Cimbrian War

The Cimbrian War (113–101 BC) was fought between the Roman Republic and the Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and the Teutons, who migrated from the Jutland peninsula into Roman controlled territory, and clashed with Rome and her allies. The Cimbrian War was the first time since the Second Punic War that Italia and Rome itself had been seriously threatened.

The timing of the war had a great effect on the internal politics of Rome, and the organization of its military. The war contributed greatly to the political career of Gaius Marius, whose consulships and political conflicts challenged many of the Roman republic's political institutions and customs of the time. The Cimbrian threat, along with the Jugurthine War, inspired the landmark Marian reforms of the Roman legions.

Rome was finally victorious, and its Germanic adversaries — who had inflicted on the Roman armies the heaviest losses that they had suffered since the Second Punic War with victories at the battles of Arausio and Noreia — almost completely annihilated, with the victories at Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebeling Gladiators in the Third Servile War.