re: Was the Metaurus the key battle of 2nd Punic War?

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Hannibal was a myth created by the Romans.

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Eh, you know he destroyed a consular army, killing both consuls, right? And he was giving them a third significant defeat in consecutive campaigning seasons (although Trebia, serious as it was, and Trasimene were nothing relative to Cannae). The threat posed by Hannibal was very real.

I'm not saying they didn't prolong that to bolster the effect of their final victory over him, but to say they created him seems to be a stretch.

His defeat was something to be celebrated just as much as the Western alliance's defeat of Hitler.

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Battle of Aurusio was worse when the Cimbri annihilated two consular armies. One was a snoot who wouldn't merge his army with a "new man".

Led to Consulship of Marius, Marian reforms of army, and the enlistment of the head count. That last thing doomed the Republican half a century later.

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I don't want to diminish Arausio, because it was a big deal. It led to Marius and all that as you suggest.

Recall this was a different time for Rome - the High/ (Early late-ish) Republic. Arausio (like Teutoburg over a century later in the early Imperial times) was a major disaster, but in Gaul. Like Cannae it did seem to be a continuation of string of bad outcomes for the Roman army in the field. But Cannae was in Italy, in Apulia. The citizens of Rome could metaphorically see Hannibal's campfires after hearing news of the defeat and the death of both consuls.

By the time of Arausio and Marius, the Republic had gotten increasingly offensive and pro-active. That defeat, however stinging, just wasn't the existential threat that Cannae represented as the sort of "peak Hannibal" that it was at the time. It was far enough away to allow for some reaction time.

It begs the question - in late 2nd Century BC, could the Cimbri have sustained themselves for a prolonged siege of Rome? Did they have the engineering to construct adequate siege engines?

Would the threat of a siege have been enough? Hannibal didn't seem to think so the prior century, but things did change. The Romans and Greeks would have still considered all the Gauls primitive at that point (whereas the Carthaginians were reasonably co-equal in technology).

Rome was really the only state of the ancient era who could absorb repeated huge losses in the field like this and survive. Maybe Egypt.