THE CAMPAIGN OF MARIUS.
The Trémaïé--Representation of C. Marius, Martha, and Julia--The Gaïé--The
Teutons and Ambrons and Cimbri threaten Italy--C. Marius sent against
them--His camp at S. Gabriel--The canal he cut--The barbarians cross
the Rhone--First brush with them--They defile before him at Orgon--The
rout of the Ambrons at Les Milles--He follows the Teutons--The plain
of Pourrières--Position of Marius--The battle--Slaughter of the
Teutons--Position of their camp--Monument of Marius--Venus Victrix--Annual
commemoration.
[Illustration: Ruins S. Gabriel.]
The two oldest and most interesting monuments of Les Baux have been
unnoticed in the last chapter. These are the sculptured stones of Trémaïé
and Gaïé. They are two limestone blocks fallen from the precipices above,
lying on the flounce of rubble near the bottom of the promontory of Les
Baux, the one on the east the other on the south. That on the east, La
Trémaïé, consists of a block of shell-limestone about twenty-five feet
high, in which, twelve feet from the soil, is sculptured a semicircular
headed niche, five and a half feet high by four and a half feet wide, that
contains a group of three personages, a bearded man on the left of the
observer, a tall woman in the centre wearing a mitre, and on the right
another woman. At first glance, I confess I supposed this was a bit of
sculpture of the eleventh century, but on climbing to the roof of the
chapel erected beneath the niche, some forty-five years ago, I was able to
examine the group minutely, and satisfied myself that the work is of the
Classic period.
[Illustration: La Trémaïé.]
What gave me the first impression that it was of later date was the use of
the honeysuckle ornament at the crown of the arch, and at the capitals of
the pillars supporting it, which was adopted by architects of the eleventh
century from Classic work. But on close examination I found that, not only
were the figures dressed in pure Classic tunics and togas, but that the
drapery is modelled in conformity with that of the same epoch, and is quite
distinct from the modelling by the Mediæval artists. This is specially
noticeable where the statues have been protected by the sides from
weathering.
Moreover, below the figures is an inscription in letters, the date of which
is unmistakable, though unfortunately it can be only partially deciphered.
It runs:--
........F. CALDVS
.....AE POSVIT. P...
The three figures are life-size. The central one is very peculiar, owing
to the mitre or diadem it wears, which, however, is utterly unlike the
episcopal mitre of the eleventh century. Moreover, there is no doubt about
the person wearing it being a female.
Popular belief, also, does not err as to her sex; it has made a mistake
relative to that of the man on her right, and when some forty-five years
ago the curé of Les Baux erected the chapel under the rock, he believed
that these figures represented the Three Marys.
The man is in consular habit, the toga, _neque fusa neque restricta_, worn
till the time of Augustus. His feet appear beneath the tunic. Unfortunately
the face is too much weathered to present any features. Not so the tall,
mitred central figure, whose right hand is raised, as is thought, to hold a
staff wreathed with chaplets. Her mantle, the [Greek: himation], is clasped
on the shoulder of her right arm. The third figure is that of a Roman
matron.
Now it has been supposed, with a great degree of probability, that these
three figures represent C. Marius, his wife Julia, and the prophetess
Martha, who attended him in his campaign against the Teutons and Ambrons.
Plutarch says: "He had with him a Syrian woman named Martha, who was said
to have the gift of prophecy. She was carried about in a litter with great
solemnity, and the sacrifices which he offered were all by her direction.
When she went to sacrifice she wore a purple robe, lined with the same,
and buttoned up, and held in her hand a spear adorned with ribands and
garlands."
I confess that the staff with ribands and chaplets seen by some in this
sculpture, were not distinguishable by myself. At the same time I was
puzzled with certain ornaments below the raised hand of the diademed lady,
which I could not explain. It is said that the staff is only visible when
the morning sun strikes the weathered surface. It may be there--but I think
that a fold of drapery has been mistaken for a staff. Yet--the wreath or
buckle below her hand in such a case remains unaccounted for.
