When the time for departure had arrived, the legions were marched

through Italy to Rhegium, were shipped thence to Sicily and from Sicily

were transferred to the African province. This was to be Bestia's basis

of operations; and when he had gathered adequate supplies and organised

his lines of communication, he entered Numidia. His march was from a

superficial point of view a complete success; large numbers of prisoners

were taken and several cities were carried by assault.[931] But the

nature of the war in hand was soon made painfully manifest. It was a war

with a nation, not a mere hunting expedition for the purpose of tracking

down Jugurtha. The latter object could be successfully accomplished only

if some assistance were secured from friendly portions of Numidia or

from neighbouring powers. But there was no friendly portion of Numidia.

The mercantile class had been wiped out, and though the Romans seem to

have regained possession of Cirta at an early period of the war,[932] it

is not likely that it ever resumed the industrial life, which might have

supplied money and provisions, if not men; while the position of the

town rendered it useless as a basis of operations for expeditions into

that western portion of Numidia, from which the chief military strength

of Jugurtha was drawn. In these regions a possible ally was to be found

in Bocchus King of Mauretania; but his recent overtures to Rome had been

deliberately rejected by the senate. Nothing but the name of this great

King of the Moors, who ruled over the territory stretching from the

Muluccha to Tingis, had hitherto been known to the Roman people; even

the proximity of a portion of his kingdom to the coast of Spain had

brought him into no relations, either friendly or hostile, to the

imperial government.[933]

Bocchus had secured peace with his eastern neighbour by giving his

daughter in marriage to Jugurtha; but he never allowed this family

connection to disturb his ideas of political convenience and, as soon as

he heard that war had been declared against Jugurtha, he sent an embassy

to Rome praying for a treaty with the Roman people and a recognition as

one of the friends of the Republic.[934] This conduct may have been due

to the belief that a victory of the Romans over Jugurtha would entail

the destruction of the Numidian monarchy and the reduction of at least a

portion of the territory to the condition of a province. In this case

Mauretania would itself be the frontier kingdom, playing the part now

taken by Numidia; and Bocchus may have wished to have some claim on Rome

before his eastern frontier was bordered, as his northern was commanded,

by a Roman province. He may even have hoped to benefit by the spoils of

war, as Masinissa had once benefited by those which fell from Syphax and

from Carthage, and to increase his territories at the expense of his

son-in-law. There can be no better proof of the real intentions of the

government as regards Numidia, even after war had been declared, than

the senate's rejection of the offer made by Bocchus. His aid would be

invaluable from a strategic point of view, if the aim of the expedition

were to make Numidia a province or even to crush Jugurtha. But the most

constant maxim of senatorial policy was to avoid an extension of the

frontiers, and this principle was accompanied by a strong objection to

enter into close relations with any power that was not a frontier state.

Such relations might involve awkward obligations, and were inconsistent

with the policy which devolved the whole obligation for frontier defence

and frontier relations on a friendly client prince. Whether the

maintenance of the traditional scheme of administration in Africa

demanded the renewed recognition of Jugurtha as King of Numidia, was a

subordinate question; its answer depended entirely on the possibility of

the Numidians being induced to accept any other monarch.

It must have required but a brief experience of the war to convince

Bestia and his council that a Numidian kingdom without the recognition

of Jugurtha as king was almost unthinkable, unless Rome was prepared to

enter on an arduous and harassing war for the piecemeal conquest of the

land or (a task equally difficult) for the purpose of securing the

person of an elusive monarch, who could take every advantage of the

natural difficulties of his country and could find a refuge and ready

assistance in every part of his dominions. The tentative approaches of

Jugurtha, who negotiated while he fought, were therefore admitted both

by the consul and by Scaurus, who inevitably dominated the diplomatic

relations of the war. That Jugurtha sent money as well as proposals at

the hands of his envoys, was a fact subsequently approved by a Roman

court of law, and deserves such credence as can be attached to a verdict

which was the final phase of a political agitation. That Bestia was

blinded by avarice and lost all sense of his own and his country's

honour, that Scaurus's sense of respectability and distrust of Jugurtha

went down before the golden promises of the king,[935] were beliefs

widely held, and perhaps universally, professed, by the democrats who

were soon thundering at the doors of the Curia--by men, that is, who did

not understand, or whose policy led them to profess misunderstanding of,

the problem in statecraft, as dishonouring in some of its aspects as

such problems usually are, which was being faced by a general and a

statesman who were pursuing a narrow and traditional but very

intelligible line of policy. The policy was indeed sufficiently ugly

even had there been no suspicion of personal corruption; its ugliness

could be tested by the fact that even the sanguine and cynical Jugurtha

could hardly credit the extent of the good fortune revealed to him by

the progress of the negotiations. At first his diplomatic manoeuvres had

been adopted simply as a means of staying the progress of hostilities,

of gaining a breathing space while he renewed his efforts at influencing

opinion in the imperial city. But when he saw that the very agents of

war were willing to be missionaries of peace, that the avengers sent out

by an injured people were ready for conciliation before they had

inflicted punishment, he concentrated his efforts on an immediate

settlement of the question.[936] It was necessary for the enemy of the

Roman people to pass through a preliminary stage of humiliation before

he could be recognised as a friend; it was all the more imperative in

this case since a number of angry people in Rome were clamouring for

Jugurtha's punishment. It was also necessary to arrange a plan by which

the humiliation might be effected with the least inconvenience to both

parties. An armistice had already been declared as a necessary

preliminary to effective negotiations for a surrender. This condition of

peace rendered it possible for Jugurtha to be interviewed in person by a

responsible representative of the consul.[937] Both the king and the

consul were in close touch with one another near the north-western part

of the Roman province, and Jugurtha was actually in possession of Vaga,

a town only sixty miles south-west of Utica. The town, in spite of its

geographical position, was an appanage[938] of the Numidian kingdom, and

the pretext under which Bestia sent his quaestor to the spot, was the

acceptance of a supply of corn which had been demanded of the king as a

condition of the truce granted by the consul. The presence of the

quaestor at Vaga was really meant as a guarantee of good faith, and

perhaps he was regarded as a hostage for the personal security of

Jugurtha.[939] Shortly afterwards the king rode into the Roman camp and

was introduced to the consul and his council. He said a few words in

extenuation of the hostile feeling with which his recent course of

action had been received at Rome, and after this brief apology asked

that his surrender should be accepted. The conditions, it appeared, were

not for the full council; they were for the private ear of Bestia and

Scauras alone.[940] With these Jugurtha was soon closeted, and the final

programme was definitely arranged, On the following day the king

appeared again before the council of war; the consul pretended to take

the opinion of his advisers, but no clear issue for debate could

possibly be put before the board; for the gist of the whole proceedings,

the recognition of the right of Jugurtha to retain Numidia, was the

result of a secret understanding, not of a definite admission that could

be blazoned to the world. There was some formal and desultory

discussion, opinions on the question of surrender were elicited without

any differentiation of the many issues that it might involve, and the

consul was able to announce in the end that his council sanctioned the

acceptance of Jugurtha's submission.[941] The council, however, had

deemed it necessary that some visible proof, however slight, should be

given that a surrender had been effected; for it was necessary to convey

to the minds of critics at home the impression that some material

advantage had been won and that Jugurtha had been humiliated. With this

object in view the king was required to hand over something to the Roman

authorities. He kept his army, but solemnly transferred thirty

elephants, some large droves of cattle and horses, and a small sum of

money--the possessions, presumably, which he had ready at hand in his

city of Vaga--to the custody of the quaestor of the Roman army.[942] The

year meanwhile was drawing to a close, and the consul, now that peace

had been restored, quitted his province for Rome to preside at the

magisterial elections.[943] The army still remained in the Roman

province or in Numidia, but the cessation of hostilities reduced it to a

state of inaction which augured ill for its future discipline should it

again be called upon to serve.

