The details of the treachery to which a deceiver like Jugurtha fell the unpitied victim are as confused as they are revolting. It is enough to say that, a few days after the battle, Sulla and Manlius were sent as envoys to Bocchus at his own request, and that afterwards an embassy, despatched by the Mauretanian king first to the camp of Marius and then to Rome, brought back the Senate's acceptance of his submission, with the assurance that he should have the friendship of the Roman people when he had earned it. All that now remained was to pay the implied price by the surrender of Jugurtha. A letter from Bocchus to Marius requested that Sulla might again be sent to him. Sallust draws a graphic picture of the apparent dangers of the mission, first from the tumultuous host with which Volux met the quæstor to conduct him to his father's camp, and then from the appearance of the army of Jugurtha, through the very midst of which Sulla courageously allowed his guide to lead him. To the last moment, Sallust tells us, Bocchus was undecided whether he should give up Jugurtha to Sulla, or Sulla to Jugurtha; "his inclination was against us his fears made him disposed to the Roman side." Jugurtha seems to have counted on his irresolution; but for once the wily Numidian was outwitted in the game of dissimulation. His ambassador was allowed to be present at a public interview, in which, by a previous arrangement between Sulla and Bocchus, the envoy was told to wait ten days for the king's final decision; but the real business was transacted in a secret meeting during the ensuing night. Jugurtha was informed that favourable terms had been obtained for him; but he required Bocchus to prove his fidelity by giving up Sulla to him at a conference to be held on the pretext of arranging the conditions of peace. It is impossible to pity the monster of perfidy who was thus caught in his own snare. Confident in the success of his treacherous plan, Jugurtha came unarmed as was agreed, and with a few confidential friends, to the meeting with Bocchus and Sulla; when the party were surrounded by men who had been placed in ambush. All were killed except Jugurtha, and he was handed over in chains to Sulla, who conducted him to the camp of Marius. He arrived at Rome as a prisoner, with his two sons, just at the time when the consul Mallius and the proconsul Cæpio had been defeated in Gaul by the Cimbri, and Marius was elected by the acclamations of the people as consul for the second time, to retrieve this disaster,* and Sallust (Jug. c. 114). The historian furnishes us with a very confused account of the chronology of the Jugurthine war. It is usually inferred from the course of

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 camp. The defence was successful, and Metellus, having gar

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.

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 anthor himself intended to pass for anything else than ornament."-Long.

to add another in the representations of Gauda, the legitimate son of Jugurtha's father Mastanabal, who, having been named in the will of Micipsa as reversionary heir to the crown, might be supposed to represent the family of Masinissa and the wishes of the Numidian people. So that at last, when Marius obtained leave of absence from Metellus only twelve days before the consular election, his success was the more assured by the obstacles that had been raised to his canvass. Received with enthusiasm by the people, he joined in the harangues of the tribunes against Metellus, and promised either to kill Jugurtha, or bring him a prisoner to Rome. The prescription which had long confined the consulship to a few noble families was broken through by the vehement current of popular feeling. Marius was elected consul with L. Cassius Longinus, and was appointed to the province of Numidia and the conduct of the war with Jugurtha. The Senate had intended to prorogue the command of Metellus for another year, but the tribune Manlius Mancinus carried a rogation which placed the allotment of the provinces for the coming year in the hands of the people (B.c. 108).

Metellus meanwhile renewed his efforts to finish the war, and avoid the humiliation of handing it over to the plebeian successor whom he had insulted. Jugurtha, deserted by all his friends, was suddenly attacked by the Romans, with the usual result. The Numidian infantry were scattered before the legions, but the king vanished from the field with his chosen cavalry. He fled far inland to the strong city of Thala,* where he kept his chief treasure, and where his children were brought up. By incredible exertions, and favoured by an opportune fall of rain, Metellus crossed the fifty miles of waterless desert, and came so unexpectedly upon Thala, that Jugurtha had barely time to escape with his family and a part of his treasures. The city, however, withstood a siege of forty days, chiefly through the desperation of the Roman deserters, who, when they found further defence hopeless, collected all the gold and silver and other valuables into the

*The site of this place is doubtful. Shaw is clearly wrong in identifying it with Thelepte (now Ferianch). Davis places it at Ain-Thala, the large ruins of which have no mark of identification but the name, and its site cannot be reconciled with Sallust's description. Pellissier finds another Thala in the south-eastern part of Tunis, to reach which from Utica, Metellus must have passed through a district of the Regency of which Pellissier says that "the worst part of Algeria is an Eden compared with this horrible country." This position would agree also with the embassy which Metellus received from Leptis Magna.-(See Long, Decline &c., vol. i. pp. 450-454.)

royal palace, which they burnt over their heads after feasting and getting drunk together. The region of the Tripolis was made secure by a garrison which Metellus sent to the friendly port of Leptis Magna; while Jugurtha, so fearful of treachery that he dared not trust himself for more than a single night in any city, fled westward into the country of the Gætulians, the sandy region between the Atlas and the Sahara, which the Arabs call the Land of Palms (Beled-el-Jerid) from the Oases interspersed amidst its wastes. The Gætulians, who were as yet strangers to the Romans, furnished Jugurtha with fresh forces, and his movement to the west brought him near Mauretania. Bocchus, whom the tribes of the Mauri acknowledged as their king, was the father-in-law of Jugurtha; but this relation was a weak bond of union among a people who practised polygamy. The Mauretanian king found stronger motives for aiding Jugurtha in the former rejection of his overtures by the Romans, and in the prospect of being himself soon attacked; and Jugurtha plied the Moorish counsellors with gold. The alliance was cemented by a personal interview, and the two kings marched together against Cirta, hoping to seize the stores, booty, and prisoners placed there, before Metellus could arrive to the relief of the city. The proconsul had advanced to meet them, and was entrenched in a camp near Cirta, when letters from Rome brought the news that Marius had gained the consulship and the province of Numidia. Metellus was more vexed, says Sallust, at the honour given to Marius than at the slight put upon himself, nor did a Roman's ideas of manliness forbid his venting his indignation in tears. Instead of risking his reputation against an untried enemy, Metellus sent envoys to warn Bocchus against plunging into a war with Rome.† The Mauretanian replied with friendly assurances, and tried to make stipulations in favour of Jugurtha. Without as yet, probably, contemplating treachery, he felt the advantage of holding the person of Jugurtha. Thus repeated

* Sallust tells us that Metellus gained great glory by the capture of Thala. Mr. Long points out the marks of Sallust's inaccurate rhetoric in his description of the siege. Though Metellus had compelled his men to take with them nothing but ten days' supply of food, we find the army provided with all the military engines required for a regular siege.

+Mr. Long says of the arguments which the historian ascribes to Metellus :-" He gave this Mauretanian excellent advice about the danger and uncertainty of war. His best remarks were probably derived from the wise speech of Archidamus in the first book of Thucydides, which every statesman should read before he resolves upon If Metellus did not take his excellent precepts from the Greek historian, Sallust perhaps did it for him."

war.