If these three figures represent Caius Marius, Martha, and Julia, then we
can understand the name given the group--Les Trémaïés--the three Marii;
Caius Marius, Martha Marii, and Julia Marii, which has since been altered
into Les Trois 'Maries, and the figures assumed to be those of Mary the
wife of Salome, Mary Magdalen, and Martha the sister of Mary. In the belief
that such is the case, Mass is said in the chapel on the 25th of May, and
there is a concourse of devotees assembled from the neighbourhood around
the little chapel and memorial stone.
The second sculptured block lies about three hundred paces to the south,
and is called Les Gaïé, i.e., _Caii imagines_. It resembles hundreds of
similar Roman monuments to a husband and wife, found in the museums of
Rome, Arles, Nimes, and Avignon.
Here also there is a niche, four feet wide by two feet four inches high. On
the right of the observer is a bearded man holding a roll in his left hand,
and with his right he clasps the right hand of his wife. He is in consular
habit; unfortunately both heads have been damaged. At some time or other a
Vandal thought that the upper portion of the block would serve his purpose
as a step or threshold, and drove a crowbar into the face of the stone
between the two heads, and split off the cap, thus exposing the sculpture
to the ash of the rain.
[Illustration: Les Gaïé.]
Beneath the figures is an inscription no longer legible. It is _possible_
that this monument may represent Caius Marius and his wife Julia. A
somewhat lively French imagination has taken the figure of the man to be
Martha with her staff and mitre, but I examined the sculpture under a
favourable light, and satisfied myself that this figure is that of a man.
The face was apparently struck by the crowbar, which has broken off a film
of the limestone, and destroyed the nose.
The Caldus whose name appears on the Trémaïé is probably Caius Cælius
Caldus, who belonged to the party of Marius, was created tribune B.C. 107,
and who was one of the lieutenants of Marius in the war against the Cimbri,
and signed a disgraceful treaty with the Ligurians to save the remnant of
the army, after the death of the consul Cassius. He was named consul B.C.
97, and some medals struck by him exist. Possibly Caldus erected this
monument in honour of Marius, who had made the platform of Les Baux and the
range of the Alpines the vantage ground whence he watched the march of the
Teutons and whence he swooped down to destroy them.
The great figure of Caius Marius overshadows the whole of Provence, and it
is not possible for one who has any interest in the past not to feel its
influence and be inspired by it. Stirred by the sight of these sculptures
at Les Baux, I resolved to go over all the ground of his campaign, Plutarch
in hand, and I venture to think that what I saw and discovered will not
only interest the reader, but help to elucidate the history of that
memorable struggle.
In the year B.C. 113, there appeared to the north of the Adriatic, on the
right bank of the Danube, a vast horde of barbarians ravaging Noricum--the
present Austria, and threatening Italy. Two nations prevailed, the Cimbri,
Kaempir, _i.e._, warriors, perhaps Scandinavian, and the Teutons, pure
Germans. They had come from afar, from the Cimbric peninsula, now Jutland
and Holstein, driven from their homes by an irruption of the sea. For a
while they roamed over Germany. The consul Papirius Carbo was despatched in
all haste to defend the menaced frontier of Italy. The barbarians pleaded
to be given lands on which to settle. Carbo treacherously attacked them,
but was defeated. However, the hordes did not yet venture to cross the
Alps. They inundated the Swiss valleys, and as they flowed west swept along
with them other races, amongst which was that of the Ambrons, a German
race, whose name meets us again as Sicambrians, of which stock later was
Chlodovig (Clovis). When Clovis was about to enter the font, S. Remigius
thus addressed him: "Bow thy head, haughty Sicambrian; adore what thou hast
burned; burn what thou didst adore."
In the year B.C. 110 all together entered Gaul, and then, continuing their
wanderings and ravages in central Gaul, at last reached the Rhone and
menaced the Roman province. There, however, the fear of Rome arrested their
progress; they applied anew for lands, but Silanus, the Governor, answered
them haughtily, that the commonwealth had neither lands to give nor
services to accept from barbarians. He attacked them and was defeated.
Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servilius Cæpio, and Cn. Manlius, sent in
all haste against them, successively experienced the same fate. With the
barbarians victory bred presumption. Their chieftains met, and deliberated
whether they should not forthwith cross into Italy and exterminate or
enslave the Romans. Scaurus, a prisoner, was present at this deliberation.
