CHAPTER VII

The delay in his own appointment to the consulship, and the length of

time required for collecting his supplementary forces and their

supplies, had robbed Metellus of some of the best months of the year

when he set foot on African soil; but his patience was to be put to a

further test, for the most casual survey of what had been the army of

the proconsul Albinus showed the impossibility of taking the field for

some considerable time.[999] What he had heard was nothing to what he

saw. The military spirit had vanished with discipline, and its sole

survivals were a tendency to plunder the peaceful subjects of the

province and a habit of bandying words with superior officers. The camp

established by Aulus for his beaten army had hardly ever been moved,

except when sanitary reasons or a lack of forage rendered a short

migration unavoidable. It had developed the character of a highly

disorderly town, the citizens of which had nothing to do except to

traffic for the small luxuries of life, to enjoy them when they were

secured, and, in times when money and good things were scarce, to spread

in bands over the surrounding country, make predatory raids on the

fields and villas of the neighbourhood, and return with the spoils of

war, whether beasts or slaves, driven in flocks before them. The trader

who haunts the footsteps of the bandit was a familiar figure in the

camp; he could be found everywhere exchanging his foreign wine and the

other amenities in which he dealt for the booty wrung from the

provincials. Since discipline was dead and there was no enemy to fear,

even the most ordinary military precautions had ceased to be observed.

The ramparts were falling to pieces, the regular appointment and relief

of sentries had been abandoned, and the common soldier absented himself

from his company as often and for as long a period as he pleased.

Metellus had to face the task which had confronted Scipio at Numantia.

He performed it as effectually and perhaps with greater gentleness; for

the most singular feature in the methods by which he restored discipline

was his avoidance of all attempts at terrorism.[1000] The moderation and

restraint, which had won the hearts of the citizens, worked their magic

even in the disorganised rabble which he was remodelling into an army.

The habits of obedience were readily resumed when the tones of a true

commander were heard, and the way for their resumption was prepared by

the regulations which abolished all the incentives to the luxurious

indolence which he had found prevalent in the camp. The sale of cooked

food was forbidden, the camp followers were swept away, and no private

soldier was allowed the use of a slave or beast of burden, whether in

quarters or on the march. Other edicts of the same kind followed, and

then the work of active training began. Every day the camp was broken up

and pitched again after a cross-country march; rampart and ditch were

formed and pickets set as though the enemy was hovering near, and the

general and staff went their rounds to see that every precaution of real

warfare was observed. On the line of march Metellus was everywhere, now

in the van, now with The rearguard, now with the central column. His eye

criticised every disposition and detected every departure from the

rules; he saw that each soldier kept his line, that he filled his due

place in the serried ranks that gathered round a standard, that he bore

the appropriate burden of his food and weapons. Metellus preferred the

removal of the opportunities for vice to the vindictive chastisement of

the vicious; his wise and temperate measures produced a healthy state of

mind and body with no loss of self-respect, and in a short time he

possessed an army, strong in physique as in morale, which he might now

venture to move against the foe.

Jugurtha had shown no inclination to follow up his success by active

measures against the defeated Roman army, even after he had learnt the

repudiation of his treaty with Aulus and knew that the state of war had

been resumed. The miserable condition of the forces in the African

province, of which he must have been fully aware, must have offered an

inviting object of attack, and a sudden raid across the borders might

have enabled him to dissipate the last relics of Roman military power in

Africa. But he was now, as ever, averse to pushing matters to extremes,

he declined to figure as an aggressive enemy of the Roman power; and to

give a pretext for a war which could have no issue but his own

extinction, would be to surrender the chances of compromise which his

own position as a client king and the possibilities, however lessened,

of working on the fears or cupidity of members of the Roman

administration still afforded him. His strength lay in defensive

operations of an elusive kind, not in attack; the less cultivated and

accessible portions of his own country furnished the best field for a

desultory and protracted war, and he seems still to have looked forward

to a compromise to which weariness of the wasteful struggle might in the

course of time invite his enemies. He may even have had some knowledge

of the embarrassments of the Republic in other quarters of the world,

and believed that both the unwillingness of Rome to enter into the

struggle, and her eagerness, when she had entered, to see it brought to

a rapid close, were to some extent due to a feeling that an African war

would divert resources that were sorely needed for the defence of her

European possessions.

The king's confidence in the weakness and half-heartedness of the Roman

administration is said to have been considerably shaken by the news that

Metellus was in command.[1001] During his own residence in Rome he may

have heard of him as the prospective consul; he had at any rate learnt

the very unusual foundations on which Metellus's influence with his

peers and with the people was based, and knew to his chagrin that these

were unshakable. The later news from the province was equally

depressing. The new commander was not only honest but efficient, and the

shattered forces of Rome were regaining the stability that had so often

replaced or worn out the efforts of genius. Delicate measures were

necessary to resist this combination of innocence and strength, and

Jugurtha began to throw out the tentacles of diplomacy. The impression

which he meant to produce, and actually did produce on the mind of the

historian who has left us the fullest record of the war, was that of a

genuine desire to effect a surrender of himself which should no longer

be fictitious, and to throw himself almost unreservedly on the mercy of

the Roman people.[1002] But Jugurtha was in the habit of exhibiting the

most expansive trust, based on a feeling of his own utter helplessness,

at the beginning of his negotiations, and of then seeming to permit his

fears to get the better of his confidence. He was an experimental

psychologist who held out vivid hopes in the belief that the craving

once excited would be ultimately satisfied with less than the original

offer, while the physical and mental retreat would meanwhile divert his

victim from military preparations or lead him to incautious advances. It

must have been in some such spirit that he assailed Metellus with offers

so extreme in their humility that their good faith must have aroused

suspicion in any mind where innocence did not imply simplicity of

character, as Jugurtha perhaps hoped that it did in the case of this

novel type of Roman official. The Numidian envoys promised absolute

submission; even the crown was to be surrendered, and they stipulated

only for the bare life of the king and his children.[1003] Metellus,

convinced of the unreality of the promise, matched his own treachery

against that of the king. He had not the least scruple in following the

lead which the senate had given, and regarding Jugurtha as unworthy of

the most rudimentary rights of a belligerent. Believing that he had seen

enough of the Numidian type to be sure that its conduct was guided by no

principles of honour or constancy, and that its shifty imagination could

be influenced by the newest project that held out a hope of excitement

or of gain,[1004] he began in secret interviews with each individual

envoy, to tamper with his fidelity to the king. The subjects of his

interviews did not repudiate the suggestion, and adopted an attitude of

ready attention which invited further confidences. It might have been an

attitude which in these subtle minds denoted unswerving loyalty to their

master; but Metellus interpreted it in the light of his own desires, and

proceeded to hold out hopes of great reward to each of the envoys if

Jugurtha was handed over into his power; he would prefer to have the

king alive; but, if that was impossible, the surrender of his dead body

would be rewarded. He then gave in public a message which he thought

might be acceptable to their master. It is sufficiently probable that

the private dialogues no less than the public message were imparted to

Jugurtha's ear by messengers who now had unexampled means of proving

their fidelity and each of whom may have attempted to show that his

loyalty was superior to that of his fellows; incentives to frankness had

certainly been supplied by Metellus; but this frankness may have been

itself of value to the Roman commander. It would prove to Jugurtha the

presence of a resolute and unscrupulous man who aimed at nothing less

than his capture and with whom further parleyings would be waste

of time.