The agreement itself must have seemed to its authors a triumph of

diplomacy. They had secured peace with but an inconsiderable loss of

honour; they had saved Rome from a long, difficult and costly war,

whilst a modicum of punishment might with some ingenuity be held to have

been inflicted on Jugurtha. They must have been astounded by the chorus

of execration with which the news of the compact was received at

Rome.[944] Nor indeed can any single reason, adequate in itself and

without reference to others, be assigned for this feeling of hostility.

First, there was the idle gossip of the public places and the

clubs--gossip which, in the unhealthy atmosphere of the time, loved to

unveil the interested motives which were supposed to underlie the public

actions of all men of mark, and which exhibited moderation to an enemy

as the crowning proof of its suspicions. Secondly there was the feeling

that had been stirred in the proletariate at Rome. The question of

Jugurtha, little as they understood its merits, was still to them the

great question of the hour, a matter of absorbing interest and

expectation. Their feelings had been harrowed by the story of his

cruelties, their fears excited by rumours of his power and intentions.

They had roused the senate from its lethargy and forced that illustrious

body to pursue the great criminal; they had seen a great army quitting

the gates of Rome to execute the work of justice; their relatives and

friends had been subjected to the irksome duties of the conscription.

Everywhere there had been a fervid blaze of patriotism, and this blaze

had now ended in the thinnest curl of smoke. But to the masses the

imagined shame of the Jugurthine War had now become but a single count

in an indictment. The origin of the movement was now but its stimulus;

as is the case with most of such popular awakenings, the agitation was

now of a wholly illimitable character. The one vivid element in its

composition was the memory of the recent past. It was easy to arouse the

train of thought that centred round the two Gracchan movements and the

terrible moments of their catastrophe. The new movement against the

senate was in fact but the old movement in another form. The senate had

betrayed the interests of the people; now it was betraying the interests

of the empire; but to imagine that the form of the indictment as it

appealed to the popular mind was even so definite as this, is to credit

the average mind with a power of analysis which it does not, and

probably would not wish to, possess. It is less easy to gauge the

attitude of the commercial classes in this crisis. Their indignation at

the impunity given to Jugurtha after the massacre of the merchants at

Cirta is easily understood; but with this class sentiment was wont to be

outweighed by considerations of interest, and the preservation of peace

in Numidia, and consequently of facilities for trade, must have been the

end which they most desired. But perhaps they felt that the only peace

which would serve their purposes was one based on a full reassertion of

Roman prestige, and perhaps they knew that Jugurtha, the reawakener of

the national spirit of the Numidians, would show no friendship to the

foreign trader. They must also have seen that, whatever the prospects of

the mercantile class under Jugurtha's rule might be, the convention just

concluded could not be lasting. Their own previous action had determined

its transitory character. By their support of the agitation awakened by

Memmius they had created a condition of feeling which could not rest

satisfied with the present suspected compromise. But if satisfaction was

impossible, a continuance of the war was inevitable. They had before

them the prospect of continued unsettlement and insecurity in a fruitful

sphere of profit; and they intended to support the present agitation by

their influence in the Comitia and, if necessary, by their verdicts in

the courts, until a strong policy had been asserted and a decisive

settlement attained.

Even before the storm of criticism had again gathered strength, there

was great anxiety in the senate over the recent action in Numidia. That

body could doubtless read between the lines and see the real motives of

policy which had led up to the present compact; they could see that the

agreement was a compromise between the views of two opposing sections of

their own house; and they must have approved of it in their hearts in so

far as it expressed the characteristic objection of the senate as a

whole to imperil the security of their imperial system, perhaps even to

expose the frontiers of their northern possessions now threatened by

barbarian hordes, through undertaking an unnecessary war in a southern

protectorate. But none the less they saw clearly the invidious elements

in the recent stroke of diplomacy, the combination of inconsistency and

dishonesty exhibited in the comparison between the magnificent

preparations and the futile result--a result which, as interpreted by

the ordinary mind, made its authors seem corrupt and the senate look

ridiculous. Their anxiety was increased by the fact that an immediate

decision on their part was imperative. Were they to sanction what had

been done, or to refuse to ratify the decision of the consul?[945]

The latter was of itself an extreme step, but it was rendered still more

difficult by the fact that every one knew that Bestia would never have

ventured on such a course had he not possessed the support of

Scaurus.[946] To frame a decision which must be interpreted to mean a

vote of lack of confidence in Scaurus, was to unseat the head of the

administration, to abandon their ablest champion, perhaps to invite the

successful attacks of the leaders of the other camp who were lying in

wait for the first false step of the powerful and crafty organiser.

Again, as in the discussion which had followed the fall of Cirta, the

debates in the senate dragged on and there was a prospect of the

question being indefinitely shelved--a result which, when the popular

agitation had cooled, would have meant the acceptance of the existing

state of things. Again the stimulus to greater rapidity of decision was

supplied by Memmius. The leader of the agitation was now invested with

the tribunate, and his position gave him the opportunity of unfettered

intercourse with the people. His _Contiones_ were the feature of the

day,[947] and these popular addresses culminated in the exhortation

which he addressed to the crowd after the return of the unhappy Bestia.

His speech[948] shows Memmius to be both the product and the author of

the general character which had now been assumed by this long continued

agitation on a special point. The golden opportunity had been gained of

emphasising anew the fundamental differences of interest between the

nobility and the people, of reviewing the conduct of the governing class

in its continuous development during the last twenty years,[949] of

pointing out the miserable consequences of uncontrolled power,

irresponsibility and impunity. For the purpose of investing an address

with the dignity and authority which spring from distant historical

allusion, of brightening the prosaic present with something of the

glamour of the half-mythical past, even of flattering his auditors with

the suggestion that they were the descendants and heirs of the men who

had seceded to the Aventine, it was necessary for a popular orator to

touch on the great epoch of the struggle between the orders. But

Memmius, while satisfying the conditions of his art by the introduction

of the subject, uses it only to point the contrast between the epoch

when liberty had been won and that wherein it had been lost, or to

illustrate the uselessness of such heroic methods as the old secessions

as weapons against a nobility such as the present which was rushing

headlong to its own destruction. More important was the memory of those

recent years which had seen the life of the people and of their

champions become the plaything of a narrow oligarchy. The judicial

murders that had followed the overthrow of the Gracchi, the spirit of

abject patience with which they had been accepted and endured, were the

symbol of the absolute impunity of the oligarchy, the source of their

knowledge that they might use their power as they pleased. And how had

they used it? A general category of their crimes would be misleading; it

was possible to exhibit an ascending scale of guilt. They had always

preyed on the commonwealth; but their earlier depredations might be

borne in silence. Their earlier victims had been the allies and

dependants of Rome; they had drawn revenues from kings and free peoples,

they had pillaged the public treasury. But they had not yet begun to put

up for sale the security of the empire and of Rome itself. Now this last

and monstrous stage had been reached. The authority of the senate, the

power which the people had delegated to its magistrate, had been

betrayed to the most dangerous of foes; not satisfied with treating the

allies of Rome as her enemies, the nobility were now treating her

enemies as allies.[950] And what was the secret of the uncontrolled

power, the shameless indifference to opinion that made such misdeeds

possible? It was to be found partly in the tolerance of the people--a

tolerance which was the result of the imposture which made ill-gained

objects of plunder--consulships, priesthoods, triumphs--seem the proof

of merit. But it was to be found chiefly in the fact that co-operation

in crime had been raised to the dignity of a system which made for the

security of the criminal. The solidarity of the nobility, its very

detachment from the popular interest, was its main source of strength.