He laughed at the threat, and cried to his captors, "Go, but the Romans you
will find are invincible." In a transport of fury one of the chiefs present
ran him through with his sword. Howbeit the warning of Scaurus had its
effect. The barbarians scoured the Roman province, but did not as yet dare
to invade the sacred soil of the peninsula.
Then the Cimbri broke off from their comrades and passed into Spain, as an
overswollen torrent divides, and disperses its waters in all directions.
After ravaging Spain, the Cimbri returned, and the re-united hordes
resolved no longer to spare Italy. The Cimbri were to invade it by way of
the Brenner pass and the Adige, the Teutons and Ambrons by the Maritime
Alps.
[Illustration: Caius Marius. (_From a bust in the Vatican._)]
The utmost terror prevailed in Rome, and throughout Italy. There was but
one man, it was said, who could avert the danger. It was Marius, low-born,
but already illustrious, esteemed by the senate for his military genius
and successes; swaying at his will the people, who saw in him one of
themselves; beloved and feared by the army for his bravery, his rigorous
discipline, and for his readiness to share with his soldiers all toils, and
dangers; stern and rugged, lacking education, eloquence, and riches, but
resolute and dexterous in the field. His father had been a farmer, and his
hands had been hardened in youth at the plough. But as a free-born Latin he
had been called to serve in war, and his skill and genius had advanced him,
from step to step. He was consul in Africa at the time when summoned to
save his country from the danger threatening it from the barbarian hordes.
On reaching Provence, he found the soldiers demoralised by disaster, and
with discipline relaxed. The barbarians had not as yet reached the Rhone,
they were moving east slowly, and during the winter remained stationary. He
had therefore time to organise his troops and choose his positions.
[Illustration: Orgon and the Durance.]
Now the old Græco-Phoenician road along the coast, that had been restored
by the consul Cn. Domitius, and thenceforth bore his name, deserted the
coast as it approached the mouths of the Rhone, the region of morasses,
stony deserts, lagoons, and broad streams; kept to the heights, and reached
Nimes, whence, still skirting lagoons, it ran along the high ground of
limestone to Beaucaire. The Rhone was crossed to Tarascon, and thence the
road followed the Durance up to Orgon, where it branched; one road to the
left went to Apt, and crossed the Alps into Italy by Pont Genèvre, the
other turned south to Aix and Marseilles. The road, afterwards called
the Aurelian way, led from Aix up the river Are, over a low _col_ to S.
Maximin, and reached the coast by the valley of the Argens, that flows into
the sea at Fréjus. It was a little doubtful to Marius which course the
barbarians would pursue. Accordingly he formed a strong camp at Ernaginum,
now S. Gabriel, at the extreme limit of the chain of the Alpines, to the
west.
Almost certainly all the inhabitants of Arles, Tarascon, Glanum, and
Cavaillon, all Græco-Gaulish towns, took refuge on the plateau of the
limestone hills. The barbarians could not go south of the Alpines, because
the whole region was desert, or was covered with lagoons. In order to
victual his camp, Marius set his soldiers to work to convey a branch of the
Durance [1] past Ernaginum into the lagoons below, and he cut a channel
of communication between these lagoons, and opened a mouth into the sea
through the Etang de Galéjon. By this means vessels from Rome or Marseilles
could reach the walls of his camp with supplies.
[Footnote 1: Plutarch says the Rhone, but he is almost certainly mistaken.
The canal was afterwards probably that called Les Lonnes (lagunes), the
dried-up bed of which can be distinguished in places still. The line from
Tarascon to Arles runs beside it for a little way. See Appendix B.]
In the spring of 102 B.C. the Teutons and Ambrons packed their tents and
began to move east. The grass had grown sufficiently to feed their horses
and oxen. Marius allowed them to traverse the Rhone without offering
resistance; and they began their march along the road that ran at the foot
of the precipitous Alpines.
