should be recalled for the elections. He little knew that a war in the region of the Atlas and under the climate of Africa was one of the most difficult in which Rome had yet engaged. Jugurtha amused him with promises of surrender, which were as often broken on the not unfounded pretext of personal danger; till not only was the season wasted, but the consul had incurred a strong suspicion of complicity with the king. Albinus was at length obliged to return to hold the Comitia, leaving the command to his brother Aulus as proprætor. At Rome, the efforts of two of the tribunes to secure their re-election caused the repeated postponement of the Comitia, an interruption of constitutional order which henceforth frequently recurs.

In this delay Aulus thought he saw an opportunity for signalising his temporary command, if not by a victory over Jugurtha, at least by an advantageous bargain for peace. In the month of January (B.c. 109), he called his army out of winter-quarters to attack the town of Suthul, where Jugurtha kept his treasure. The place was one of those strong African fortresses that stand perched on steep hills, in the midst of vast plains, which the winter rains had now converted into a muddy swamp. While Aulus wasted his time in the pretence of an impossible siege, Jugurtha led him on with promises of submission; and at last, under pretence of finding a favourable place for concluding the bargain, he enticed the proprætor into the desert. Here, having first corrupted several of the officers, Jugurtha surrounded the camp of Aulus on a cloudy night; his confederates admitted him within the entrenchments; and the darkness alone saved the Roman army from destruction. On the following day Aulus consented to purchase safety on the condition that his army should pass beneath the yoke, and that he should evacuate Numidia within ten days (B.C. 109).

Pre

When the news of this disgrace reached Rome, the Optimates attempted by a show of energy to avert its consequences from themselves. Spurius Albinus was the first to bring his brother's conduct before the Senate, and to obtain the cancelling of the treaty, while he exerted himself to raise reinforcements. vented by the tribunitial veto from leading the new levies into Africa, he crossed over by himself, but found his former army demoralised and mutinous. Meanwhile the popular indignation refused to be trifled with any longer. The tribune C. Mamilius Limetanus carried-in spite of the intrigues of the Optimates who dared not openly oppose the bill-a motion for a commission of enquiry into the conduct of the partisans of Jugurtha,

from those who had first abetted him in his disobedience to the Senate down to those who had given him back the elephants and deserters. Scaurus, who as Bestia's legate had been the arch culprit, had influence enough to procure his own appointment as one of the three commissioners; and he seems to have felt it politic to sacrifice some of his own friends, including his chief fellow-offender, Bestia. Among the other victims of the severity with which the commissioners discharged their functions, and of the resentment of the equestrian judices, whose fellow-capitalists had been massacred at Cirta, were the late consul Albinus, and Opimius the slayer of Caius Gracchus, who died in exile and poverty at Dyrrachium.

The conduct of the war against Jugurtha was committed to the new consul Q. Metellus, an aristocrat, like the rest of his haughty house, but yet so free not only from corruption but even suspicion, that when after his prætorship in B.c. 112 he was prosecuted on a charge of extortion, the jury acquitted him without even looking at his accounts. The confidence felt in his character facilitated the preparations for the new campaign. A fresh levy was made to reinforce the demoralised army of Albinus; and abundant resources were furnished by the Italian allies. The first efforts of Metellus were devoted to the restoration of discipline by measures such as those taken by Scipio with the army before Numantia. The camp followers were driven away; and the soldiers, who had long remained idle in one place, without even throwing up the usual entrenchments, were exercised in rapid marches, every halt being marked by a camp duly fortified. Nor was it the least of the merits of Metellus that he looked for his lieutenants beyond the limits of his party, and chose such men as Caius Marius and the celebrated disciplinarian P. Rutilius Rufus.

When Jugurtha learned the character of the new commander, he felt that his artifices were exhausted, and made serious proposals for surrender. But now his arts of treachery and procrastination were turned against himself. Metellus gave him encouraging replies, but secretly won over his envoys and even his officers, who furnished the consul with supplies when he advanced into Numidia. Jugurtha, finding that his own servants were bribed to deliver him up alive or dead, resolved to risk a battle, and took his post on the river Muthul, which appears to have been a southern tributary of the Bagradas. The valley was bounded by a chain of lofty hills at the distance of about twenty miles; and the basin of the river itself was marked by a lower

range, clothed with olive, myrtle, and other shrubs. On the ridge nearest the river Jugurtha placed his elephants and part of his infantry, under Bomilcar, while he himself took post, with the cavalry and picked infantry, under cover of the vegetation, near the foot of the slope by which the Romans must descend into the valley. But the cover was not dense enough for effectual concealment, and as Metellus marched down from the high ground, he saw Jugurtha's men and horses on his right. An engagement on this side of the plain would expose his weary troops to be cut off from the river, where alone they could find water and a proper camping-ground, while the march across the open ground would be harassed by the Numidian cavalry. So the consul drew up his line of battle facing Jugurtha; but, as soon as it was formed, the soldiers were ordered to face to the left, so that the line became a column, and began to move across the plain. The cavalry of the left wing, now the van, were led by Metellus himself: those of the right, now the rear, and the critical position in such a manœuvre, had in Marius a commander equal to the emergency: while the other trusted legate, Rutilius Rufus, was sent forward with a detachment of cavalry and light* cohorts to pitch a camp on the bank of the river. Jugurtha remained immovable till the rear of the Roman column had passed his extreme left, and then despatched 2000 infantry to seize the heights from which they had descended, and so to cut off their retreat. He then attacked the Romans on every side; and there ensued an irregular fight, in which the Numidian light horse, though unable to withstand the shock of the Roman cavalry, showed their usual superiority in skirmishing over the broken ground. But the African infantry, though in their own climate, were unable to match the endurance of the Roman legionaries. Towards evening Marius led a charge up the hill against the 2000 Numidians who had hung all day upon the heights, threatening the Roman rear, and their instant dispersion decided the fate of the battle on this side. Meanwhile, the advanced guard under Rutilius had reached the river and formed their camp. Bomilcar suffered them to pass him, and then moved down with his whole line to cut off the legate from returning to the consul's aid.. A cloud of dust, rolling down the hill-side, announced his approach to Rufus, who drew up his line

