Servilius Caepio recovered the town, and sent off its treasures to Marseilles. [Sidenote:  The gold of Tolosa.] The ill-gotten gold, however, was seized on the way by robbers, whom Caepio himself was accused of employing.  His name was destined, however, to be linked with a great disaster as well as a thievish trick.  The Cimbri, who had hitherto petitioned the Romans for lands to settle on, were now meditating a raid into Italy.  On the left bank of the Rhone, in 105, they overthrew M. Aurelius Scaurus, whom they took prisoner and put to death.  Cnaeus Mallius Maximus commanded the main force on that side of the river, and he told Caepio, who as consul was in command on the right bank, to cross and effect a junction.  But Caepio was as wilful as Minucius had shown himself towards another Maximus in the Second Punic War.  When his superior began to negotiate with the Cimbri, he thought it was a device to rob him of the honour of conquering them, and in his irritation rashly provoked a battle, in which he was beaten and lost his camp. [Sidenote:  Defeat of Caepio and Maximus.] The place of his defeat his camp is not known.  Maximus was also defeated, and the Romans were reported to have lost 80,000 men and 20,000 camp followers.  There was terrible dismay at Rome.  The Gaul seemed again to be at its gates. [Sidenote:  Consternation at Rome.  Marius elected consul for 104.] The time of mourning for the dead was abridged.  Every man fit for service had to swear not to leave Italy, and the captains in Italian ports took an oath not to receive any such man on board.  Marius also was elected consul for 104.

[Sidenote:  The Cimbri move off towards Spain.] But fortune helped the Romans more than all these precautions.  The Cimbri, after wilfully destroying every vestige of the spoils they had taken, in fulfilment, probably, of some vow, wandered westward on a plundering raid towards the Pyrenees, the road thither having been lately provided, as it were, for them by Domitius. [Sidenote:  Beaten back by Celtiberi, they are joined by the Teutones in South Gaul.] In the Celtiberi they met with foes who sold too dearly the little they had to lose, and again they surged back into South Gaul, where they were joined by the Teutones, and once more threatened Italy. [Sidenote:  How the Romans had been occupied meanwhile.] But meantime the generals of the Republic had not been idle.  Rutilius Rufus, the old comrade of Marius, had been diligently drilling troops, having engaged gladiators to teach them fencing.  Probably Marius was engaged in the same work at the beginning of 104, and then went to South Gaul, where, as we hear of Sulla capturing the king of the Tectosages, he was no doubt collecting supplies and men, and suppressing all disaffection in the province.  He also cut a canal from the Rhone, about a mile above its mouth, to a lake supposed to be now the Etang de l’Estouma; for alluvial deposits had made access to the river difficult, and he wanted the Rhone as a highway for his troops and commissariat. [Sidenote:  Marius consul in 103 and 102 B.C.] In 103 he was made consul for the third time, and again in 102.  And now he was ready to meet the invaders.