[citation needed] Having regained Tolosa, the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio adopted a defensive strategy, waiting to see if the Cimbri would move toward Roman territories again.

The senior of the year's two consuls, Publius Rutilius Rufus, was an experienced and highly decorated soldier, veteran of the recent war in Numidia, but he did not take charge of the military campaign himself but remained in Rome while his inexperienced, untried colleague Gnaeus Mallius Maximus led the legions north.

The reasons for Rutilius not taking charge himself do not seem to be known: perhaps he faced political opposition because of his friendship with Gaius Marius, or perhaps he believed Mallius Maximus deserved the chance to earn himself a share of glory, or perhaps he was simply temporarily ill. Two of the major Roman forces available were camped out on the Rhone River, near Arausio: one led by Mallius Maximus, and the other by the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio.

However, because Maximus was a novus homo and therefore lacked the noble background of the Roman aristocracy – in addition to his military inexperience – Caepio refused to serve under him and made camp on the opposite side of the river.

The defeat left them not only with a critical shortage of manpower and lost military equipment, but with a terrifying enemy camped on the other side of the now-undefended Alpine passes.

In Rome, it was widely thought that the defeat was due to the arrogance of Caepio rather than to a deficiency in the Roman Army, and popular dissatisfaction with the ruling classes grew.

The catastrophic scale of the loss, which cut a swathe through aristocrats and commoners, led the Roman Senate and people to set aside the peacetime legal constraints that prevented a man from being consul a second time, until ten years had passed since his first consulship.

[citation needed] Eventually the Romans under Marius finally defeated the Teutones and Ambrones in the Battle of Aquae Sextiae as they attempted to advance through the Alps into Italy.