They soon appeared, "in immense numbers," says Plutarch, "with their
hideous looks and their wild cries," drawing up their chariots, and
planting their tents in front of the Roman camp. They showered upon Marius
and his soldiers continual insult and defiance. The Romans, in their
irritation, would fain have rushed out of their camp, but Marius restrained
them. "It is no question," said he, with his simple and convincing common
sense, "of gaining triumphs and trophies, but of averting this storm of war
and of saving Italy."
A Teuton chief came one day up to the very gates of the camp, and
challenged him to fight. Marius had him informed that if he were weary
of life, he could go and hang himself. As the barbarian still persisted,
Marius sent him a gladiator.
However, he made his soldiers, in regular succession, mount guard on the
ramparts, to get them familiarised with the cries, appearance, and weapons
of the barbarians. The most distinguished of his officers, young Sertorius,
a man whose tragic story is, itself, a romance, and who understood and
spoke Gallic well, penetrated in the disguise of a Gaul into the camp of
the Ambrons, and informed Marius of what was going on there.
At last, the barbarians, in their impatience, having vainly attempted to
storm the Roman camp at Ernaginum, struck their own, and put themselves in
motion towards the Alps.
Marius followed them along the heights, out of reach, ready to rush down on
their rear, observant of their every movement. They reached Orgon. There
the limestone precipices rise as walls sheer above the plain, now crowned
by a church and a couple of ruined castles. It was probably from this point
that Marius watched the hordes defile past. For six whole days, it is said,
their bands flowed before the Roman position. The Teutons looked up at the
military on the cliffs and flung at them the insolent question: "Have you
any messages for your wives in Italy? We shall soon be with them."
The soldiers, still restrained by Marius, waited till all had passed, and
then the general struck his camp, and crossing the dip at Lamanon, where
the overspill of the Durance had once carried its rolled stones into the
Crau, he regained the heights on the farther side of the Touloubre, at
Pelissanne, the ancient Pisavis.
Still keeping to the heights, now of red sandstone, Marius again came
on the barbarians at Les Milles, four miles to the south of Aix. He had
observed all their movements, and had seen that the Ambrons had detached
themselves from the Teutons at Aix, so as to make a descent on Marseilles.
Possibly Aix had been given up to ravage by the Teutons, and the Ambrons
were bidden find their spoil in Marseilles. At Les Milles the red sandstone
cliff stands above the Are, which makes here a sweep, leaving a green
meadow in the loop. Here, from under the rocks ooze forth countless
streams; some were, like those at Aix, hot; [1] now I will again quote
Plutarch. "Here Marius pitched on a place for his camp, unexceptionable
in point of strength, but affording little water; and when his soldiers
complained of thirst, he pointed to the river that flowed by the enemy's
camp, and told them, 'that they must thence purchase water with their
blood.' 'Why then,' said they, 'do you not immediately lead us thither,
before our blood is quite parched?' To which he replied, in a milder tone,
'So I will; but first of all let us fortify our camp.'
[Footnote 1: Whether so at present I am unable to state, not having been
able to test them. All the hot springs have been reduced in temperature
considerably since Roman times.]
"The soldiers, though with some reluctance, obeyed. But the camp-followers,
being in great want of water for themselves and their cattle, ran in crowds
to the stream, some with pick-axes, some with hatchets, and some with
swords and javelins, along with their pitchers; for they were resolved
to have water, even if forced to fight for it. These were, at first,
encountered by only a small party of the enemy; for of the main body, some,
having bathed, were engaged at dinner, and others were still bathing, the
country there abounding in hot wells. This gave the Romans a chance of
cutting off a number of them, while they were indulging themselves in these
delightful baths. Their cry brought others to their assistance, so that now
it was no longer possible for Marius to restrain the impetuosity of his
soldiers, who were uneasy for the fate of their servants. Besides, these
were the Ambrons, who had defeated Manlius and Cæpio, that they saw before
them." The contest became general. The Ambrons rushed across the river,
yelling "Ambra! Ambra!" their war-cry, which was at once retorted on them
by a body of auxiliaries in the Roman camp, who heard their own cry and
name. After a furious engagement, the Romans remained victors, the little
river Are being choked with the bodies of the barbarians.