It had ceased even to be a party; it had become a clique--a mere faction

whose community of hope, interest and fear had given it its present

position of overweening strength.[951] This strength, which sprang from

perfect unity of design and action, could only be met and broken

successfully by a people fired with a common enthusiasm. But what form

should this enthusiasm assume? Should an adviser of the people advocate

a violent resumption of its rights, the employment of force to punish

the men who have betrayed their country? No! Acts of violence might

indeed be the fitting reward for their conduct, but they are unworthy

instruments for the just vengeance of an outraged people. All that we

demand is full inquiry and publicity. The secrets of the recent

negotiations shall be probed. Jugurtha himself shall be the witness. If

he has surrendered to the Roman people, as we are told, he will

immediately obey your orders; if he despises your commands, you will

have an opportunity of knowing the true nature of that peace and that

submission which have brought to Jugurtha impunity for his crimes, to a

narrow ring of oligarchs a large increase in their wealth, to the state

a legacy of loss and shame.

It was on this happily constructed dilemma that Memmius acted when he

brought his positive proposal before the people. It was to the effect

that the praetor Lucius Cassius Longinus should be sent to Jugurtha and

bring him to Rome on the faith of a safe conduct granted by the State;

Jugurtha's revelations were to be the key by which the secret chamber of

the recent negotiations was to be unlocked, with the desired hope of

convicting Scaurus and all others whose contact with the Numidian king,

whether in the late or in past transactions,[952] had suggested their

corruption. The object of this mission had been rapidly regaining the

complete control of Numidia, which had been momentarily shaken by the

Roman invasion. The presence of the Roman army, some portion of which

was still quartered in a part of his dominions, was no check on his

activity; for the absence of the commander, the incapacity and

dishonesty of the delegates whom he had left in his place, and the

demoralising indolence of the rank and file, had reduced the forces to a

condition lower than that of mere ineffectiveness or lack of discipline.

The desire of making a profit out of the situation pervaded every grade.

The elephants which had been handed over by Jugurtha, were mysteriously

restored; Numidians who had espoused the cause of Rome and deserted from

the army of the king--loyalists whom, whatever their motives and

character, Rome was bound to protect--were handed back to the king in

exchange for a price;[953] districts already pacified were plundered by

desultory bands of soldiers. The Roman power in Numidia was completely

broken when Cassius arrived and revealed his mission to the king. The

strange request would have alarmed a timid or ignorant ruler; Jugurtha

himself wavered for a moment as to whether he should put himself

unreservedly into the power of a hostile people; but he had sufficient

imagination and familiarity with Roman life to realise that the

principles of international honour that prevailed amongst despotic

monarchies were not those of the great Republic even at its present

stage, and he professed himself encouraged by the words of the amiable

praetor that "since he had thrown himself on the mercy of the Roman

people, he would do better to appeal to their pity than to challenge

their might".[954] His guide added his own word of honour to that of the

Republic, and such was the repute of Cassius that this assurance helped

to remove the momentary scruples of the king. Once he was assured of

personal safety, Jugurtha's visit to Rome became merely a matter of

policy, and his rapid mind must have surveyed every issue depending on

his acceptance or refusal before he committed himself to so doubtful a

step. His real plan of action is unfortunately unknown; for we possess

but the barest outline of these incidents, and we have no information on

the really vital point whether communications had reached him from his

supporters in the capital, which enabled him to predict the course

events would take if he obeyed the summons of Cassius. Had such

communications reached him, he might have known that the projected

investigation would be nugatory. But a failure in the purpose for which

he was summoned could convey no benefit to Jugurtha or his supporters;

it would simply incense the people and place both the king, and his

friends amongst the nobility, in a worse position than before. The

course of action, by turns sullen, shifty and impudent, which he pursued

at Rome, must have been due to the exigencies of the moment and the

frantic promptings of his frightened friends; for it could scarcely have

appealed to a calculating mind as a procedure likely to lead to fruitful

results. Its certain issue was war; but war could be had without the

trouble of a journey to Rome. He had but to stay where he was and

decline the people's request, and this policy of passive resistance

would have the further merit of saving his dignity as a king. It may

seem strange that he never adopted the bold but simple plan of standing

up in Rome and telling the whole truth, or at least such portions of the

truth as might have satisfied the people. It was a course of action that

might have secured him his crown. Doubtless if his transactions with

Roman officials had been innocent, the truth, if he adhered to it, might

not have been believed; but, if his evidence was damning, the people

might well have been turned from the insignificant question "Who was to

be King of Numidia?" to the supreme task of punishing the traitors whom

he denounced. But we have no right to read Jugurtha's character by the

light of the single motive of a self-interest which knew no scruples. He

may have had his own ideas of honour and of the protection due to a

benefactor or a trusty agent. Self-interest too might in this matter

come to the aid of sentiment; for it was at least possible that the

popular storm might spend its fury and leave the nobility still holding

their ground. So far as we with our imperfect knowledge can discern,

Jugurtha could have had no definite plan of action when he consented to

take the journey to Rome. But he had abundant prospects, if even he

possessed no plan. His presence in the capital was a decided advantage,

in so far as it enabled him to confer with his leading supporters, and

to attend to a matter affecting his dynastic interests which we shall

soon find arousing the destructive energy which was becoming habitual to

his jealous and impatient mind.

When Jugurtha appeared in Rome under the guidance of Cassius, he had

laid aside all the emblems of sovereignty and assumed the sordid garb

that befitted a suppliant for the mercy of the sovereign people.[955] He

seemed to have come, not as a witness for the prosecution, but as a

suspected criminal who appeared in his own defence. He was still keeping

up the part of one whom the fortune of war had thrown absolutely into

the power of the conquering state--a part perhaps suggested by the

friendly Cassius, but one that was perfectly in harmony with the

pretensions of Bestia and Scaurus. But the heart beneath that miserable

dress beat high with hope, and he was soon cheered by messages from the

circle of his friends at Rome and apprised of the means which had been

taken to baffle the threatened investigation,[956] The senate had, as

usual, a tribune at its service. Caius Baebius was the name of the man

who was willing to play the part, so familiar to the practice of the

constitution, of supporter of the government against undue encroachments

on its power and dignity, or against over-hasty action by the leaders of

the people. The government undoubtedly had a case. It was contrary to

all accepted notions of order and decency that a protected king should

be used as a political instrument by a turbulent tribune. Memmius had

impeached no one and had given no notice of a public trial; yet he

intended to bring Jugurtha before a gathering of the rabble and ask him

to blacken the names of the foremost men in Rome. It was exceedingly

probable that the grotesque proceeding would lead to a breach of the

peace; the sooner it was stopped, the better; and, although it was

unfortunately impossible to prevent Memmius from initiating the drama by

bringing forward his protagonist, the law had luckily provided means for

ending the performance before the climax had been reached. It was

believed that the sound constitutional views of Baebius were

strengthened by a great price paid by Jugurtha,[957] and, if we care to

believe one more of those charges of corruption, the multitude of which

had not palled even on the easily wearied mind of the lively Roman, it

is possible to imagine that the implicated members of the senate, in

whose interest far more than in that of Jugurtha Baebius was acting, had

persuaded the king that it was to his advantage to make the gift.

The eagerly awaited day arrived, on which the scandal-loving ears of the

people were to be filled to the full with the iniquities of their

rulers, on which their long-cherished suspicions should be changed to a

pleasantly anticipated certainty. Memmius summoned his Contio and

produced the king. Even the suppliant garb of Jugurtha did not save him

from a howl of execration. From the tribunal, to which he had been led

by the tribune, he looked over a sea of angry faces and threatening

hands, while his ears were deafened by the roar of fierce voices, some

crying that he should be put in bonds, others that he should suffer the

death of the traitor if he failed to reveal the partners of his

crimes.[958] Memmius, anxious for the dignity of his unusual proceedings

which were being marred by this frantic outburst, used all his efforts

to secure order and a patient hearing, and succeeded at length in

imposing silence on the crowd--a silence which perhaps marked that

psychological moment when pent up feeling had found its full expression

and passion had given way to curiosity. The tribune also vehemently

asserted his intention of preserving inviolate the safe conduct which

had been granted by the State. He then led the king forward[959] and

began a recital of the catalogue of his deeds. He spared him nothing;

his criminal activity at Rome and in Numidia, his outrages on his

family--the whole history of that career, as it continued to live in the

minds of democrats, was fully rehearsed. He concluded the story, which

he assumed to be true, by a request for the important details of which

full confirmation was lacking. "Although the Roman people understood by

whose assistance and ministry all this had been done, yet they wished to

have their suspicions finally attested by the king. If he revealed the

truth, he could repose abundant hope on the honour and clemency of the

Roman people; if he refused to speak, he would not help the partners of

his guilt, but his silence would ruin both himself and his future."