It is convenient to explain, once for all, that the terms expediti, sine impediinentis, and so forth, refer to troops disencumbered for the occasion of the personal baggage, rations, stakes, and entrenching tools, which made up the ordinary load of a Roman soldier to as much as sixty pounds.

in front of the newly-formed camp. The elephants, entangled among the bushes, were easily surrounded: four of them were taken, and the remaining forty killed; and the Numidian infantry were rapidly dispersed. The two victorious divisions met in the midst of the plain, not without a momentary panic-each being ignorant of how the other had fared, and mistaking their comrades in the darkness for the enemy-and both returned to rest in the camp beside the river. Jugurtha's infantry dispersed, according to the Numidian custom; and he fled, with his cavalry only, into the mountain fastnesses. Instead of entangling his army in a dangerous pursuit, Metellus moved into the richest districts of Numidia, ravaging the fields, taking and burning the cities that were ill-defended, and putting their male inhabitants to the sword. These successes restored confidence at Rome, and a public thanksgiving was decreed by the Senate.

Meanwhile Jugurtha had collected in his mountain retreat an army which Sallust describes as consisting of cultivators and shepherds, though it cannot be doubted that many of his veterans would rally round him. He proved his military skill in a most effective guerilla warfare, sometimes hanging on the Roman rear, sometimes going before to waste the country on their line of march, and sometimes waylaying them when they had to cross the hills. Even when Metellus formed two divisions, under himself and Marius, Jugurtha would appear unexpectedly now to the one, and then to the other; but all the while he avoided a pitched battle. To put an end to this indecisive campaign, Metellus resolved to attack the city of Zama, the same near which Scipio had gained his decisive victory over Hannibal. But Jugurtha, informed of the consul's design, was at Zama before him, and prepared the city for resistance not more by his exhortations to the inhabitants than by the despair of the Roman deserters whom he added to the garrison. He then marched off to Sicca (El-Kef),* hoping to surprise Marius, who had been sent to that place with a few cohorts to collect corn; but the Romans were extricated by generalship and discipline, and arrived safe before Zama. The siege of that city again displayed the able conduct of Metellus and Marius, and of Jugurtha, who hung with his cavalry about the outskirts of the Roman army, and at one time penetrated to their The defence was successful, and Metellus, having garcamp.

*This inland town in the valley of the Bagradas derived its epithet of Venerea rom the worship of Venus, the Phoenician Astarte.-See Vol. II. p. 384.

risoned the towns he had won, retired into winter quarters in the province of Africa.

It was the character of this war that the campaigns of arms were varied by interludes of treachery. The commander who had restored the prestige of the Roman legions was not above using the services of Bomilcar, who saw that his own sacrifice, as the murderer of Massiva, would be a condition of any peace granted to Jugurtha. Having secured a promise of pardon if he delivered up the king, alive or dead, Bomilcar persuaded his master to offer a full submission. Step by step he was required to pay an immense sum of money, to give up all his elephants and 300 hostages, and lastly, to surrender the Roman deserters. Of these a few escaped to Mauretania in time; the rest were put to death by Metellus with cruel tortures.* Now came the final demand, that Jugurtha should repair to Tisidium, and receive the orders of the proconsul; but, helpless as he seemed after all these exactions, he preferred the risk of continuing the war. During the ensuing winter, the city of Vaga revolted from the Romans, and all the garrison were put to death, except the commander, T. Turpilius Silanus, who was scourged and beheaded as a traitor by Metellus, when he retook the city two days afterwards.† Meanwhile the rupture of the negociations left Jugurtha and Bomilcar each the prey to wellfounded suspicions of each other; and a detected plot against the life of the king delivered Bomilcar to the executioner. After this discovery of the treachery of those whom he had most trusted, Sallust tells us that Jugurtha became suspicious of everybody, and subject to such sudden alarms as to act like a man who is beside himself.t

The services of CAIUS MARIUS during this eventful campaign had been too great not to rouse his own ambition and the jealousy of his commander; and his bearing in the camp had won the hearts of the soldiers. As firm in governing himself as he was strict in commanding others, he shared the food and labours of the legionaries, even to working with them in the trenches. Their letters carried his praises to Rome, where his tribunate was

Several had their hands cut off: others were buried up to the middle in the earth and so made a mark for the Roman archers, and finally burnt alive. So at least say Appian and Orosius. Sallust does not mention their fate. "Perhaps," says Mr. Long, "he assumed that everybody would know that they were put to death."

+ His execution was justified, as has already been observed, on the ground that he was a Latin.

"So says Sallust in one laboured sentence, which I do not suppose that the author himself intended to pass for anything else than ornament."-Long.