The Battle of Arausio (Fascinating!)

[MerchantCo]

In 105 BC, the Romans fought a combined force of Cimbri and Teutons. The two Roman generals, Maximus and Caepio, had a feud which resulted in the decimation of their entire army. Caepio was more experienced, but Maximus had a higher rank. Caepio refused to serve under Maximus, and everything went bad from there.

The Battle of Arausio is my favorite Roman battle, because it shows that greed and arrogance can prove catastrophic.

 

[Phrossack]

From what very little I know about the Cimbric wars, all I can tell is they're really confusing. Some accounts have improbably large hordes of Germanics migrating over improbably long distances across Europe and somehow mowing down Roman army after army.

Can anyone more knowledgeable help out, or are the Cimbric wars just that poorly documented?

 

[MerchantCo]

One thing I know for sure is that the numbers were exaggerated. The massive "barbarian hordes" were probably just normal-sized armies. The Romans had good reason to exaggerate the size of the enemy - if they lost, the defeat wouldn't be scoffed at, and if they won, they would seem heroic.

 

[Dachs]

Since Livy is the main source for the action against the Cimbri, we can rest assured that the battles will consist of Romans being awesome, unless they're ridiculously outnumbered and/or led by a divided, greedy command. Because foreigners could never defeat Romans in a straight-up fight.

Either way, the narratives will be hackneyed and cliched like virtually every other ancient and medieval military engagement, and very difficult to rely upon. We can almost certainly rely on the information that the Romans were defeated at Arausio by the Cimbri, and that it might have been a very grievous defeat, but there's rightly a lot more skepticism about the course of the battle as related by Livy.

 

[MerchantCo]

Dachs is right. I'm sure that Roman historians loved drama, so the conflict between Caepio and Maximus may have been completely or partially fabricated. There could have even been a political agenda that caused Livy to write about Caepio and Maximus.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Since Livy is the main source for the action against the Cimbri, we can rest assured that the battles will consist of Romans being awesome, unless they're ridiculously outnumbered and/or led by a divided, greedy command. Because foreigners could never defeat Romans in a straight-up fight.

Yeah, every time I see an account of Roman leaders failing to win a battle because of divided, bickering leadership, I just have to roll my eyes. Cannae is the prime example of this, but it's too common to be completely true. Granted, I suspect power-sharing arrangements didn't work harmoniously, but, if it were as catastrophic as historians seem to suggest, they would have found a way to fix it.

Of course, most Roman historians wanted a moral lesson in their tales so showing the corrupt, incompetent, or petty getting their just deserts (along with hundreds of innocent Roman soldiers, of course) serves as a lesson on how to be a better Roman. A better Roman would have won the battle. In that sense, the account makes sense and is appropriate for what it's trying to do. You just have to take the details with a grain of salt.

 

[MerchantCo]

^True.