Those who retreated to their camp were pursued by the Romans. There the
women, with loud cries, armed themselves, and made a desperate resistance,
catching at the swords with their naked hands, and suffering themselves to
be hacked to pieces.
The night was spent by the Romans in some alarm, for though they had
defeated their foes and penetrated to their camp, yet they had not time to
fortify their own position; and they dreaded lest the Ambrons should make
head during the night, call the Teutons to their assistance, and charge up
the hill. "A cry was heard from the defeated Ambrons all through the night,
not like the sighs and groans of men, but like the howling and bellowing of
wild beasts."
Two days after this a second and decisive battle ensued. The narrative in
Plutarch is a little confused, and it is only by familiarity with the sites
that the whole story becomes unfolded clearly before us. Thus, it is only
on the spot that one sees how it was that Marius, striking from the chain
of the Alpines, came up over against the Ambrons on the hill above Les
Milles, and how he pursued his course thence. Plutarch, though he speaks of
the two battles, does not distinguish the sites effectually.
The Teutons, as already said, were making their way east from Aix. The road
ran through the broad basin of the Are; to the north rise, precipitously,
the bald white precipices of the limestone Mont Victoire, to the height
of 3,000 feet, with not a ledge on the sides where a shrub can find root.
Between these cliffs and the plain are, however, two low sandstone ridges,
the higher of which forms an arc, and dives into the wall of Mont Victoire,
about half way through the plain. On the southern side of the river are
low hills; at the extreme north-east is a conical green hill named Pain
de Munition, which is fortified much like the Hereford Beacon, with walls
in concentric rings. To the south-east is the chain of Mont Aurelien, and
there, on the Mont Olympe, is another fortified position, beneath which is
the town of Trets, an ancient Roman settlement.
[Illustration: Mont Victoire and the Plain of Pourrières.]
Now the barbarians followed the road on the north side of the river Are, to
the Roman station on it named Tegulata, the first station out of Aix, their
numbers swelled by the discomfited Ambrons. Marius, however, being at Les
Milles, crossed the river, and kept to the south side of it till he reached
Trets. Then he had a fortified position in his rear, the camp of Mont
Olympe; moreover, the barbarians were encamped on three tofts of red
sandstone on the north side of the river, at the station Tegulata, with, at
their back, the Roman fortified position of _Panis Annonæ_, now called Pain
de Munition, where one may conjecture Marius had his stores and reserves.
They were probably unaware of the trap into which they had walked. Marius,
however, had despatched on the day before Claudius Marcellus, with three
thousand men, up the long valley of the Infernet, to the north side of Mont
Victoire, so as to reach and strengthen the fortress of Panis Annonæ, and
secure his stores, and next day to descend the height and fall on the rear
of the enemy.
The slopes along which Marius marched were probably well-wooded, and he was
unobserved by the Teutons.
They had spent one whole day in pacing along the straight flat Roman road
under Mont Victoire. As they approached the station Tegulata, a singular
blood-red splash on the white sides of Mont Victoire emerged from behind
the lower wooded sandstone road, a signal of warning to them that they were
approaching a place of peril. Moreover, the sandstone deepened in colour,
till at Tegulata the little streams that oozed from under the sandstone ran
like blood about their feet. Of these they could not drink, therefore they
halted at Tegulata, where they again reached the river, and where there was
a bridge; they there encamped on the three tofts already mentioned, the
surfaces of which are of hard, dry, yellow sandstone, superposed on beds of
friable red sand. Here the river flowed sparkling and clear, and supplied
them with what water they required. Everything points to this spot as
their camp. It is one day's march from Aix. It is the first point at which
drinkable water is reached. The sandstone tofts stand up above the plain,
then undrained and marshy, as a dry base for their tents. Finally, the
monument of Marius is opposite them, on the farther side of the river.
[Illustration: Sketch plan of the battle fields.]
In the meantime the Romans had approached from the south, from Trets,
making a slight détour, following the tactics of Marius as before, to keep
to the south of the horde, and with now a river between him and them.