A few days later Metellus entered Numidia with an army marching with all

the vigilance which a hostile territory demands, and prepared in the

perfected carefulness of its organisation to meet the surprises which

the enemy had in store. The surprise that did await it was of a novel

character.[1005] The grimly arrayed column found itself forging through

a land which presented the undisturbed appearance of peace, security and

comfort. The confident peasant was found in his homestead or tilling his

lands, the cattle grazed on the meadows; when an open village or a

fortified town was reached, the army was met by the headman or governor

representing the king. This obliging official was wholly at the disposal

of the Roman general; he was ready to supply corn to the army or to

accumulate supplies at any base that might be chosen by the commander;

any order that he gave would be faithfully carried out. But Metellus's

vigilance was not for a moment shaken by this bloodless triumph. He

interpreted the ostentatious submission as the first stage of an

intended ambush, and he continued his cautious progress as though the

enemy were hovering on his flank. His line of march was as jealously

guarded as before, his scouts still rode abroad to examine and report on

the safety of the route. The general himself led the van, which was

formed of cohorts in light marching order and a select force of slingers

and archers; Marius with the main body of cavalry brought up the rear,

and either flank was protected by squadrons of auxiliary horse that had

been placed at the disposal of the tribunes in charge of the legions and

the prefects who commanded the divisions of the contingents from the

allies. With these squadrons were mingled light-armed troops, their

joint function being to repel any sudden assault from the mobile

Numidian cavalry. Every forward step inspired new fears of Jugurtha's

strategic craft and knowledge of the ground; wherever the king might be,

his subtle influence oppressed the trespasser on any part of his

domains, and the most peaceful scene appeared to the anxious eyes of the

Roman commander to be fraught with the most terrible perils of war.

The route taken by Metellus may have been the familiar line of advance

from the Roman province, down the valley of the Bagradas. But before

following the upper course of that river into the heart of Numidia, he

deemed it necessary to make a deflection to the north, and secure his

communications by seizing and garrisoning the town of Vaga, the most

important of the Eastern cities of Jugurtha. Its position near the

borders of the Roman province had made it the greatest of Numidian

market towns, and it had once been the home, and the seat of the

industry, of a great number of Italian traders.[1006] We may suppose

that by this time the merchants had fled from the insecure locality and

that the foreign trade of the town had passed away; but both the site of

the city and the character of its inhabitants attracted the attention of

Metellus. The latter, like the Eastern Numidians generally, were a

receptive and industrious folk, who knew the benefits that peace and

contact with Rome conferred on commerce, and might therefore be induced

to throw off their allegiance to Jugurtha. The site suggested a suitable

basis for supplies and, if adequately protected, might again invite the

merchant. Metellus, therefore, placed a garrison in the town, ordered

corn and other necessaries to be stored within its walls, and saw in the

concourse of the merchant class a promise of constant supplies for his

forces and a tower of strength for the maintenance of Roman influence in

Numidia when the work of pacification had been done. The slight delay

was utilised by Jugurtha in his characteristic manner. The seizure of

one of his most important cities offered an occasion or pretext for

fresh terrors. Metellus was beset by grovelling envoys with renewed

entreaties; peace was sought at any price short of the life of the king

and his children; all else was to be surrendered. The consul still

pursued his cherished plan of tampering with the fidelity of the

messengers and sending them home with vague promises. He would not cut

off Jugurtha from all hope of a compromise. He may have believed that he

was paralysing the king's efforts while he continued his steady advance,

and turning his enemy's favourite weapon against that enemy himself.

Perhaps he even let his thoughts dally with the hope that the envoys who

had proved such facile traitors might find some means of redeeming their

promises.[1007] But, unless he committed the cardinal mistake of

misreading or undervaluing his opponent, these could have been but

secondary hopes. He must have known that to penetrate into Western

Numidia without a serious battle, or at least without an effort of

Jugurtha to harass his march or to cut his communications, was an event

beyond the reach of purely human aspiration.

Jugurtha had on his part framed a plan of resistance complete in every

detail. The site in which the attempt was to be made was visited and its

military features were appraised in all their bearings; the events which

would succeed each other in a few short hours could be predicted as

surely as one could foretell the regular movements of a machine; the

Roman general was walking into a trap from which there should be no

escape but death. The framing of Jugurtha's scheme necessarily depended

on his knowledge of Metellus's line of march. We do not know how soon

the requisite data came to hand; but there is little reason for

believing that his plan was a resolution of despair or forced on him as

a last resort, except in the sense that he would always rather treat

than fight, and that to inflict disaster on a Roman army was no part of

the policy which he deemed most desirable. But, since his ideal plan had

stumbled on the temperament of Metellus, a check to the invading army

became imperative.[1008] The sacrifice of Vaga could scarcely have

weighed heavily on his mind, for it was an integral element in any

rational scheme of defence; but, even apart from the obvious

consideration that a king must fight if he cannot treat for his crown,

the thought of his own prestige may now have urged him to combat.

Unbounded as the faith of his Numidian subjects was, it might not

everywhere survive the impression made by the unimpeded and triumphant

march of the Roman legions.

Metellus when he quitted Vaga had continued to operate in the eastern

part of Numidia. The theatre of his campaign was probably to be the

territory about the plateau of Vaga and the Great Plains, its ultimate

prizes perhaps were to be the important Numidian towns of Sicca Veneria

and Zama Regia to the south. The nature of the country rendered it

impossible for him to enter the defiles of the Bagradas from the

north-west, while it was equally impossible for him to march direct from

Vaga to Sicca, for the road was blocked by the mountains which

intervened on his south-eastern side. To reach the neighbourhood of

Sicca it was necessary to turn to the south-west and follow for a time

the upward course of the river Muthul (the Wäd Mellag). By this route he

would reach the high plateaux, which command on the south-east the

plains of Sicca and Zama, on the north-west those of Naraggara and

Thagaste, on the south those of Thala and Theveste.[1009] Metellus's

march led him over a mountain height which was some miles from the

river.[1010] The western side of this height, down which the Roman army

must descend, although of some steepness at the beginning of its

declivity, did not terminate in a plain, but was continued by a swelling

rise, of vast and even slope, which found its eastern termination on the

river's bank. The greater portion of this great hill, and especially

that part of it which lay nearest to the mountain, was covered by a

sparse and low vegetation, such as the wild olive and the myrtle, which

was all that the parched and sandy soil would yield. There was no water

nearer than the river, and this had made the hill a desert so far as

human habitation was concerned. It was only on its eastern slope which

touched the stream that the presence of man was again revealed by

thick-set orchards and cattle grazing in the fields. [1011]

Jugurtha's plan was based on the necessity which would confront the

Romans of crossing this arid slope to reach the river. Could he spring

on them as they left the mountain chain and detain them in this torrid

wilderness, nature might do even more than the Numidian arms to secure a

victory; meanwhile measures might be taken to close the passage to the

river, and to bring up fresh forces from the east to block the desired

route while the ambushed army was harassed by attacks from the flank

and rear.

