Cimbri

Cimbri, or KIMBRI, a people who issued from the north of Germany in conjunction with the Teutones, and first came into hostile contact with the Romans in the province of Noricum (Carinthia and Carniola) in 113 B.C. They were victorious in several great engagements, and were only prevented from devastating Italy by a terrible defeat they suffered from Marius on the Raudii Campi, near Verona, or, according to others, near Vercelli, in August 101 B.C. They fought with desperate courage, and when the battle was lost, their women killed themselves and their children. It is not till long afterwards, when the Romans themselves penetrated into Germany, that the name of the Cimbri again appears. Cæsar represents the Aduatici of Belgium as the descendants of the Cimbri and Teutones. Tacitus speaks of a people bearing the name of Cimbri, few in number, but of great reputation, that sent ambassadors to Augustus. This people lived in the extreme north of Germany, on the borders of the ocean; according to Pliny and Ptolemy, at the extremity of the peninsula called from them the Cimbri Chersonese, now Jütland. The ethnology of the Cimbri is doubtful. Greek writers associated them groundlessly with the Cimmerians; Sallust calls them Gauls; Cæsar, Tacitus, Plutarch, and most moderns look upon them as Germans. Some, however, have maintained that they were Celtic, and have tried to fortify their argument by a desperate analogy with the name Cymry.