CIMBRI, a Teutonic tribe which in 113 B.C. defeated the consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo near Noreia. They had been wandering along the Danube for some years, warring with the Celtic tribes on either bank. After the victory of 113 B.C. they passed westwards over the Rhine, threatening the territory of the Allobroges. Their request for land was not granted, and in 109 B.C. they defeated the consul Marcus Junius Silanus in southern Gaul, but did not at once follow up the victory. In 105 B.C. they returned to the attack under their king, Boiorix, and annihilated the Roman armies at Arausio (Orange). Again the victorious Cimbri turned away from Italy, and, of ter at tempting to reduce the Arverni (q.v.), moved into Spain, where they failed to overcome the desperate resistance of the Celt iberian tribes. In 103 B.C. they marched back through Gaul, which they overran as far as the Seine, where the Belgae made a stout resistance. Near Rouen the Cimbri were reinforced by the Teutoni and two cantons of the Helvetii. They marched south wards by two routes, the Cimbri moving on the left towards the passes of the eastern Alps, while the newly arrived Teutoni and their allies made for the western gates of Italy. In 102 B.C. the Teutoni and Ambrones were totally defeated at Aquae Sextiae by Marius, while the Cimbri succeeded in passing the Alps and driving Q. Lutatius Catulus across the Adige and Po. In IoI B.C. Marius overthrew them on the Raudine Plain near Vercellae. Their king, Boiorix, was killed, and the whole army destroyed. The Cimbri were the first in the long line of the Teutonic in vaders of Italy.
The original home of the Cimbri has been much disputed. From information gained from the Monumentum Ancyranum and the map of Ptolemy, it may reasonably be conjectured that they came from the peninsula of Jutland, where their name may be preserved in Himmerland (Aalborg). Strabo and other early writers related a number of curious facts concerning the customs of the Cimbri, which are of great interest as the earliest records of the manner of life of the Teutonic nations.