With a view to cover the frontier of the Rhine and the immediately threatened territory of the Allobroges, a Roman army under Marcus Junius Silanus appeared in 645 in Southern Gaul.  The Cimbri requested that land might be assigned to them where they might peacefully settle—­a request which certainly could not be granted.  The consul instead of replying attacked them; he was utterly defeated and the Roman camp was taken.  The new levies which were occasioned by this misfortune were already attended with so much difficulty, that the senate procured the abolition of the laws—­presumably proceeding from Gaius Gracchus—­which limited the obligation to military service in point of time.(19) But the Cimbri, instead of following up their victory over the Romans, sent to the senate at Rome to repeat their request for the assignment of land, and meanwhile employed themselves, apparently, in the subjugation of the surrounding Celtic cantons.

Inroad of the Helvetii into Southern Gaul
Defeat of Longinus

Thus the Roman province and the new Roman army were left for the moment undisturbed by the Germans; but a new enemy arose in Gaul itself.  The Helvetii, who had suffered much in the constant conflicts with their north-eastern neighbours, felt themselves stimulated by the example of the Cimbri to seek in their turn for more quiet and fertile settlements in western Gaul, and had perhaps, even when the Cimbrian hosts marched through their land, formed an alliance with them for that purpose.  Now under the leadership of Divico the forces of the Tougeni (position unknown) and of the Tigorini (on the lake of Murten) crossed the Jura,(20) and reached the territory of the Nitiobroges (about Agen on the Garonne).  The Roman army under the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus, which they here encountered, allowed itself to be decoyed by the Helvetii into an ambush, in which the general himself and his legate, the consular Lucius Piso, along with the greater portion of the soldiers met their death; Gaius Popillius, the interim commander-in-chief of the force which had escaped to the camp, was allowed to withdraw under the yoke on condition of surrendering half the property which the troops carried with them and furnishing hostages (647).  So perilous was the state of things for the Romans, that one of the most important towns in their own province, Tolosa, rose against them and placed the Roman garrison in chains.

But, as the Cimbri continued to employ themselves elsewhere, and the Helvetii did not further molest for the moment the Roman province, the new Roman commander-in-chief, Quintus Servilius Caepio, had full time to recover possession of the town of Tolosa by treachery and to empty at leisure the immense treasures accumulated in the old and famous sanctuary of the Celtic Apollo.  It was a desirable gain for the embarrassed exchequer, but unfortunately the gold and silver vessels on the way from Tolosa to Massilia were taken from the weak escort by a band of robbers, and totally disappeared:  the consul himself and his staff were, it was alleged, the instigators of this onset (648).  Meanwhile they confined themselves to the strictest defensive as regarded the chief enemy, and guarded the Roman province with three strong armies, till it should please the Cimbri to repeat their attack.