Battle of Arausio The Battle of Arausio took place on October 6 , 105 BC , at a site between the town of Arausio ( modern day Orange , Vaucluse ) and the Rhône River . Ranged against the migratory tribes of the Cimbri under Boiorix and the Teutoni were two Roman armies , commanded by the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio and consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus . However , bitter differences between the commanders prevented the Roman armies from cooperating , with devastating results . The terrible defeat gave Gaius Marius the opportunity to come to the fore and radically reform the organization and recruitment of Roman legions . Roman losses are described as being up to 80 , 000 troops , as well as another 40 , 000 auxiliary troops ( allies ) and servants and camp follower s — virtually all of their participants in the battle . Prelude . The migrations of the Cimbri tribe through Gaul and adjacent territories had disturbed the balance of power and incited or provoked other tribes , such as the Helvetii , into conflict with the Romans . An ambush of Roman troops and the temporary rebellion of the town of Tolosa caused Roman troops to mobilize in the area , with three strong forces . Having regained Tolosa , the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio adopted a defensive strategy , waiting to see if the Cimbri would move toward Roman territories again . In October of 105 BC , they did . A skirmish and two routs . Even before battle was joined , the Romans were in trouble . The senior of the year ' s two consuls , Publius Rutilius Rufus , was an experienced and highly decorated soldier , veteran of the recent war in Numidia , but for some reason did not take charge of the military campaign himself but remained in Rome while his inexperienced , untried colleague Gnaeus Mallius Maximus led the legions north . ( The reasons for Rutilius not taking charge himself do not seem to be known : perhaps he faced political opposition because of his friendship with Gaius Marius , or perhaps he believed Mallius Maximus deserved the chance to earn himself a share of glory , or perhaps he was simply temporarily ill . ) Two of the major Roman forces available were camped out on the Rhone River , near Arausio : one led by Mallius Maximus , and the other by the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio . As the consul of the year , Maximus out - ranked Caepio and therefore should by law have been the senior commander of the combined armies . However , because Maximus was a novus homo and therefore lacked the noble background of the Roman aristocracy - in addition to his military inexperience - Caepio refused to serve under him and made camp on the opposite side of the river . The initial contact between the two forces occurred when a detached picketing group under the legate Marcus Aurelius Scaurus met an advance party of the Cimbri . The Roman force was completely overwhelmed and the legate was captured and brought before Boiorix . Scaurus was not humbled by his capture and advised Boiorix to turn back before his people were destroyed by the Roman forces . The king of the Cimbri was indignant at this impudence and had Scaurus executed . Meanwhile , Maximus had managed to convince Caepio to move his force to the same side of the river , but Caepio still insisted on a different camp , and actually pitched his closer to the enemy . The sight of two Roman armies gave Boiorix pause for thought , and he entertained negotiations with Maximus . According to Mommsen , Caepio was presumably motivated into action by the thought that Maximus might be successful in negotiations and claim all the credit for a successful outcome ; he launched a unilateral attack on the Cimbri camp on October 6 . However , Caepio ' s force was annihilated because of the hasty nature of the assault and the tenacity of Cimbri defence . The Cimbri were also able to ransack Caepio ' s own camp , which had been left practically undefended . Caepio himself escaped from the battle unhurt . With a great boost in confidence from an easy victory , the Cimbri then proceeded to destroy the force commanded by Maximus . Already at a low ebb due to the infighting of the commanders , this Roman force had also witnessed the complete destruction of their colleagues . In other circumstances the army might have fled , but the poor positioning of the camp left them with their backs to the river . Many tried to escape in that direction , but legionaries of the time were not known for their prowess at swimming , and certainly not when encumbered with armor . Certainly , the number of Romans who managed to escape were very few . This includes the servants and camp followers , who usually numbered at least half as many again as the actual troops . Though the actual casualty figure remains debated , Livy claims that the total number of Roman casualties ( not including camp followers or other non - combatant s ) amounted to 80 , 000 . Mommsen claims that besides the 80 , 000 Roman soldiers , half as many of the auxiliaries and camp - followers perished . One can only speculate as to what might have happened , had Rutilius rather than Maximus taken command - whether Caepio would have been willing to defer to Rutilius ' s military record and accept him as the senior commander , or still insisted that his aristocratic birth gave him the right to keep his army separate ( and commit the same blunders as before and have his army annihilated ) . It would however seem unlikely that Rutilius would have committed the strategic , tactical and positional errors that Mallius Maximus did , but would at least have kept his army alive , or possibly even won the battle . As things were , the catastrophic scale of the loss inspired the Roman senate and people to set aside the current legal peacetime constraints , that no man could be consul a second time until ten years had passed since his first consulship : and instead , Gaius Marius was immediately proposed ( in his absence ) and elected as consul , only three years after his first consulship , and then for a further four successive years after that . Aftermath . Rome was a war - faring nation and was accustomed to setbacks . However , the recent string of defeats ending in the calamity at Arausio was alarming for all the people of Rome . The defeat left them with a critical shortage of manpower but also with a terrifying enemy camped on the other side of the now - undefended Alpine passes . In Rome , it was widely thought that the defeat was due to the arrogance of Caepio rather than to a deficiency in the Roman Army , and popular dissatisfaction with the ruling classes grew . As it turned out , the Cimbri next clashed with the Averni tribe , and after a hard struggle set out for the Pyrenees instead of immediately marching into Italy . This gave the Romans time to re - organise and elect the man who would become known as the savior of Rome , Gaius Marius . Plutarch , in his " Life of Marius " , mentions that the soil of the fields the battle had been fought upon were made so fertile by human remains that they were able to produce " magna copia " ( a great quantity ) of yield for many years .