Memmius ceased and asked the king for a reply; Baebius stepped forward

and ordered the king to be silent.[960] The voice of Jugurtha could

legally find utterance only through the will of the magistrate who

commanded; it was stifled by the prohibition of the colleague who

forbade. The people were in the presence of one of those galling

restraints on their own liberty to which the jealousy of the magistracy,

expressed in the constitutional creations of their ancestors, so often

led. Baebius was immediately subjected to the terrorism which Octavius,

his forerunner in tribunician constancy, had once withstood. The frantic

mob scowled, shouted, made rushes for the tribunal, and used every

effort short of personal assault which anger could suggest, to break the

spirit of the man who balked their will. But the resolution--or, as his

enemies said, the shamelessness[961]--of Baebius prevailed. The

multitude, tricked of its hopes, melted from the Forum in gloomy

discontent. It is said that the hopes of Bestia and his friends rose

high.[962] Perhaps they had lived too long in security to realise the

danger threatened by a disappointed crowd that might meet to better

purpose some future day; that had gained from the insulting scene itself

an embittered confirmation of its views, with none of the softening

influence which springs from a curiosity completely satiated; that, as

an assembly of the sovereign people, might at any moment avenge the

latest outrage which had been inflicted on its dignity.

Jugurtha had, perhaps through no fault of his own, sorely tried the

patience of the people on the one occasion on which, as a professed

suppliant, he had come into contact with his sovereign. He was now, on

his own initiative, to try it yet further, and to test it in a manner

which aroused the horror and resentment of many who did not share the

views of Memmius. The king was not the only representative of

Masinissa's house at present to be found in Rome. There resided in the

city, as a fugitive from his power, his cousin Massiva, son of Gulussa

and grandson of Masinissa. It is not known why this scion of the royal

house had been passed over in the regulation of the succession, although

it is easily intelligible that Micipsa, with two sons of his own, might

not have wished to increase the number of co-regents of Numidia by

recognising his brother's heirs, and would not have done so had he not

been forced by circumstances to adopt Jugurtha. During the early

struggles between the three kings, Massiva had attached himself to the

party of Hiempsal and Adherbal, and had thus incurred Jugurtha's enmity;

but he had continued to live in Numidia as long as there was any hope of

the continuance of the dual kingship. The fall of Cirta and the death of

Adherbal had forced him to find a refuge at Rome, where he continued to

reside in peace until fate suddenly made him a pawn in the political

game. At last there had arisen a definite section amongst the nobility

which found it to its interest to offer an active opposition to

Jugurtha's claims. The consuls who succeeded Bestia and Nasica, were

Spurius Albinus and Quintus Minucius Rufus. The latter had won the

province of Macedonia and the protection of the north-eastern frontier;

to the former had fallen Numidia and the conduct of affairs in Africa.

The fact that the senate had declared Numidia a consular province before

the close of the previous year, was the ostensible proof that they had

yielded to the pressure applied by Memmius and nominally at least

repudiated the pacification effected by Bestia and Scaurus. But the

rejection of this arrangement seems never to have been officially

declared; there was still a chance of the recognition of Jugurtha's

claims, and of the governor of Numidia being assigned the inglorious

function of seeing to the restoration of the king and then evacuating

his territory. Such a modest _rôle_ did not at all harmonise with the

views of Albinus. He wished a real command and a genuine war; but it was

not easy to wage such a war as long as Jugurtha was the only candidate

in the field. Even if his surrender were regarded as fictitious and the

war were resumed on that ground, it was difficult to assign it an

ultimate object, since the senate had no intention of making Numidia a

province. But the object which would make the war a living reality could

be secured, if a pretender were put forward for the Numidian crown; and

such a pretender Albinus sought in the scion of Masinissa's race now

resident in Rome, whose birth gave him a better hereditary claim than

Jugurtha himself. The consul approached Massiva and urged him to make a

case out of the odium excited and the fears inspired by Jugurtha's

crimes, and to approach the senate with a request for the kingdom of

Numidia.[963] The prince caught at the suggestion, the petition was

prepared, and this new and unexpected movement began to make itself

felt. Jugurtha's fear and anger were increased by the sudden discovery

that his friends at Rome were almost powerless to help him. They could

not parade a question of principle when it came to persons; a kingdom in

Numidia was more easily defended than its king; every act of assistance

which they rendered plunged them deeper in the mire of suspicion; it was

a time to walk warily, for those who had no judge in their own

conscience found one in the keen scrutiny of a hostile world. But the

danger was too great to permit Jugurtha to relax his efforts through the

failure of his friends. He appealed to his own resources, which

consisted of the passive obedience of his immediate attendants and the

power of his purse. To Bomilcar his most trusted servant he gave the

mission of making one final effort with the gold which had already done

so much. Men might be hired who would lie in wait for Massiva. If

possible, the matter was to be effected secretly. If secrecy was

impossible, the Numidian must yet be slain. His death was deserving of

any risk. Bomilcar was prompt in carrying out his mission. A band of

hired spies watched every movement of Massiva. They learnt the hours at

which he left and returned to his home; the places he visited, the times

at which his visits were paid. When the seasonable hour arrived, the

ambush was set by Bomilcar. The elaborate precautions which had been

taken proved to have been thrown away; the assassin who struck the fatal

blow was no adept in the art of secret killing. Hardly had Massiva

fallen when the alarm was given and the murderer seized.[964] The men

who had an interest in Massiva's life were too numerous and too great to

make it possible for the act to sink to the level of ordinary street

outrages, or for the assassin caught red-handed to be regarded as the

sole author of the crime. The consul Albinus amongst others pressed the

murderer to reveal the instigator of the deed, and the senate must have

promised the immunity that was sometimes given to the criminal who named

his accomplices. The man named Bomilcar, who was thereupon formally

arraigned of the murder and bound over to stand his trial before a

criminal court. Even this step was taken with considerable hesitation,

for it was admitted that the safe-conduct which protected Jugurtha

extended to his retinue.[965] The king and his court were strictly

speaking extra-territorial, and the strict letter of international law

would have handed Bomilcar over for trial by his sovereign. But it was

felt that a departure from custom was a less evil than to allow such an

outrage to remain unpunished, and it was easier to satisfy the popular

conscience by finding Bomilcar guilty than to fix the crime on the man

whom every one named as its ultimate author. Jugurtha himself was

inclined for a time to acquiesce in this view; he regarded the trial of

his favourite as inevitable and furnished fifty of his own acquaintances

who were willing to give bail for the appearance of the accused. But

reflection convinced him that the sacrifice was unnecessary; his name

could not be saved by Bomilcar's doom, and no influence or wealth could

create even a pretence at belief in his own innocence. His standing in

Rome was gone, and this made him the more eager to consider his standing

as King of Numidia. If Bomilcar were sacrificed, his powerlessness to

protect the chief member of his retinue might shake the allegiance of

his own subjects.[966] He therefore smuggled his accused henchman from

Rome and had him conveyed secretly to Numidia. This, of all Jugurtha's

acts of perfidy perhaps the mildest and most excusable, in spite of the

awkward predicament in which it left the fifty securities, was the last

of the baffling incidents that had been crowded into his short sojourn

at Rome. His presence must have been an annoyance to every one. He had

exhausted his friends, had failed to serve the purposes of the

opposition leader, and had inspired in the senate memories and

anticipations which they were willing to forget. When that body ordered

him to quit Italy--it must have expressed the wish of every class.