Jugurtha himself occupied the portion of the slope which lay just

beneath the mountain. He kept under his own command the whole of the

cavalry and a select body of foot-soldiers, probably of a light and

mobile character such as would assist the operations of the horse. These

he placed in an extended line on the flank of the route that must be

followed by an army descending from the mountain. The line was continued

by the forces which he had placed under the command of Bomilcar. These

consisted of the heavier elements of the Numidian army, the elephants of

war and the major part of the foot soldiers. It is, however, probable

that there was a considerable interval between the end of Jugurtha's and

the beginning of Bomilcar's line.[1012] The latter on its eastern side

extended to a point at no great distance from the river; and according

to the original scheme of the ambush the function assigned to Bomilcar

must have been that of executing a turning movement which would prevent

the Roman forces from gaining the stream. As it was expected that the

impact of the heavy Roman troops would be chiefly felt in this

direction, the sturdier and less mobile portions of the Numidian army

had been placed under Bomilcar's command.

Metellus was soon seen descending the mountain slope,[1013] and there

seemed at first a chance that the Roman column might be surprised along

its length by the sudden onset of Jugurtha's horse. But the vigilant

precautions which Metellus observed during his whole line of march,

although they could not in this case avert a serious danger, possibly

lessened the peril of the moment. His scouts seem to have done their

work and spied the half-concealed Numidians amongst the low trees and

brushwood. The superior position of the Roman army must in any case soon

have made this knowledge the common property of all, unless we consider

that some ridge of the chain concealed Jugurtha's ambush from the view

of the Roman army until they should have almost left the mountain for

the lower hill beneath it. Jugurtha must in any case have calculated on

the probability of the forces under his own command soon becoming

visible to the enemy, for perfect concealment was impossible amidst the

stunted trees which formed the only cover for his men.[1014] The

efficacy of his plan did not depend on the completeness or suddenness of

the surprise; it depended still more on Jugurtha's knowledge of the

needs of a Roman army, and on the state of perplexity into which all

that was visible of the ambush would throw the commander. For the little

that was seen made it difficult to interpret the size, equipment and

intentions of the expectant force. Glimpses of horses and men could just

be caught over the crests of the low trees or between the interlacing

boughs. Both men and horses were motionless, and the eye that strove to

see more was baffled by the scrub which concealed more than it revealed,

and by the absence of the standards of war which might have afforded

some estimate of the nature and size of the force and had for this

reason been carefully hidden by Jugurtha.

But enough was visible to prove the intended ambush. Metellus called a

short halt and rapidly changed his marching column to a battle formation

capable of resistance or attack. His right flank was the one immediately

threatened. It was here accordingly that he formed the front of his

order of battle, when he changed his marching column into a fighting

line.[1015] The three ranks were formed in the traditional manner; the

spaces between the maniples were filled by slingers and archers; the

whole of the cavalry was placed on the flanks. It is possible that at

this point the line of descent from the mountain would cause the Roman

army to present an oblique front to the slope and the distant

river,[1016] and the cavalry on the left wing would be at the head of

the marching column, if it descended into the lower ground.[1017] Such a

descent was immediately resolved on by Metellus. To halt on the heights

was impossible, for the land was waterless; an orderly retreat was

perhaps discountenanced by the difficulties of the country over which he

had just passed and the distance of the last watering-place which he had

left, while to retire at the first sight of the longed-for foe would not

have inspired his newly remodelled army with much confidence in

themselves or their general.

When the army had quitted the foot of the mountain, a new problem faced

its general. The Numidians remained motionless,[1018] and it became

clear that no rapid attack that could be as suddenly repulsed was

contemplated by their leader. Metellus saw instead the prospect of a

series of harassing assaults that would delay his progress, and he

dreaded the fierceness of the season more than the weapons of the enemy.

The day was still young, for Jugurtha had meant to call in the alliance

of a torrid sun, and Metellus saw in his mind's eye his army, worn by

thirst, heat and seven miles of harassing combat, still struggling with

the Numidian cavalry while they strove to form a camp at the river which

was the bourne of their desires. It was all important that the extreme

end of the slope which touched the river should be seized at once, and a

camp be formed, or be in process of formation, by the time that his

tired army arrived. With this object in view he sent on his legate

Rutilius with some cohorts of foot soldiers in light marching order and

a portion of the cavalry. The movement was well planned, for by the

nature of the case it could not be disturbed by Jugurtha. His object was

to harry the main body of the army and especially the heavy infantry,

and his refusal to detach any part of his force in pursuit of the

swiftly moving Rutilius is easily understood, especially when it is

remembered that Bomilcar was stationed near to the ground which the

Roman legate was to seize. An attack on the flying column would also

have led to the general engagement which Metellus wished to provoke. The

presence of Bomilcar and his force was probably unknown to the Romans.

He in his turn must have been surprised, and may have been somewhat

embarrassed, by Rutilius's advance; but the movement did not induce him

to abandon his position. To oppose Rutilius would have been to surrender

the part assigned him in the intended operations against the main Roman

force; and, if this part was now rendered difficult or impossible by the

presence of the Romans in his rear, he might yet divide the forces of

the enemy, and assist Jugurtha by keeping Rutilius and his valuable

contingents of cavalry in check. He therefore permitted the legate to

pass him[1019] and waited for the events which were to issue from the

combat farther up the field.

