one of which,
composed of the Cimbri and Tigorini, was to recross the Rhine
and to invade Italy through the passes of the eastern Alps already
reconnoitred in 641, and the other, composed of the newly-arrived
Teutones, the Tougeni, and the Ambrones--the flower of the Cimbrian
host already tried in the battle of Arausio--was to invade Italy
through Roman Gaul and the western passes. It was this second
division, which in the summer of 652 once more crossed the Rhone
without hindrance, and on its left bank resumed, after a pause of
nearly three years, the struggle with the Romans. Marius awaited them
in a well-chosen and well-provisioned camp at the confluence of the
Isere with the Rhone, in which position he intercepted the passage
of the barbarians by either of the only two military routes to Italy
then practicable, that over the Little St. Bernard, and that along
the coast. The Teutones attacked the camp which ob