Within a few days of Bomilcar's disappearance the king himself was

leaving the gates. It is said that he often turned and took a long and

silent look at the distant town, and that at last the words broke from

him "A city for sale and ripe for ruin, if only a purchaser can be

found!" [967]

The departure of Jugurtha implied the renewal of the war. The compact

made with Bestia and Scaurus had been tacitly, if not formally,

repudiated by the senate, and the fiction that Jugurtha had surrendered,

although it had played its part in the negotiations which brought him to

Rome, disappeared with the compact. Since, however, the right of

Jugurtha to retain Numidia, which was the objectionable element in the

late agreement, seems to have been implied rather than expressed, it may

have seemed possible to take the view that Jugurtha's surrender was

unconditional, and that the war was now the pursuit of an escaped

prisoner of Rome. Such a conception was absolutely worthless so far as

most of the practical difficulties of the task were concerned; for,

whether Jugurtha was an enemy or a rebel, he was equally difficult to

secure; but it may have had a considerable influence on the principles

on which the Numidian war was now to be conducted, and we shall find on

the part of Rome a growing disinclination to give Jugurtha the benefits

of those rules of civilised warfare of which she generally professed a

scrupulous observance in the letter if not in the spirit. The object of

the war was, through its very simplicity, extraordinarily difficult of

attainment. It was neither more nor less than the seizure of the person

of Jugurtha. Numidia had no common government and no unity but those

personified in its king, and the conquest of fragments of the country

would be almost useless until the king was secured. The hope of setting

up a rival pretender, whose recognition by Rome might have enabled

organisation to keep pace with conquest, had perished with the murder of

Massiva,[968] although it is very questionable whether the name even of

the son of the warlike Gulussa would have detached any of the military

strength of Numidia from a monarch who had stirred the fighting spirit

of the nation and was regarded as the embodiment of its manliest

traditions. The outlook of the consul Albinus, the new organiser of the

war on the Roman side, was indeed a poor one, and it was made still

poorer by the fact that a considerable portion of his year of office had

already lapsed, and the events of his campaign must of necessity be

crowded into the few remaining months of the summer and the early

autumn. Had there been any spirit of self-sacrifice in Roman commanders,

or any true continuity in Roman military policies, Albinus might have

set himself the useful task of organising victory for his successors;

yet he cannot be wholly blamed for the hope, wild and foolish as it

seems, of striking some decisive blow in the narrow time allowed

him.[969] The military operations of the war at this stage become almost

wholly subordinate to political considerations. Senate and consuls were

being swept off their feet and forced into a disastrous celerity or

superficiality of action by the growing tide of indignation which

animated commons and capitalists alike; and the feeling that something

decisive must be accomplished for the satisfaction of public opinion,

was supplemented by the lower but very human consideration that a

general must seem to have attained some success if he hoped to have his

command prolonged for another year. The senate, it is true, might have

insight enough to see that success in a war such as that in Numidia

could not be gauged by the brilliance of the results obtained; but how

were they to defend their verdict to the people unless they could point

to exploits such as would dazzle the popular eye? But although a

feverish policy seemed the readiest mode of escape from public suspicion

or inglorious retirement, it had its own particular nemesis, of which

Albinus seemed for the moment to be oblivious. To finish the war in a

short time meant to finish it by any means that came to hand. But, if a

striking victory did not surrender Jugurtha into the hands of his

conqueror--and even the most glorious victory did not under the

circumstances of the war imply the capture of the vanquished--what means

remained except negotiation and the voluntary surrender of the

king?[970] Such means had been employed by Bestia, and every one knew

now with what result. The policy of haste might breed more suspicion and

bitterness than the most desultory conduct of the campaign.

Albinus made rapid but ample preparation of supplies, money and

munitions of war, and hurried off to the scene of his intended

successes. The army which he found must have been in a miserable

condition, if we may judge by the state which the last glimpse of it

revealed; but his fixed intention of accomplishing something, no matter

what, must have rendered adequate re-organisation impossible, and he

took the field against Jugurtha with forces whose utter demoralisation

was soon to be put to a frightful test. The war immediately assumed that

character of an unsuccessful hunt, varied by indecisive engagements and

fruitless victories, which it was to retain even under the guidance of

the ablest that Rome could furnish. Jugurtha adhered to his inevitable

plan of a prolonged and desultory campaign over a vast area of country;

the size and physical character of his kingdom, the extraordinary

mobility of his troops, the credulity and anxious ambition of his

opponent, were all elements of strength which he used with consummate

skill. He retired before the threatening column; then, that his men

might not lose heart, he threw himself with startling suddenness on the

foe; at other times he mocked the consul with hopes of peace, entered

into negotiations for a surrender and, when he had disarmed his

adversary by hopes, suddenly drew back in a pretended access of

distrust. The futility of Albinus's efforts was so pronounced--a

futility all the more impressive from the intensity of his preparations

and his excessive eagerness to reach the field of action--that people

ignorant of the conditions of the campaign began again to whisper the

perpetual suspicion of collusion with the king.[971] The suspicion might

not have been avoided even by a commander who declined negotiation; but

Albinus's case had been rendered worse by his unsuccessful efforts to

play with a master of craft, and it was with a reputation greatly

weakened from a military, and slightly damaged from a moral, point of

view that he brought the campaign to a close, sent his army into winter

quarters, and left for Rome to preside at the electoral meetings of the

people.[972] The Comitia for the appointment of the consuls and the

praetors were at this time held during the latter half of the year, but

at no regular date, the time for their summons depending on the

convenience of the presiding consul and on his freedom from other and

more pressing engagements.[973] Albinus may have arrived in Rome during

the late autumn. Had he been able to get the business over and return to

Africa for the last month or two of the year, his conduct of the war

might have been considered ineffective but not disastrous, and the

senate might have been spared a problem more terrible than any that had

yet arisen out of its relations with Jugurtha. For Albinus, though

sanguine and unpractical, seems to have been reasonably prudent, and he

might have handed over an army, unsuccessful but not disgraced, and

recruited in strength by its long winter quarters, to the care of a more

fortunate successor. But, as it happened, every public department in

Rome was feeling the strain caused by a minor constitutional crisis

which had arisen amongst the magistrates of the Plebs. The sudden

revival of the people's aspirations had doubtless led to a certain

amount of misguided ambition on the part of some of its leaders, and the

tribunate was now the centre of an agitation which was a faint

counterpart of the closing scenes in the Gracchan struggles. Two

occupants of the office, Publius Lucullus and Lucius Annius, were

attempting to secure re-election for another year. Their colleagues

resisted their effort, probably on the ground that the conditions

requisite for re-election were not in existence, and this conflict not

merely prevented the appointment of plebeian magistrates from being

completed, but stayed the progress of the other elective Comitia as

well.[974] The tribunes, whether those who aimed at re-election or those

who attempted to prevent it, had either declared a _justitium_ or

threatened to veto every attempt made by a magistrate of the people to

hold an electoral assembly; and the consequence of this impasse was

that, when the year drew to a close,[975] no new magistrates were in

existence and the consul Albinus was still absent from his

African command.

Unfortunately the absence of the proconsul, as Albinus had now become in

default of the appointment of a successor, did not have the effect of

checking the enterprise of the army. It was now under the authority of

Aulus Albinus, to whom his brother had delegated the command of the

province and the forces during his stay at Rome. The stimulus which

moved Aulus to action is not known. The unexpected duration of his

temporary command may have familiarised him with power, stimulated his

undoubted confidence in himself, and suggested the hope that by one of

those unexpected blows, with which the annals of strategic genius were

filled, he might redeem his brother's reputation and win lasting glory

for himself. Others believed that the perpetually suspected motive of

cupidity was the basis of his enterprise, that he had no definitely

conceived plan of conquest, but intended by the terror of a military

demonstration to exact money from Jugurtha.[976] If the latter view was

correct, it is possible that Aulus imagined himself to be acting in the

interest of his army as well as of himself. The long winter quarters may

have betrayed a deficiency in pay and provisions, and if Jugurtha

purchased the security of a district, its immunity would be too public

an event to make it possible for the commander of the attacking forces

to pocket the whole of the ransom.