Metellus meanwhile continued his slow advance, keeping the marching

order which had been observed in the descent from the mountain. He

himself headed the column, riding with the cavalry that covered the left

wing, while Marius, in command of the horsemen on the right, brought up

the rear.[1020] Jugurtha waited until the last man of the Roman column

had crossed the beginning of his line, and then suddenly threw about two

thousand of his infantry up the slope of the mountain at the point where

Metellus had made his descent. His idea was to cut off the retreat of

the Romans and prevent their regaining the most commanding position in

the field. He then gave the signal for a general attack. The battle

which followed had all the characteristic features of all such contests

between a light and active cavalry force and an army composed mainly of

heavy infantry, inferior in mobility but unshakable in its compact

strength. There was no possibility of the Numidians piercing the Roman

ranks, but there was more than a possibility of their wearing down the

strength of every Roman soldier before that weary march to the river had

even neared its completion. The Roman defence must have been hampered by

the absence of that portion of the cavalry which had accompanied

Rutilius; it was more sorely tried by the dazzling sun, the floating

dust and the intolerable heat. The Numidians hung on the rear and either

flank, cutting down the stragglers and essaying to break the order of

the Roman ranks on every side. It was of the utmost difficulty to

preserve this order, and the braver spirits who preferred the security

of their ranks to reckless and indiscriminate assault, were maddened by

blows, inflicted by the missiles of their adversaries, which they were

powerless to return. Nor could the repulse of the enemy be followed by

an effective pursuit. Jugurtha had taught his cavalry to scatter in

their retreat when pursued by a hostile band; and thus, when unable to

hold their ground in the first quarter which they had selected for

attack, they melted away only to gather like clouds on the flank and

rear of pursuers who had now severed themselves from the protecting

structure of their ranks. Even the difficulties of the ground favoured

the mobile tactics of the assailants; for the horses of the Numidians,

accustomed to the hill forests, could thread their way through the

undergrowth at points which offered an effective check to the

pursuing Romans.

It seemed as though Jugurtha's plan was nearing its fulfilment. The

symmetry of the Roman column was giving place to a straggling line

showing perceptible gaps through which the enemy had pierced. The

resistance was becoming individual; small companies pursued or retreated

in obedience to the dictates of their immediate danger; no single head

could grasp the varied situation nor, if it had had power to do so,

could it have issued commands capable of giving uniformity to the

sporadic combats in which attack and resistance seemed to be directed by

the blind chances of the moment. But every minute of effectual

resistance had been a gain to the Romans. The ceaseless toil in the

cruel heat was wearing down the powers even of the natives; the

exertions of the latter, as the attacking force, must have been far

greater than those of the mass of the Roman infantry; and the Numidian

foot soldiers in particular, who were probably always of an inferior

quality to the cavalry and had been obliged to strain their physical

endurance to the utmost by emulating the horsemen in their lightning

methods of attack and retreat, had become so utterly exhausted that a

considerable portion of them had practically retired from the field.

They had climbed to the higher ground, perhaps to join the forces which

Jugurtha had already placed near the foot of the mountain, and were

resting their weary limbs, probably not with any view of shirking their

arduous service but with a resolution of renewing the attack when their

vigour had been restored. This withdrawal of a large portion of the

infantry was a cause, or a part, of a general slackening of the Numidian

attack; and it was the breathing space thus afforded which gave Metellus

his great chance. Gradually he drew his straggling line together and

restored some order in the ranks; and then with the instinct of a true

general he took active measures to assail his enemy's weakest point.

This point was represented by the Numidian infantry perched on the

height. Some of these were exhausted and perhaps dispirited, others it

is true were as yet untouched by the toil of battle; but as a body

Metellus believed them wholly incapable of standing the shock of a Roman

charge. The confidence was almost forced on him by his despair of any

other solution of the intolerable situation. The evening was closing in,

his army had no camp or shelter; even if it were possible to guard

against the dangers of the night, morning would bring but a renewal of

the same miserable toil to an army worn by thirst, sleeplessness and

anxiety. He, therefore, massed four legionary cohorts against the

Numidian infantry,[1021] and tried to revive their shattered confidence

by appealing at once to their courage and to their despair, by pointing

to the enemy in retreat and by showing that their own safety rested

wholly on the weapons in their hands. For some time the Roman soldiers

surveyed their dangerous task and looked expectantly at the height that

they were asked to storm. The vague hope that the enemy would come down

finally disappeared; the growing darkness filled them with resolute

despair; and, closing their ranks, they rushed for the higher ground. In

a moment the Numidians were scattered and the height was gained. So

rapidly did the enemy vanish that but few of them were slain; their

lightness of armour and knowledge of the ground saved them from the

swords of the pursuing legionaries.

The conquest of the height was the decisive incident of the battle, and

it was clearly a success that, considered in itself, was due far more to

radical and permanent military qualities than to tactical skill. It may

seem wholly a victory of the soldiers, in which the general played no

part, until we remember that strategic and tactical considerations are

dependent on a knowledge of such permanent conditions, and that Metellus

was as right in forcing his Romans up the height as Jugurtha was wrong

in believing that his Numidians could hold it. With respect to the

events occurring in this quarter of the field, Metellus had saved

himself from a strategic disadvantage by a tactical success; but even

the strategic situation could not be estimated wholly by reference to

the events which had just occurred or to the position in which the two

armies were now left. Had Bomilcar still been free to bar the passage to

the river and to join Jugurtha's forces during the night, the position

of the Romans would still have been exceedingly dangerous. But the

mission of Rutilius had successfully diverted that general's attention

from what had been the main purpose of the original plan. His leading

idea was now merely to separate the two divisions of the Roman army, and

the thought of blocking the passage of Metellus, although not

necessarily abandoned, must have become secondary to that of checking

the advance of Rutilius when the legate should have become alarmed at

the delay in the progress of his commander. Bomilcar, after he had

permitted the Roman force to pass him, slowly left the hill where he had

been posted and brought his men into more level ground,[1022] while

Rutilius was making all speed for the river. Quietly he changed his

column into a line of battle stretching across the slope which at this

point melted into the plain, while he learnt by constant scouting every

movement of the enemy beyond. He heard at length that Rutilius had

reached his bourne and halted, and at the same time the din of the

battle between Jugurtha and Metellus came in louder volumes to his ear.

The thought that Rutilius's attention was disengaged now that his main

object had been accomplished, the fear that he might seek to bring help

to his labouring commander, led Bomilcar to take more active measures.

His mind was now absorbed with the problem of preventing a junction of

the Roman forces. His mistrust of the quality of the infantry under his

command had originally led him to form a line of considerable depth;

this he now thought fit to extend with the idea of outflanking and

cutting off all chance of egress from the enemy. When all was ready he

advanced on Rutilius's camp.[1023]

The Romans were suddenly aware of a great cloud of dust which hung over

the plantations on their landward side; but the intervening trees hid

all prospect of the slope beyond: and for a time they looked on the

pillar of dust as one of the strange sights of the desert, a mere

sand-cloud driven by the wind. Then they thought that it betrayed a

peculiar steadiness in its advance; instead of sweeping down in a wild

storm it moved with the pace and regularity of an army on the march;

and, in spite of its slow progress, it could be seen to be drawing

nearer and nearer. The truth burst upon their minds; they seized their

weapons and, in obedience to the order of their commander, drew up in

battle formation before the camp. As Bomilcar's force approached, the

Romans shouted and charged; the Numidians raised a counter cheer and met

the assault half-way. There was scarcely a moment when the issue seemed

in doubt. The Romans, strong in cavalry, swept the untrained Numidian

infantry before them, and Bomilcar had by his incautious advance thrown

away the utility of that division of his army on which he and his men

placed their chief reliance. His elephants, which were capable of

manoeuvring only on open ground, had now been advanced to the midst of

wooded plantations, and the huge animals were soon mixed up with the

trees, struggling through the branches and separated from their

fellows.[1024] The Numidians made a show of resistance until they saw

the line of elephants broken and the Roman soldiers in the rear of the

protecting beasts; then they threw away their heavy armour and vanished

from the spot, most of them seeking the cover of the hills and nearly

all secure in the shelter of the coming night. The elephants were the

chief victims of the Roman pursuit; four were captured and the forty

that remained were killed.

