In 105 BC, an army of 80,000 Romans fell to a barbarian horde led by the Cimbri tribe. The scale of the slaughter left only a few hundred survivors to tell Rome what had happened. This battle was just one defeat in a dozen-year war that raged between 113 and 101 BC. Though the Romans were ultimately victorious under their general Gaius Marius, it was a traumatic near-death experience for the Republic. The Cimbrian War echoed the conflict that the Romans had endured with Gaulish tribes 350 years earlier which had resulted in the first sack of Rome. But more importantly, it anticipated massive migrations that would occur centuries later, with the Roman Empire facing off against a host of Germanic barbarians during what is sometimes called the \u201CMigration Period.\u201D