It was in the month of January, in the very heart of a severe winter,

that Aulus summoned his troops from the security of their quarters to a

long and fatiguing march. His aim was Suthul, a strongly fortified post

on the river Ubus, nearly forty miles south of Hippo Regius and the sea,

and so short a distance from the larger and better-known town of Calama,

the modern Gelma, that the latter name was sometimes used to describe

the scene of the incidents that followed.[977] We are not told the site

of the winter quarters from which the march began; but the

ineffectiveness of the former campaign and the caution of Albinus, who

did not mean his legions to fight during his absence, might lead us to

suppose that the troops had been quartered in or near the Roman

province; and in this case Aulus might have marched along the valley of

the Bagradas to reach his destined goal, which would finally have been

approached from the south through a narrow space between two ranges of

hills, the westernmost of which was crowned at its northern end by the

fortifications of Suthul. This was reported to be the chief

treasure-city of Jugurtha; could Aulus capture it, or even bargain for

its security with the king, he might cripple the resources of the

Numidian monarch and win great wealth for himself and his army. By long

and fatiguing marches he reached the object of his attack, only to

discover at the first glance that it was impregnable--nay even, as a

soldier's eye would have seen, that an investment of the place was

utterly impossible.[978] The rigour of the season had aggravated the

difficulties presented by the site. Above towered the city walls perched

on their precipitous rock; below was the alluvial plain which the

deluging rains of a Numidian winter had turned into a swamp of liquid

mud. Yet Aulus, either dazzled by the vision of the gold concealed

within the fortress which it had caused him such labour to reach, or

with some vague idea that a pretence at an investment might alarm the

king into coming to terms for the protection of his hoard, began to make

formal preparations for a siege, to bring up mantlets, to mark out his

lines of circumvallation,[979] to deceive his enemy, if he could not

deceive himself, into a belief that the conditions rendered an attack on

Suthul possible.

It is needless to say that Jugurtha knew the possibilities of his

treasure-city far better than its assailant. But the simple device of

Aulus was admirably suited to his plans. Humble messages soon reached

the camp of the legate; the missives of every successive envoy augmented

his illusion and stirred his idle hopes to a higher pitch. Jugurtha's

own movements began to give proof of a state of abject terror. So far

from coming to the relief of his threatened city, he drew his forces

farther away into the most difficult country he could find, everywhere

quitting the open ground for sheltered spots and mountain paths. At last

from a distance he began to hold out definite hopes of an agreement with

Aulus. But it was one that must be transacted personally and in private.

The plain round Suthul was much too public a spot; let the legate follow

the king into the fastnesses of the desert and all would be arranged.

The legate advanced as the king retired; but at every point of the

difficult march Numidian spies were hovering around the Roman column.

The disgust of the soldiers at the hardships to which they had been

submitted in the pursuit of this phantom gold, the last evidence of

which had vanished when their commander turned his back on the walls of

Suthul, now resulted in a frightful state of demoralisation. The lower

officers in authority, centurions and commanders of squadrons of horse,

stole from the camp to hold converse with Jugurtha's spies; some sold

themselves to desert to the Numidian army, others to quit their posts at

a given signal. The mesh was at last prepared. On one dark night, at the

hour of the first sleep when attack is least suspected, the camp of

Aulus was suddenly surrounded by the Numidian host. The surprise was

complete. The Roman soldiers, in the shock of the sudden din, were

utterly unnerved. Some groped for their arms; others cowered in their

tents; a few tried to create some order amongst their terror-stricken

comrades. But nowhere could a real stand be made or real discipline

observed. The blackness of the night and the heavy driving clouds

prevented the numbers of the enemy from being seen, and the size of the

Numidian host, large in itself, was perhaps increased by a terrified

imagination. It was difficult to say on which side the greater danger

lay. Was it safer to fly into darkness and some unknown ambush or to

keep one's ground and meet the approaching enemy? The evils of

preconcerted treachery were soon added to those of surprise. The

defections were greatest amongst the auxiliary forces. A cohort of

Ligurian infantry with two squadrons of Thracian cavalry deserted to the

king. Their example was followed by but a handful of the legionaries;

but the fatal act of treason was committed by a Roman centurion of the

first rank. He let the Numidians through the post which he had been

given to defend, and through this ingress they poured to every part of

the camp. The panic was now complete; most of the Romans threw their

arms away and fled from slaughter to the temporary safety of a

neighbouring hill. The early hour at which the attack had been made,

prevented an effective pursuit, for there was much of the night yet to

run; and the Numidians were also busied with the plunder of the camp.

The dawn of day revealed the hopelessness of the Roman position and

forced Aulus into any terms that Jugurtha cared to grant. The latter

adopted the language of humane condescension. He said that, although he

held the Roman army at his mercy, certain victims of famine or the

sword, yet he was not unmindful of the mutability of human fortune, and

would spare the lives of all his prisoners, if the Roman commander would

make a treaty with him.[980] The army was to pass under the yoke; the

Romans were to evacuate Numidia within ten days. The degrading terms

were accepted: an army that before its defeat had numbered forty

thousand men,[981] passed under the spear that symbolised their

submission and disgrace, and peace reigned in Numidia--a peace which

lacked no element of shame, dictated by a client king to the sovereign

that had decreed his chastisement.

The Roman public had become so familiar with discredit as to be in the

habit of imagining it even when it did not exist; but humiliation

exhibited in an actual disaster on this colossal scale was sufficiently

novel to stir the people to the profoundest depths of grief and

fear.[982] To men who thought only of the empire, its glory seemed to be

extinguished by the fearful blow; but many of the masses, who knew

nothing of war or of Rome's relations with peoples beyond the seas, were

filled with a fear too personal to permit their thoughts to dwell solely

on the loss of honour. To yet another class, whose knowledge exempted

them from such idle terror, the army seemed more than the empire. Rome

had not yet learnt to fight with mercenary forces; and the men who had

seen service formed a considerable element in the Roman proletariate.

Such veterans, especially those whose repute in war could give their

words an added point, were unmeasured in their condemnation of the

conduct of Aulus. The general had had a sword in his hand; yet he had

thought a disgraceful capitulation his only means of deliverance. On no

side could a word be heard in defence of the action of the unhappy

commander. The blessings of the wives and children of the men whom

Aulus's treaty had saved were, if breathed, apparently smothered under a

weight of patriotic execration.

The feeling of insecurity must have been rendered greater by the fact

that the State still lacked an official head, and the African

dependencies possessed no governor in whom any confidence could be

reposed. The year must have opened with a series of _interregna_, since

no consuls had been elected to assume the government on the 1st of

January; Numidia had again been made by senatorial decree a consular

province; but since no consul existed to assume the administration,

Albinus was still in command of the African army.[983] It was the

painful duty of the ex-consul to raise in the senate the question of the

ratification of his brother's treaty. Even he could never have attempted

to defend it; his dominant feeling was an overwhelming sense of the

weight of undeserved ignominy under which he lay, tempered by an

undercurrent of fear as to the danger that might follow in the track of

the universal disfavour with which he and his brother were regarded. The

action that he took even before the senate's opinion was known, was a

proof that he regarded the continuance of the war as inevitable. He

relieved his mind and sought to restore his credit by pushing on

military preparations with a fevered energy; supplementary drafts for

the African army were raised from the citizens; auxiliary cohorts were

demanded of the Latins and Italian allies. While these measures were in

progress, the judgment of the senate was given to the world. It was a

judgment based on the often-repeated maxim that no legitimate treaty

could be concluded without the consent of the senate and people.[984] It

was a decision that recalled the days of Numantia or the more distant

history of the Caudine Forks; but the formal sacrifice that followed and

was thought to justify those famous instances of breach of contract, was

no longer deemed worthy of observance, and Aulus was not surrendered to

the vengeance or mercy of the foe with whom he had involuntarily broken

faith. This summary invalidation of the treaty may have been the result

of a deduction drawn from the peculiar circumstances which had preceded

the renewal of the war--circumstances which, as we have seen, might be

twisted to support the view that Jugurtha was not an independent enemy

of Rome and was, therefore, not entitled to the full rights of a

belligerent.