It had been a hard day's work for the victorious division. A forced

march had been followed by the labour of forming a camp and this in turn

by the toil of battle. But it was impossible to think of rest. The delay

of Metellus filled them with misgivings, and they advanced through the

darkness to seek news of the main division with a caution that bespoke

the prudent view that their recent victory had not banished the evil

possibilities of Numidian guile.[1025] Metellus was advancing from the

opposite direction and the two armies met. Each division was suddenly

aware of a force moving against it under cover of the night; with nerves

so highly strung as to catch at any fear each fancied an enemy in the

other. There was a shout and a clash of arms, as swords were drawn and

shields unstrung. It was fortunate that mounted scouts were riding in

advance of either army. These soon saw the welcome truth and bore it to

their companions. Panic gave place to joy; as the combined forces moved

into camp, the soldiers' tongues were loosed, and pent up feelings found

expression in wonderful stories of individual valour.

Metellus, as in duty bound, gave the name of victory to his salvation

from destruction. He was right in so far as an army that has vanished

may be held to have been beaten; and his compliments to his soldiers

were certainly well deserved; for the triumph, such as it was, had been

mainly that of the rank and file, and the Roman legionary had not merely

given evidence of the old qualities of stubborn endurance which

Metellus's training had restored, but had proved himself vastly superior

to anything in the shape of a soldier of the line that Jugurtha could

put into the field. The commendation and thanks which the general

expressed in his public address to the whole army, the individual

distinctions which he conferred on those whose peculiar merit in the

recent combats was attested, were at once an apology for hardship, a

recognition of desert and a means of inspiring self-respect and future

efficiency. If it is true that Metellus added that glory was now

satisfied, and plunder should be their reward in future,[1026] he was at

once indulging in a pardonable hyperbole and veiling the unpleasant

truth that combats with Jugurtha were somewhat too expensive to attract

his future attention. His own private opinion of the recent events was

perhaps as carefully concealed in his despatches to the senate. It was

inevitable that a populace which had learnt to look on news from Numidia

as a record of compromise or disaster, should welcome and exaggerate the

cheering intelligence; should not only glory in the indisputable fact of

the renewed excellence of their army, but should regard Jugurtha as a

fugitive and Metellus as master of his land.[1027] It was equally

natural that the senate should embrace the chance of shaking off the

last relics of suspicion which clung to its honour and competency by

exalting the success of its general. It decreed supplications to the

immortal gods, and thus produced the impression that a decisive victory

had been won. Everywhere the State displayed a pardonable joy mingled

with a less justifiable expectation that this was the beginning of

the end.

The man who raises extravagant hopes is only less happy than the man who

dashes them to the ground. The days that followed the battle of the

Muthul must have been an anxious time for Metellus; for he had been

taught that it was necessary to change his plan of campaign into a shape

which was not likely to secure a speedy termination of the war. For four

days he did not leave his camp--a delay which may have had the

ostensible justification of the necessity of caring for his wounded

soldiers,[1028] and may even have been based on the hope that

negotiations for surrender might reach him from the king, but which also

proved his view that the pursuit of Jugurtha was wholly impracticable,

and that in the case of a Numidian army capture or destruction was not a

necessary consequence of defeat. He contented himself with making

inquiries of fugitives and others as to the present position and

proceedings of the king, and received replies which may have contained

some elements of truth. He learnt that the Numidian army which had

fought at the Muthul had wholly broken up in accordance with the custom

of the race, that Jugurtha had left the field with his body-guard alone,

that he had fled to wild and difficult country and was there raising a

second army--an army that promised to be larger than the first, but was

likely to be less efficient, composed as it was of shepherds and

peasants with little training in war.[1029] We cannot say whether

Metellus accepted the strange view that the vanished army, which had now

probably returned to the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and pasturage,

would not be reproduced in the new one; but certainly the news of the

future weakness of Jugurtha's forces did not seem to him to justify an

advance into Western Numidia, then as ever the stronghold of the king

and the seat of that treasure of human life which was of more value than

gold and silver. The Roman general, while recognising that the

belligerent aspect of the king made a renewal of the war inevitable, was

fully convinced that pitched battles were not the means of wearing down

Numidian constancy. The pursuit of Jugurtha was impossible without

conflicts, from which the vanquished emerged less scathed than the

victors,[1030] and even this primary object of the expedition was for

the time abandoned. He was forced to adopt the circuitous device of

attracting the presence of the king, and weakening the loyalty of his

subjects, by a series of mere plundering raids on the wealthiest

portions of the country. It was a plan that in default of a really

effective occupation of the whole country, especially of some occupation

of Western Numidia, implied a certain amount of self-contradiction and

inconsistency. The plunder of the land was intended to secure the end

which Metellus wished to avoid--a conflict with the king; and the

mobility which he so much dreaded could find no fairer field for its

exercise than the rapid marches across country which might secure a town

from attack, undo the work of conquest which had just been effected in

some other stronghold, or harass the route of the Roman forces as they

moved from point to point. Metellus was making himself into an admirable

target for the most effective type of guerilla warfare; but the whole

history of the struggle down to its close proves that this helplessness

was due to the situation rather than to the man. The Roman forces were

wholly inadequate to an effective occupation of Numidia; and a general

who despaired of pushing on in an aimless and dangerous pursuit, had to

be content with the chances that might result from the capture of towns,

the plunder of territories, and secret negotiations which might bring

about the death or surrender of the king.

Neither the movements which followed the battle of the Muthul nor the

site of the winter quarters into which Metellus led his men, have been

recorded. The campaign of the next year seems still to have been

confined to the eastern portion of Numidia, its object being the

security of the country between Vaga and Zama. This rich country was

cruelly ravaged, every fortified post that was taken was burnt, all

Numidians of fighting age who offered resistance were put to the sword.

This policy of terrorism produced some immediate results. The army was

well provisioned, the frightened natives bringing in corn and other

necessaries in abundance; towns and districts yielded hostages for their

good behaviour; strong places were surrendered in which garrisons were

left.[1031] But the presence of Jugurtha soon made itself felt. The

king, if he had collected an army, had left the major part of it behind.

