The Cimbri return to Gaul in 101…

The Cimbri return to Gaul in 101 BCE and prepare for the final stage of their struggle with Rome.

For the first time they penetrate through the Alpine passes, which Catulus had failed to fortify, into northern Italy.

Catulus withdraws behind the Po River, leaving the countryside open to the invaders.

But the Cimbri take their time ravishing the fertile region, which gives Marius time to arrive with reinforcements—his same victorious legions from Aquae Sextiae.

At Vercellae, near the confluence of the Sesia River with the Po on the Raudine Plain, the superiority of the new Roman legions and their cavalry is clearly demonstrated.

In the devastating defeat, the Cimbri are virtually annihilated, and both their highest leaders, Boiorix and Lugius, fall.

The women kill both themselves and their children in order to avoid slavery.

Thus the war, which had begun with a mass migration, ends in defeat and mass suicide.

The Romans supposedly killed one hundred and forty thousand of the barbarian invaders, and took captive more than fifty thousand.

Sulla had served on Marius' staff as tribunus militum during the first half of this campaign, but by 101 had transferred to the army of Catulus to serve as his legatus, and is credited as being the prime mover in the defeat of the tribes (Catulus being a hopeless general and quite incapable of cooperating with Marius).

Contemporaries assign more credit for the victory to Marius than to Catulus.

Despite their joint success, the two commanders regard each other as bitter rivals and after the war build competing temples to demonstrate divine favor.