The senate's decision left Albinus free to act and to make use of the

new military forces that he had so strenuously prepared. But a sudden

hindrance came from another quarter. Some tribunes expressed the not

unreasonable view that a commander of Albinus's record should not be

allowed to expose Rome's last resources to destruction. Had they meant

him to remain in command, their attitude would have been indefensible;

but, when they forbade him to take the new recruits to Africa,[985] they

were merely reserving them for a more worthy successor. Albinus,

however, meant to make the most of his limited tenure. He had his own

and his brother's honour to avenge, and within a few days of the

senate's decree permitting a renewal of the war, he had taken ship for

the African province, where the whole army, withdrawn from Numidia in

accordance with the compact, was now stationed in winter quarters. For a

time his burning desire to clear his name made him blind to the defects

of his forces; he thought only of the pursuit of Jugurtha, of some

vigorous stroke that might erase the stain from the honour of his

family. But hard facts soon restored the equilibrium of his naturally

prudent soul. The worst feature of the army was not that it had been

beaten, but that it had not been commanded. The reins of discipline had

been so slack that licence and indulgence had sapped its fighting

strength. The tyranny of circumstances demanded a peaceful sojourn in

the province, and Albinus resigned himself to the inevitable.

At Rome meanwhile the movement for inquiry that had been stayed for the

moment by the co-operation of Jugurtha and his senatorial friends, and

by the obstructive attitude of Baebius, had been resumed with greater

intensity and promise of success. It did not need the disaster of Aulus

to re-awaken it to new life. That disaster no doubt accelerated its

course and invested it with an unscrupulous thoroughness of character

that it might otherwise have lacked; but the movement itself had perhaps

taken a definite shape a month before the result of Aulus's experiment

in Numidia was known, and was the natural result of the feeling of

resentment which the conspiracy of silence had created. It now assumed

the exact and legal form of the demand for a commission which should

investigate, adjudicate and punish. The leaders of the people had

conceived the bold and original design of wresting from the hands, and

directing against the person, of the senate the powerful weapon with

which that body had so often visited epidemics of crime or turbulence

that were supposed to have fastened on the helpless proletariate. Down

to this time special commissions had either been set up by the

co-operation of senate and people, or had, with questionable legality,

been established by the senate alone. The commissioners, who were

sometimes consuls, sometimes praetors, had, perhaps always but certainly

in recent history, judged without appeal; and in the judicial

investigations which followed the fall of the Gracchi, the people had

had no voice either in the appointment of the judge or in the

ratification of the sentence which he pronounced. Now the senate as a

whole was to be equally voiceless; it was not to be asked to take the

initiative in the creation of the court, the penalties were to be

determined without reference to its advice, and although the presidents

would naturally be selected from members of the senatorial order, if

they were to be chosen from men of eminence at all, these presidents

were to be merely formal guides of the proceedings, like the praetor who

sat in the court which tried cases of extortion, and the verdict was to

be pronounced by judges inspired by the prevailing feeling of hostility

to the crimes of the official class.

Caius Mamilius Limetanus, who proposed and probably aided in drafting

this bill, was a tribune who belonged to the college which perhaps came

into office towards the close of the month of December which had

preceded the recent disaster in Numidia. The bill, the promulgation of

which was probably one of the first acts of his tribunate, proposed

"that an inquiry should be directed into the conduct of all those

individuals, whose counsel had led Jugurtha to neglect the decrees of

the senate, who had taken money from the king whether as members of

commissions or as holders of military commands, who had handed over to

him elephants of war and deserters from his army; lastly, all who had

made agreements with enemies of the State on matters of peace or

war".[986] The comprehensive nature of the threatened inquiry spread

terror amongst the ranks of the suspected. The panic was no sign of

guilt; a party warfare was to be waged with the most undisguised party

weapons: and mere membership of the suspected faction aroused fears

almost as acute as those which were excited by the consciousness of

guilt, There was a prospect of rough and ready justice, where proof

might rest on prepossession and verdicts be considered preordained. The

bitterness of the situation was increased by the impossibility of open

resistance to the measure; for such a resistance would imply an

unwillingness to submit to inquiry, and such a refusal, invidious in

itself, would fix suspicion and be accepted as a confession of misdeeds

which could not bear the light of investigation. With the city

proletariate against them, the threatened members of the aristocracy

could look merely to secret opposition by their own supporters, and to

such moderate assistance as was secured by the friendly attitude which

their recent agrarian measures had awakened in the Latins and Italian

allies.[987] But the latter support was moral rather than material, or

if it became effective, could only secure this character by fraud. The

allies, whom the senate had driven from Rome by Pennus's law, were

apparently to be invited to flood the _contiones_ and raise cries of

protest against the threatened indictment. But this device could only be

successful in the preliminary stages of the agitation. The Latins

possessed but few votes, the Italians none, and personation, if resorted

to, was not likely to elude the vigilance of the hostile presidents of

the tribunician assembly, or, if undetected, to be powerful enough to

turn the scale in favour of the aristocracy. For the unanimity of

opposition which the nobility now encountered in the citizen body, was

almost unexampled. The differences of interest which sometimes separated

the country from the city voters, seem now to have been forgotten. The

tribunes found no difficulty in keeping the agitation up to fever-heat,

and its permanence was as marked as its intensity. The crowds that

acclaimed the proposal, were sufficiently in earnest to remain at Rome

and vote for it; the emphasis with which the masses assembled at the

final meeting, "ordered, decreed and willed" the measure submitted for

their approval, was interpreted (perhaps rightly) as a shout of

triumphant defiance of the nobility, not as a vehement expression of

disinterested affection for the State.[988] The two emotions were indeed

blended; but the imperial sentiment is oftenest aroused by danger; and

the individuals who have worked the mischief are the concrete element in

a situation, the reaction against which has roused the exaltation which

veils vengeance and hatred under the names of patriotism and justice.

When the measure had been passed, it still remained to appoint the

commissioners. This also was to be effected by the people's vote, and

never perhaps was the effect of habit on the popular mind more

strikingly exhibited than when Scaurus, who was thought to be trembling

as a criminal, was chosen as a judge.[989] The large personal following,

which he doubtless possessed amongst the people, must have remained

unshaken by the scandals against his name; but the reflection amongst

all classes that any business would be incomplete which did not secure

the co-operation of the head of the State, was perhaps a still more

potent factor in his election. Never was a more splendid testimonial

given to a public man, and it accompanied, or prepared the way for, the

greatest of all honours that it was in the power of the Comitia to

bestow--the control of morals which Scaurus was in that very year to

exercise as censor.[990] The presence of the venerable statesman amongst

the three commissioners created under the Mamilian law, could not,

however, exercise a controlling influence on the judgments of the

special tribunal. Such an influence was provided against by the very

structure of the new courts. The three commissioners were not to judge

but merely to preside; for in the constitution of this commission the

new departure was taken of modelling it on the pattern of the newly

established standing courts, and the judges who gave an uncontrolled and

final verdict were men selected on the same qualifications as those

which produced the Gracchan jurors, and were perhaps taken from the list

already in existence for the trial of cases of extortion. The knights

were, therefore, chosen as the vehicle for the popular indignation, and

the result justified the choice. The impatience of a hampered commerce,

and perhaps of an outraged feeling of respectability, spent itself

without mercy on the devoted heads of some of the proudest leaders of

the faction that had so long controlled the destinies of the State.