He was now at the head of a select body of light horse, and with this

mobile force he followed in Metellus's tracks. The Romans felt

themselves haunted by a phantom enemy who passed with incredible

rapidity from point to point, whose stealthy advances were made under

cover of the darkness and over trackless wastes, and whose proximity was

only known by some sudden and terrible blow dealt at the stragglers from

the camp. The death or capture of those who left the lines could neither

be hindered nor avenged; for before reinforcements could be hurried up,

the Numidians had vanished into the nearest range of hills. The most

ordinary operations of the army were now being seriously hindered.

Supply and foraging parties had to be protected by cohorts of infantry

and the whole force of cavalry; plundering was impossible; and fire was

found the readiest means of wasting country which could no longer be

ravaged for the benefit of the men. It was thought unsafe for the whole

army to operate in two independent columns. Such columns were indeed

formed, Metellus heading one and Marius the other; but it was necessary

for them to keep the closest touch. Although they sometimes divided to

extend the sphere of their work of terror and devastation, they often

united through the pressure of fear, and the two camps were never at a

great distance from each other.[1032] The king meanwhile followed them

along the hills, destroying the fodder and ruining the water supply on

the line of march; now he would swoop on Metellus, now on Marius, harass

the rear of the column and vanish again into his hiding places.

The painful experiences of the later portion of this march convinced

Metellus that some decisive effort should be made, which would crown his

earlier successes, give him some sort of command of the line of country

through which he had so perilously passed, and might, by the importance

of the attempt, force Jugurtha to a battle. The hilly country through

which he had just conducted his legions, was that which lay between the

great towns of Sicca and Zama.[1033] The possession of both these places

was absolutely essential if the southern district which he had terrified

and garrisoned was to be kept permanently from the king. Sicca was

already his, for it had been the first of the towns to throw off its

allegiance to Jugurtha after the battle on the Muthul had dissipated the

Numidian army.[1034] He now turned his attention to the still more

important town of Zama, the true capital and stronghold of this southern

district, and prepared to master the position by assault or siege.

Jugurtha was soon cognisant of his plan, and by long forced marches

crossed Metellus's line and entered Zama.[1035] He urged the citizens to

a vigorous defence and promised that at the right moment he would come

to their aid with all his forces; he strengthened their garrison by

drafting into it a body of Roman deserters, whose circumstances

guaranteed their loyalty, and disappeared again from the vision of

friends and foes. Shortly afterwards he learnt that Marius had left the

line of march for Sicca, and that he had with him but a few cohorts

intended to convoy to the army the corn which he hoped to acquire in the

town. In a moment Jugurtha was at the head of his chosen cavalry and

moving under cover of the night. He had hoped perhaps to find the

division in the town, to turn the tide of feeling in Sicca by his

presence, and to see the ablest of his opponents trapped within the

walls. But, as he reached the gate, the Romans were leaving it. He

immediately hurled his men upon them and shouted to the curious folk who

were watching the departure of the cohorts, to take the division in the

rear. Chance, he cried, had lent them the occasion of a glorious deed of

arms. Now was the time for them to recover freedom, for him to regain

his kingdom. The magic of the presence of the national hero had nearly

worked conversion to the Siccans and destruction to the Romans. The

friendly city would have proved a hornets' nest, had not Marius bent all

his efforts to thrusting a passage through Jugurtha's men and getting

clear of the dangerous walls. In the more open ground the fighting was

sharp but short. A few Numidians fell, the rest vanished from the field,

and Marius came in safety to Zama, where he found Metellus contemplating

his attack.

The city lay in a plain and nature had contributed but little to its

defence,[1036] but it was strong in all the means that art could supply

and well prepared to stand a siege. Metellus planned a general assault

and arranged his forces around the whole line of wall. The attack began

at every point at once; in the rear were the light-armed troops,

shooting stones and metal balls at the defenders and covering the

efforts of the active assailants, who pressed up to the walls and strove

to effect an entry by scaling ladders and by mines. The defending force

betrayed no sign of terror or disordered haste. They calmly distributed

their duties, and each party kept a watchful eye on the enemy whom it

was its function to repel; while some transfixed those farther from the

wall with javelins thrown by the hand or shot from an engine, others

dealt destruction on those immediately beneath them, rolling heavy

stones upon their heads and showering down pointed stakes, heavy

missiles and vessels full of blazing pine fed with pitch and

sulphur.[1037]

The battle raging round the walls may have absorbed the thoughts even of

that section of the Roman army which had been left to guard the camp.

Certainly they and their sentries were completely off their guard when

Jugurtha with a large force dashed at the entrenchments and, so complete

was the surprise, swept unhindered through the gate.[1038] The usual

scene of panic followed with its flight, its hasty arming, the groans of

the wounded, the silent falling of the slain. But the unusual degree of

the recklessness of the garrison was witnessed by the fact that not more

than forty men were making a collective stand against the Numidian

onset. The little band had seized a bit of high ground and no effort of

the enemy could dislodge them. The missiles which had been aimed against

them they hurled back with terrible effect into the dense masses around;

and when the assailants essayed a closer combat, they struck them down

or drove them back with the fury of their blows. Their resistance may

have detained Jugurtha in the camp longer than he had intended; but the

immediate escape from the emergency was due to the cowards rather than

to the brave. Metellus was wrapt in contemplation of the efforts of his

men before the walls of Zama when he suddenly heard the roar of battle

repeated from another quarter. As he wheeled his horse, he saw a crowd

of fugitives hurrying over the plain; since they made for him, he judged

that they were his own men. It seems that the cavalry had been drawn up

near the walls, probably as a result of the impression that Jugurtha, if

he attacked at all, would attempt to take the besiegers in the rear.

Metellus now hastily sent the whole of this force to the camp, and bade

Marius follow with all speed at the head of some cohorts of the allies.

His anguish at the sullied honour of his troops was greater than his

fear. With tears streaming down his face he besought his legate to wipe

out the stain which blurred the recent victory and not to permit the

enemy to escape unpunished.

Jugurtha had no intention of being caught in the Roman camp; but it was

not so easy to get out as it had been to come in. Some of his men were

jammed in the exits, while others threw themselves over the ramparts;

Marius took full advantage of the rout, and it was with many losses that

Jugurtha shook himself free of his pursuers and retreated to his own

fastnesses. Soon the approach of night brought the siege operations to

an end. Metellus drew off his men and led them back to camp after a

day's experience that did not leave a pleasant retrospect behind it.

