nally succeeded in stemming the tide of the Teutonic flood, and
then only after the tribes had divided their forces and, thus weakened,
hurled their naked bodies against the phalanx of the overwhelming Roman
army. When the legionaries of Rome pursued the defeated Teutones to
their camp, Plutarch relates: "the Teuton women met them with swords and
axes, and making a terrible outcry, drove the fugitives as well as the
pursuers back, the first as traitors, the others as enemies, and mixing
among the warriors, with their bare arms pulling away the shields of the
Romans and laying hold on their swords, endured the wounds and slashing
of their bodies invincible unto death with undaunted resolution."

An account by Valerius Maximus emphasizes not only the bravery, but also
the chastity of the Teuton women. When captured, they requested of the
victor Marius to consecrate them to the service of Vesta's sacred
virgins, promising to keep themselves as pure and immaculate as the
goddess and her servants. Upon the refusal of their request they
strangled themselves the following night. Thus ended the battle of Aquas
Sextise in B. C. 102, with the annihilation of the Teutones root and
branch.

In the subsequent year Marius destroyed the Cimbri also, on the Raudian
fields near Vercellas. Among their women were prophetesses, hoary with
age, barefooted, clothed in white garments with iron girdles, and fine
flaxen cloaks. Thus apparelled they went sword in hand to meet the
prisoners of war in camp, whom, after wreathing them, they conducted to
a large iron kettle. Then one of them mounted a high step and bending
over the kettle, cut the throat of the prisoner who had been lifted over
the edge, and prophesied from the blood which streamed into the brass
vessel.

During the battle they drummed on hides fastened over the wagons, and
made a horrible noise. When the largest and most warlike part of the
Cimbri had been annihilated, and the Romans pursued the rest within the
wall of the camp, they were astounded by a highly tragic spectacle. The
Cimbri women standing in black garments of mourning on the wagons,
inflicted death upon the fugitives: one upon her husband, another upon
her brother, another again upon her father. But their own children they
strangled and hurled under the wheels of the wagons and under the hoofs
of the horses. Finally they laid hands upon themselves. One, it is said,
was hanging from the top of a wagon with her chi