Thereby the Romans gained time to encounter them with united forces in Italy.

It was no season to resume--as the democratic general would perhaps otherwise have done--the interrupted scheme of conquest in Gaul, such as Gaius Gracchus had probably projected.

From the battle-field of Aix the victorious army was conducted to the Po; and after a brief stay in the capital, where Marius refused the triumph offered to him until he had utterly subdued the barbarians, he arrived in person at the united armies.

In the spring of 653 they again crossed the Po, 50,000 strong, under the consul Marius and the proconsul Catulus, and marched against the Cimbri, who on their part seem to have marched up the river with a view to cross the mighty stream at its source.
Battle on the Raudine Plain The two armies met below Vercellae not far from the confluence of the Sesia with the Po,( 25) just at the spot where Hannibal had fought his first battle on Italian soil.

The Cimbri desired battle, and according to their custom sent to the Romans to settle the time and place for it; Marius gratified them and named the next day--it was the 30th July 653--and the Raudine plain, a wide level space, which the superior Roman cavalry found advantageous for their movements.
Here they fell upon the enemy expecting them and yet taken by surprise; for in the dense morning mist the Cimbrian cavalry found itself in hand-to-hand conflict with the stronger cavalry of the Romans before it anticipated attack, and was thereby thrown back upon the infantry which was just making its dispositions for battle.
A complete victory was gained with slight loss, and the Cimbri were annihilated.