But, whether from the difficulty of finding supplies on the Alpine routes or from other reasons, the mass again broke up into two hosts, one of which, composed of the Cimbri and Tigorini, was to recross the Rhine and to invade Italy through the passes of the eastern Alps already reconnoitred in 641, and the other, composed of the newly-arrived Teutones, the Tougeni, and the Ambrones--the flower of the Cimbrian host already tried in the battle of Arausio--was to invade Italy through Roman Gaul and the western passes.

It was this second division, which in the summer of 652 once more crossed the Rhone without hindrance, and on its left bank resumed, after a pause of nearly three years, the struggle with the Romans.

Marius awaited them in a well-chosen and well-provisioned camp at the confluence of the Isere with the Rhone, in which position he intercepted the passage of the barbarians by either of the only two military routes to Italy then practicable, that over the Little St.

Bernard, and that along the coast.

The Teutones attacked the camp which obstructed their passage; for three consecutive days the assault of the barbarians raged around the Roman entrenchments, but their wild courage was thwarted by the superiority of the Romans in fortress-warfare and by the prudence of the general.