At Trets the ground inclines from south to north, with a broken edge of
sandstone--invisible from the river, serving as a screen behind which
troops could be massed unperceived. Here it was, I suspect, that Marius
passed that spring night, the second after the defeat of the Ambrons. The
broken edge of sandstone is not eighteen feet high. From the top the ground
slopes down for a mile, and then ensues a gully cut in the sandstone by
a small blood-red confluent of the Are. Another mile, or mile and a half
beyond, is the river, and close to the river, on the farther bank, was the
camp of the Teutons.
On the morning of the 23rd March [1] the Roman cavalry were discovered by
the Teutons drawn up on the slope.
[Footnote 1: My reason for fixing the day I shall give in the sequel.]
"On seeing this, unable to contain themselves," says Plutarch, "nor stay
till the Romans were come down into the plain, they armed themselves
hastily and advanced up the hill. Marius sent officers throughout the army,
with orders that they should await the onslaught of the enemy. When the
barbarians were within reach, the Romans were to hurl their javelins, then
draw their swords, and advance, pressing the enemy back by their shields.
For the place was so slippery that the enemy's blows could have little
weight, nor could they preserve close order, where the declivity of the
ground made them lose their balance." One can see exactly where this took
place, it was where the confluent of the Are formed a natural protection to
the position of the Romans; the hollow cut in the greasy red marl was too
insignificant to prevent the Teutons from attempting to pass it, but was
sufficient to break their order, and to give the Romans the first advantage
over them.
Having driven back the assailants, the Romans now crossed the natural
moat and bore down on the Teutons. At the same moment the well-designed
manoeuvre of Marius, in despatching Marcellus to the fort on Panis Annonæ,
produced its result. Marcellus had descended the hill, screened by the
trees, and had suddenly fallen on the rear of the camp of the Teutons.
Thus attacked, both in front and in the rear, the barbarians were seized
with panic. A frightful carnage ensued. No quarter was given. Women and
children were mown down; the dogs furiously defending their masters' bodies
were also slaughtered.
[Illustration: Monument of Marius, Position of Marius, Treta.]
"After the battle, Marius selected from among the arms and other spoils
such as were elegant and entire, and likely to make the most brilliant show
in his triumph. The rest he piled together, and offered them as a splendid
sacrifice to the gods. The army stood around the hill crowned with laurel;
and he himself, arrayed in a purple robe, girt after the manner of the
Romans, held a lighted torch. He had just raised it with both hands towards
heaven, and was about to set fire to the pyre, when some men were seen
approaching at a gallop. Great silence and expectation followed. On their
coming up, they leaped from their horses and saluted him with the title of
Consul for the fifth time, and presented letters to the same purport. This
added joy to the solemnity, which the soldiers expressed by acclamations
and by clanking of arms; and, while the officers were presenting Marius
with new crowns of laurel, he set fire to the pile, and finished the
sacrifice."
According to some accounts the number of Teutons slain numbered two hundred
thousand, and that of the prisoners is stated to have been eighty thousand.
The most moderate computation of the slain is fixed at one hundred
thousand. In any case the carnage was great, for the battle-field, where
all the corpses rested without burial, rotting in the sun and rain, got the
name of _Campi Putridi_, the Fields of Putrefaction, a name still traceable
in that of Pourrières, the neighbouring village.
[Illustration: Venus Victrix.]
On the site of the battle, on the south bank of the river, over against the
camp of the enemy, where also was the pyre in which the waggons, chariots,
arms and vesture of the invaders was consumed, a monument to Marius was
erected, which was tolerably perfect before the French Revolution, but
which now presents a mass of ruins. It consists of a quadrangular block
of masonry, measuring fifteen feet on each side, within an enclosing wall
fourteen feet distant. This quadrangular block sustained a pyramid, with
statues at the angles, as it still figures upon the arms of the Commune
and on some Renaissance tapestry in a neighbouring château. Here, three
or four years ago, was found a beautiful statue in Parian marble of Venus
Victrix, unfortunately without head and arms, but quite of the best Greek
workmanship. The city of Avignon bought it of the proprietor of the field
for one thousand eight hundred francs, and it is now one of the principal
ornaments of the Avignon Museum. The statue, to my mind, proves that this
monument was raised by Julius Cæsar; there is an indirect compliment to his
own family in it. Venus was the ancestress of the Julian race, and Cæsar
perhaps insinuated, if he erected the statue, that the success of Marius
was due to the patronage of the divine ancestress and protectress of the
Julian race, and of Julius Cæsar's aunt, the wife of Marius, quite as much
as to the genius in war of Marius himself.