Warned by its incidents that the cavalry should be posted nearer to the

camp, he began the work of the following day by disposing the whole of

this force over that quarter of the ground on which the king had made

his appearance;[1039] more definite arrangements were also made for the

detailed defence of the Roman lines, and the assault of the previous day

was renewed on the walls of Zama. Yet in spite of these elaborate

precautions Jugurtha's coming was in the nature of a surprise. The

silence and swiftness of his onset threw the first contingents of Romans

whom he met into momentary panic and confusion; but reserves were soon

moved up and restored the fortune of the day. They might have turned it

rapidly and wholly, but for a tactical device which Jugurtha had adopted

as a means of neutralising the superior stability of the Romans--a means

which permitted him to show a persistence of frontal attack unusual with

the Numidians. He had mingled light infantry with his cavalry; the

latter charged instead of merely skirmishing, and before the breaches

which they had made in the enemy's ranks could be refilled, the foot

soldiers made their attack on the disordered lines.[1040]

Jugurtha's object was being fulfilled as long as he could remain in the

field to effect this type of diversion and draw off considerable forces

from the walls of Zama. But his ingenious efforts attracted the

attention of the besieged as well as of the besiegers. It is true that,

when the assault was hottest, the citizens of Zama did not permit their

minds or eyes to stray; but there were moments following the repulse of

some great effort when the energy of the assailants flagged and there

was a lull in the storm of sound made by human voices and the clatter of

arms. Then the men on the walls would look with strained attention on

the cavalry battle in the plain, would follow the fortunes of the king

with every alternation of joy or fear, and shout advice or exhortation

as though their voices could reach their distant friends.[1041] Marius,

who conducted the assault at that portion of the wall which commanded

this absorbing view, formed the idea of encouraging this distraction of

attention by a feint and seizing the momentary advantage which it

afforded. A remissness and lack of confidence was soon visible in the

efforts of his men, and the undisturbed interest of the Numidians was

speedily directed to the manoeuvres of their monarch in the plain.

Suddenly the assault burst on them in its fullest force; before they

could brace themselves to the surprise, the foremost Romans were more

than half-way up the scaling ladders. But the height was too great and

the time too short. Stones and fire were again poured on the heads of

the assailants. It was some time before their confidence was shaken; but

when one or two ladders had been shattered into fragments and their

occupants dashed down, the rest--most of them already covered with

wounds--glided to the ground and hastened from the walls. This was the

last effort. The night soon fell and brought with it, not merely the

close of the day's work, but the end of the siege of Zama.

Metellus saw that neither of his objects could be fulfilled. The town

could not be taken nor would Jugurtha permit himself to be brought to

the test of a regular battle.[1042] The fighting season was now drawing

to its close and he must think of winter quarters for his army. He

determined, not only to abandon the siege, but to quit Numidia and to

winter in the Roman province. The sole relic of the fact that he had

marched an army through the territory between Vaga and Zama were a few

garrisons left in such of the surrendered cities as seemed capable of

defence. The despatches of this winter would not cheer the people or

encourage the senate. The policy of invasion had failed; and, if success

was to be won, it could be accomplished by intrigue alone. Metellus,

when the leisure of winter quarters gave him time to think over the

situation, decided that scattered negotiations with lesser Numidian

magnates would prove as delusive in the future as they had in the past.

The king's mind must be mastered if his body was to be enslaved; but it

was a mind that could be conquered only by confidence, and to secure

this influence it was necessary to approach the monarch's right-hand

man. This man was Bomilcar, the most trusted general and adviser of

Jugurtha--trusted all the more perhaps in consequence of the delusion,

into which even a Numidian king might fall, that the man who owes his

life to another will owe him his life-long service as well. A more

reasonable ground for Bomilcar's attachment might have been found in the

consideration that, in the eyes of Rome, he was as deeply compromised as

Jugurtha himself--from an official point of view, indeed, even more

deeply compromised; for to the Roman law he was an escaped criminal over

whose head still hung a capital charge of murder.[1043] But might not

that very fact urge the minister to make his own compact with Rome? His

life depended on the king's success, or on the king's refusal to

surrender him if peace were made with Rome; it depended therefore on a

double element of doubt. Make that life a certainty, and would any

Numidian longer balance the doubt against the certainty? Such was the

thought of Metellus when he opened correspondence with Bomilcar. The

minister wished to hear more, and Metellus arranged a secret interview.

In this he gave his word of honour that, if Bomilcar handed over

Jugurtha to him living or dead, the senate would grant him impunity and

the continued possession of all that belonged to him. The Numidian

accepted the promise and the condition it involved; his mind was chiefly

swayed by the fear that a continuance of the even struggle might result

in a compromise with Rome, and that his own death at the hands of the

executioner would be one of the conditions of that compromise.

What passed between Bomilcar and Jugurtha can never have been known. The

king had no reason to regret the exploits of the year, and an appeal to

the desperate nature of his position would have been somewhat out of

place. But some of the reflections of Bomilcar, preserved or invented by

tradition,[1044] which pointed to weakness and danger in the future, may

conceivably have been expressed. It was true that the war was wasting

the material strength of the kingdom; it might be true that it would

wear out the constancy of the Numidians themselves and induce them to

put their own interests before those of their king. Such arguments could

never have weighed with Jugurtha had not his recent success suggested

the hope of a compromise; as a beaten fugitive he would have had nothing

to hope for; as a man who still held his own he might win much by a

ready compact with a Roman general in worse plight than himself. It

seems certain that Jugurtha was for the first time thoroughly deceived.

His judgment, sound enough in its estimate of the general situation,

must have been led astray by Bomilcar's representation of Metellus's

attitude, although the minister could not have hinted at a personal

knowledge of the Roman's views; and his confidence in his adviser led to

this rare and signal instance of a total misconception of the character

and powers of his adversary.

Some preliminary correspondence probably passed between Jugurtha and

Metellus before the king sent his final message.[1045] It was to the

effect that all the demands would be complied with, and that the kingdom

and its monarch would be surrendered unconditionally to the

representative of Rome. Metellus immediately summoned a council, to

which he gave as representative a character as was possible under the

circumstances. The transaction of delicate business by a clique of

friends had cast grave suspicions on the compact concluded by Bestia;

and it was important that the witnesses to the fact that the transaction

with Jugurtha contained no secret clause or understanding, should be as

numerous and weighty as possible. This result could be easily secured by

the general's power to summon all the men of mark available; and thus

Metellus called to the board not only every member of the senatorial

order whom he could find, but a certain number of distinguished

individuals who did not belong to the governing class.[1046] The policy

of the board was to make tentative and gradually increasing demands such

as had once tried the patience of the Carthaginians.[1047] Jugurtha

should give a pledge of his good faith; and, if it was unredeemed, Rome

would have the gain and he the loss. The king was now ordered to

surrender two hundred thousand pounds of silver, all his elephants and a

certain quantity of horses and weapons.[1048] He was also required to

furnish three hundred hostages.[1049] The request, at least as regards

the money and the materials for war, was immediately complied with. Then

the demands increased. The deserters from the Roman army must be handed

over. A few of these had fled from Jugurtha at the very first sign that

a genuine submission was being made, and had sought refuge with Bocchus

King of Mauretania;[1050] but the greater part, to the number of three

thousand,[1051] were surrendered to Metellus. Most of these were

auxiliaries, Thracians and Ligurians such as had abandoned Aulus at

Suthul; and the sense of the danger threatened by the treachery of

allies, who must form a vital element in all Roman armies, may have been

the motive for the awful example now given to the empire of Rome's

punishment for breach of faith. Some of these prisoners had their hands

cut off; others were buried in the earth up to their waists, were then

made a target for arrows and darts, and were finally burnt with fire

before the breath had left their bodies.[1052] The final order concerned

Jugurtha himself, He was required to repair to a place named

Tisidium,[1053] there to wait for orders. The confidence of the king now

began to waver. He may have hoped to the last moment for some sign that

his cause was being viewed with a friendly eye; but none had come.