Expedition in judgment was probably secured by dividing the

commissioners into three courts, each with his panel of _judices_ and

all acting concurrently. It was still more effectually secured by the

mode in which evidence was heard, tested and accepted, and by the

scandalous rapidity with which judgment was pronounced. The courts were

influenced by every chance rumour and swayed by the wild caprices of

public opinion. No sane democrat could in the future pretend to regard

the Mamilian commission as other than an outrage on the name of justice;

to the philosophic mind it seemed that a sudden turn in fortune's wheel

had brought to the masses the same intoxication in the sense of

unbridled power that had but a moment before been the disgrace of the

nobility.[991] An old score was wiped off when Lucius Opimius, the

author of the downfall of Caius Gracchus, was condemned. Three other

names completed the tale of victims who had been rendered illustrious by

the possession of the consular _fasces_. Lucius Bestia was convicted for

the conclusion of that dark treaty with Jugurtha, although his

counsellor Scaurus had been elevated to the Bench. Spurius Albinus fell

a victim to his own caution and the blunder of his too-enterprising

brother; the caution was supposed to have been purchased by Jugurtha's

gold, and the absent pro-consul was perhaps held responsible for the

rashness or cupidity of his incompetent legate, who does not seem to

have been himself assailed. Caius Porcius Cato was emerging from the

cloud of a recent conviction for extortion only to feel the weight of a

more crushing judgment which drove him to seek a refuge on Spanish soil.

Caius Sulpicius Galba, although he had held no dominant position in the

secular life of the State, was a distinguished member of the religious

hierarchy; but even the memorable speech which he made in his defence

did not save him from being the first occupant of a priestly office to

be condemned in a criminal court at Rome.[992]

We do not know the number of criminals discovered by the Mamilian

courts, and perhaps only the names of their more prominent victims have

been preserved. The worldly position of these victims may, however, have

saved others of lesser note, and the dignity of the sacrifice may have

been regarded in the fortunate light of a compensation for its limited

extent. The object of the people and of their present agents, the

knights, so far as a rational object can be discerned in such a carnival

of rage and vengeance, was to teach a severe lesson to the governing

class. Their full purpose had been attained when the lesson had been

taught. It was not their intention, any more than it had been that of

Caius Gracchus, to usurp the administrative functions of government or

to attempt to wrest the direction of foreign administration out of the

senate's hands. The time for that further step might not be long in

coming; but for the present both the lower and middle classes halted

just at the point where destructive might have given place to

constructive energy. The leaders of the people may have felt the entire

lack of the organisation requisite for detailed administration, and the

right man who might replace the machine had not yet been found; while

the knights may, in addition to these convictions, have been influenced

by their characteristic dislike of pushing a popular movement to an

extreme which would remove it from the guidance of the middle class.

The senate had indeed learnt a lesson, and from this time onward the

history of the Numidian war is simplified by the fact that its progress

was determined by strategic, not by political, considerations. There is

no thought of temporising with the enemy; the one idea is to reduce him

to a condition of absolute submission--a submission which it was known

could be secured only by the possession of his person. It is true that

the conduct of the campaign became more than ever a party question; but

the party struggle turned almost wholly on the military merit of the

commander sent to the scene of action, and although there was a

suspicion that the war was being needlessly prolonged for the purpose of

gratifying personal ambition, there was no hint of the secret operation

of influences that were wholly corrupt. Such a suspicion was rendered

impossible by the personality of the man who now took over the conduct

of the campaign. The tardily elected consuls for the year were Quintus

Caecilius Metellus and Marcus Junius Silanus. Of these Metellus was to

hold Numidia and Silanus Gaul.[993] It is possible that, in the counsels

of the previous year, considerations of the Numidian campaign may to

some extent have determined the election of Metellus; the senate may

have welcomed the candidature of a man of approved probity, although not

of approved military skill, for the purpose of obviating the chance of

another scandal; and the people may in the same spirit have now ratified

his election. But, when we remember the almost mechanical system of

advancement to the higher offices which prevailed at this time, it is

equally possible that Metellus's day had come, that the senate was

fortunate rather than prescient in its choice of a servant, and that,

although the people in their present temper would probably have rejected

a suspicious character, they accepted rather than chose Metellus. The

existing system did not even make it possible to elect a man who would

certainly have the conduct of the African war; and if we suppose that in

this particular case the division of the consular provinces did not

depend on the unadulterated use of the lot, but was settled by agreement

or by a mock sortition,[994] the probity rather than the genius of

Metellus must have determined the choice, for Silanus was assigned a

task of far more vital importance to the welfare of Rome and Italy.

The repute of Metellus was based on the fact that, although an

aristocrat and a staunch upholder of the privileges of his order, he was

honest in his motives and, so far at least as civic politics were

concerned, straightforward in his methods. Rome was reaching a stage at

which the dramatic probity of Hellenic annals, as exemplified by the

names of an Aristeides or a Xenocrates, could be employed as a measure

to exalt one member of a government among his fellows; the

incorruptibility which had so lately been the common property of

all,[995] had become the monopoly of a few, and Metellus was a witness

to the folly of a caste which had not recognised the policy of honesty.

The completeness with which the prize for character might be won, was

shown by the attitude of a jury before which he had been impeached on a

charge of extortion. Even the jealous _Equites_ did not deign to glance

at the account-books which were handed in, but pronounced an immediate

verdict of acquittal.[996] But the merely negative virtue of

unassailability by grossly corrupting influences could not have been the

only source of the equable repute which Metellus enjoyed amongst the

masses. It was but one of the signs of the self-sufficient directness,

repose and courtesy, which marked the better type of the new nobility,

of a life that held so much that it needed not to grasp at more, of the

protecting impulse and the generosity which, in the purer type of minds

constricted by conservative prejudices, is an outcome of the conviction

of the unbridgeable gulf that separates the classes. The nobility of

Metellus was wholly in his favour; it justified the senate while it

hypnotised the people. The man who was now consul and would probably

within a short space of time attach the name of a conquered nationality

to his own, was but fulfilling the accepted destiny of his family.

Metellus could show a father, a brother, an uncle and four cousins, all

of whom had held the consulship. Since the middle of the second century

titles drawn from three conquered peoples had become appellatives of

branches of his race. His uncle had derived a name from Macedon, a

cousin from the Baliares, his own elder brother from the Dalmatians. It

remained to see whether the best-loved member of this favoured race

would be in a position to add to the family names the imposing

designation of Numidicus.

Metellus was a man of intellect and energy as well as of character,[997]

and he showed himself sufficiently exempt from the prejudices of his

caste, and sufficiently conscious of the seriousness of the work in

hand, to choose real soldiers, not diplomatists or ornamental warriors,

as his lieutenants. If the restiveness of Marius had left a disturbing

memory behind, it was judiciously forgotten by the consul, who drew the

_protégé_ of his family from the uncongenial atmosphere of the city to

render services in the field, and to teach an ambitious and somewhat

embittered man that each act of skill and gallantry was performed for

the glory of his superior. Another of his legates was Publius Rutilius

Rufus, who like Marius had held the praetorship, and was not only a man

of known probity and firmness of character, but a scientific student of

tactics with original ideas which were soon to be put to the test in the

reorganisation of the army which followed the Numidian war. For the

present it was necessary to create rather than reorganise an army, and

Metellus in his haste had no time for the indulgence of original views.

The reports of the forces at present quartered in the African province

were not encouraging; and every means had to be taken to find new

soldiers and fresh supplies. A vigorous levy was cheerfully tolerated by

the enthusiasm of the community; the senate showed its earnestness by

voting ample sums for the purchase of arms, horses, siege implements and

stores. Renewed assistance was sought from, and voluntarily rendered by,

the Latins and Italian allies, while subject kings proved their loyalty

by sending auxiliary forces of their own free will.[998] When Metellus

deemed his preparations complete, he sailed for his province amidst the

highest hopes. They were hopes based on the probity of a single man; for

the impression still prevailed that Roman arms were invincible and had

been vanquished only by the new vices of the Roman character. Such hopes

are not always the best omen for a commander to take with him; a joy in

the present, they are likely to prove an embarrassment in the

immediate future.