We know, moreover, that the trophies erected to Marius for his Cimbric and
Teutonic victories were overthrown by Sulla, and that they were re-erected
by Julius Cæsar in A.D. 65.
The anniversary of the battle was annually celebrated in a little temple
dedicated to Venus Victrix on the apex of Mont Victoire, that overhangs the
plain.
When Provence became Christian the temple was converted into a chapel,
Venus Victrix became transformed into S. Victoria; and the procession
remained unaltered, the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages ascended
the mountain bearing boughs of box, which they waved and shouted "Victoire!
Victoire!" On reaching the chapel, Mass was celebrated. This took place
annually on March 23rd till the Revolution, when the chapel was suffered to
fall into ruin. I was on the battlefield on the day which is traditionally
held to have been that when this decisive battle took place. A brilliant
day. The frogs were croaking in the marshes and dykes, the tones of some
like the cawing of young rooks. The ground was strewn with grape-hyacinth,
and white star of Bethlehem, the rocks were covered with rosemary in pale
grey bloom, the golden chains of the broom waving over the blood-red
sandstone rocks.
That the tradition is correct, or approximately so, I think probable, for
towards the end of March would be the suitable time for the barbarians to
set themselves in motion for the invasion of Italy. Sufficient grass could
be had for their horses and cattle, and they would desire to reach the
plains of Italy before the great summer heats.
[Illustration: March of S. Victoire (23rd March). Harmonised by F. W.
BUSSELL, Esq., M.A.]
I talked a good deal to peasants working in the fields. They were all of
one mind as to where the battle had raged--from north to south, they said,
between Trets and Pourrières. The tradition is only worth anything in that
it is based on the fact that along this line the greatest amount of weapons
has been turned up by the spade, and pick, and plough. [1] A French writer,
referred to in the footnote, says that if a little rill trickling into the
Are be examined where it flows in, opposite the monument of Marius, the
banks will be found at first to be full of broken Roman pottery, but if the
course of the stream be pursued a little farther up it will be found to
flow through beds of charcoal and molten masses of metal--clearly the site
of the pyre raised by Marius. I accordingly searched the locality. I found
the pottery, and picked out fragments of Samian ware; the bank is from
three to nine feet deep in them. Farther on, I came, as M. Gilles said,
to remains of charcoal and cinder. I was perplexed. I followed the stream
farther up, and found that it crossed a road that was metalled for half a
mile with cinder, and that the cinder lay on the road and on the road only.
I instituted inquiries and ascertained that this was all brought from a
steam mill a mile and a half off along this road. But though these remains
of charcoal and scoria are not ancient, yet the little rill does ooze
from the plateau on which I believe Marius raised the pyre. It is exactly
opposite his monument, between his position and the Panis Annonæ, whence
swept down Marcellus with his cavalry. It was the site at once of the camp
and of the pyre. No remains could possibly be found on it of camp or pyre,
as the sandstone is in constant disintegration, and the whole surface has
been many times washed bare and renewed during the nineteen hundred and
ninety-two years that have elapsed since the battle.
[Footnote 1: M. Gilles, "Campagne de Marius dans la Gaule," Paris, 1870,
thinks that Marius pursued the Teutons along the Aurelian road, and that
the battle was fought on the north side of the river. I do not hold this.
The monument of Marius is on the south side, and I think he would naturally
secure a fortified camp in his rear.]
The story how Marius, having destroyed the hordes of Ambrons and Teutons,
and secured Italy on the west, returned to the Peninsula, and finding that
the Cimbri were streaming down from the north-east, met them near Vercellæ,
and there defeated and slaughtered them also, I leave for other pens to
describe. That battle took place on July 30th.
* * * * *
I have given (_ante_, pp. 152, 153) what may interest the musical reader,
the traditional march performed on the day of the battle of Pourrières,
when the pilgrims ascended the mountain to return thanks for the victory of
Marius.