Scipio Aemilianus, in expelling soothsayers from his camp; for he had a Syrian woman, named Martha, with him to foretell the future.  The soldiers had their own pet superstitions.  They had caught two vultures, put rings on their necks and let them go, and so knew them again as they hovered over the army.  When the barbarians reached the camp they tried to storm it.  But they were beaten back, and then for six days they filed past with taunting questions, whether the Romans had any messages to send their wives.  Marius cautiously followed, fortifying his camp nightly.  They were making for the coast-road; and as they could not have taken their wagons along it, they were marching, as Marius had seen, to their own destruction.  His strategy was masterly, for he was winning without fighting; but accident brought on an engagement. [Sidenote:  Scene of the battle of Aquae Sextiae.] East of Aquae Sextiae (the modern Aix) Marius had occupied a range of hills, one of which is to this day called Sainte Victoire.  The Arc flowed below.  The soldiers wanted water, and Marius told his men that they might get it there if they wanted it, for he wished to accustom them to the barbarians’ mode of fighting.  Some of the barbarians were bathing; and on their giving the alarm, others came up, and a battle began.  The first shock was between the Ambrones and Ligurians.  The Romans supported the latter, and the Ambrones fled across the Arc to the wagons, where the women, assailing both pursuers and pursued with yells and blows, were slain with the men.  So ended the first day’s fight.

All night and next day the barbarians prepared for a final struggle.  Marius planted an ambuscade of mounted camp-followers, headed by a few foot and horse in some ravines on the enemy’s rear. [Sidenote:  Circumstances of the battle.] He drew the legions up in front of the camp, and the cavalry went ahead to the plain.  The barbarians charged up the hill, but were met by a shower of ‘pila,’ which the legionaries followed up by coming to close quarters with their swords.  The enemy were rolled back down the hill, and at the same time with loud cries the ambuscade attacked them from behind.  Then the battle became a butchery, in which, it was said, 200,000 men were slain, and among them Teutoboduus, their king.  Others, however, say that he was taken prisoner, and became the chief ornament of Marius’s triumph.  Much of the spoil was gathered together to be burnt, and Marius, as the army stood round, was just lighting the heap, when men came riding at full speed and told him he was elected consul for the fifth time.  The soldiers set up a joyful cheer, and his officers crowned him with a chaplet of bay.  The name of the village of Pourrieres (Campus de Putridis) and the hill of Sainte Victoire commemorate this great fight to our day, and till the French Revolution a procession used to be made by the neighbouring villagers every year to the hill, where a bonfire was lit, round which they paraded, crowned with flowers, and shouting ‘Victoire, Victoire!’