Cimbri
（
Κίμβροι). A Keltic people, probably of the same race as
the Cymry. (See
Celtae.) They appear to have
inhabited the peninsula which was called after them Chersonesus Cimbrica (Jutland). In
conjunction with the Teutones and Ambrones, they migrated south, with their wives and
children, towards the close of the second century b.c.; and the
whole host is said to have contained 300,000 fighting men. They defeated several Roman armies,
and caused the greatest alarm at Rome. In B.C. 113, they routed the consul Papirius Carbo near
Noreia, and then crossed over into Gaul, which they ravaged in all directions. In 109, they
defeated the consul Iunius Silanus; and in 107, the consul Cassius Longinus, who fell in the
battle; and in 105, they gained their most brilliant victory, near the Rhone, over the united
armies of the consul Cn. Mallius and the proconsul Servilius Caepio. Instead of crossing the
Alps, the Cimbri, fortunately for Rome, marched into Spain, where they remained two or three
years. The Romans, meantime, had been making preparations to resist their formidable foes, and
had placed their troops under the command of Marius. The barbarians returned to Gaul in 102.
In that year the Teutones were defeated and cut to pieces by Marius near Aquae Sextiae (Aix)
in Gaul; and next year (101 B.C.) the Cimbri and their allies were likewise destroyed by
Marius and Catulus, in the decisive battle of the Campi Raudii, near Verona, in the north of
Italy. See
Pullmann, Die Cimbern (1870).