Surrender to Rome was a thinkable position, while he was in a position

to bargain. It would be the counsel of a madman, if he put himself

wholly in the power of his enemy. He had sacrificed much; but the loss,

except in money, was not irremediable. Elephants were of no avail in

guerilla warfare, and Numidia, which was still his own, had horses and

men in abundance. He waited some days longer, probably more in

expectancy of a move by Metellus and in preparation of the step he

himself meant to take, than in doubt as to what that step should be;

when no modification of the demand came from the Roman side, he broke

off negotiations and continued the war. Metellus was still to be his

opponent; for earlier in the year the proconsulate of the commander had

been renewed.[1054]

The events of the summer and the peace of winter-quarters had given food

for reflection to others besides Metellus. We shall soon see what the

merchant classes in Africa thought of the progress of the war; more

formidable still were the emotions that had lately been excited in the

rugged breast of the great legate Marius. There are probably few

lieutenants who do not think that they could do better than their

commanders. Whether Marius held this view is immaterial; he soon came to

believe that he did, and expressed this belief with vigour. The really

important fact was that a man who had been praetor seven years before

and probably regarded himself as the greatest soldier of the age, was

carrying out the behests and correcting the blunders of a general who

owed his command to his aristocratic connections and blameless record in

civil life. The subordination in this particular form seemed likely to

be perpetuated in Numidia, for Metellus was entering on his second

proconsulate and his third year of power; in other forms and in every

sphere it was likely to be eternal, for it was an accepted axiom of the

existing regime that no "new man" could attain the consulship.[1055] The

craving for this office was the new blight that had fallen on Marius's

life; for it is the ambition which is legitimate that spreads the most

morbid influence on heart and brain. But the healthier part of his soul,

which was to be found in that old-fashioned piety so often maligned by

the question-begging name of superstition, soon came to the help of the

worldly impulse which the strong man might have doubted and crushed. On

one eventful day in Utica Marius was engaged in seeking the favour of

the gods by means of sacrificial victims. The seer who was interpreting

the signs looked and exclaimed that great and wonderful things were

portended. Let the worshipper do whatsoever was in his mind; he had the

support of the gods. Let him test fortune never so often, his heart's

desire would be fulfilled.[1056]

The gods had given a marvellous response in the only way in which the

gods could answer. They did not suggest, but they could confirm, and

never was confirmation more emphatic. Marius's last doubts were removed,

and he went straightway to his commander and asked for leave of absence

that he might canvass for the consulship in that very year. Metellus was

a good patron; that is, he was a bad friend. The aristocratic bristles

rose on the skin that had seemed so smooth. At first he expressed mild

wonder at Marius's resolution--the wonder that is more contemptuous than

a gibe--and exhorted him in words, the professedly friendly tone of

which must have been peculiarly irritating, not to let a distorted

ambition get the better of him; every one should see that his desires

were appropriate and limit them when they passed this stage; Marius had

reason to be satisfied with his position; he should be on his guard

against asking the Roman people for a gift which they would have a right

to refuse. There was no suspicion of personal jealousy in these

utterances; they reflected the standard of a caste, not of a man. But

Marius had measured the situation, and was not to be deterred by its

being presented again in a galling but not novel form. A further request

was met by the easy assumption that the matter was not so pressing as to

brook no delay; as soon as public business admitted of Marius's

departure, Metellus would grant his request. Still further entreaties

are said to have wrung from the impatient proconsul, whose good advice

had been wasted on a boor who did not know his place and could take no

hints, the retort that Marius need not hurry; it would be time enough

for him to canvass for the consulship when Metellus's own son should be

his colleague.[1057] The boy was about twenty, Marius forty-nine. The

prospective consulship would come to the latter when he had reached the

mature age of seventy-two. The jest was a blessing, for anything that

justified the whole-hearted renunciation of patronage, the dissolution

of the sense of obligation, was an avenue to freedom. Marius was now at

liberty to go his own way, and he soon showed that there was enough

inflammable material in the African province to burn up the credit of a

greater general than Metellus.

It is said that the division of the army, commanded by Marius, soon

found itself enjoying a much easier time than before;[1058] the stern

legate had become placable, if not forgetful--a circumstance which may

be explained either by the view that a care greater than that of

military discipline sat upon his mind, or by a belief that the new-born

graciousness was meant to offer a pleasing contrast to the rigour of

Metellus. But in this case the civilian element in the province was of

more importance than the army. The merchant-princes of Utica, groaning

over the vanished capital which they had invested in Numidian concerns,

heard a criticism and a boast which appealed strongly to their impatient

minds. Marius had said, or was believed to have said, that if but one

half of the army were entrusted to him, he would have Jugurtha in chains

in a few days;[1059] that the war was being purposely prolonged to

satisfy the empty-headed pride which the commander felt in his position.

The merchants had long been reflecting on the causes of the prolongation

of the war with all the ignorance and impatience that greed supplies;

now these causes seemed to be revealed in a simple and convincing light.

The unfortunate house of Masinissa was also made to play its part in the

movement. It was represented in the Roman camp by Gauda son of

Mastanabal, a prince weak both in body and mind, but the legitimate heir

to the Numidian crown, if it was taken from Jugurtha and Micipsa's last

wishes were fulfilled. For the old king in framing his testament had

named Gauda as heir in remainder to the kingdom, if his two sons and

Jugurtha should die without issue.[1060] The nearness of the succession,

now that the reigning king of Numidia was an enemy of the Roman people,

had prompted the prince to ask Metellus for the distinctions that he

deemed suited to his rank, a seat next that of the commander-in-chief, a

guard of Roman knights[1061] for his person. Both requests had been

refused--the place of honour because it belonged only to those whom the

Roman people had addressed as kings, the guard, because it was

derogatory to the knights of Rome to act as escort to a Numidian. The

prince may have taken the refusal, not merely as an insult in itself,

but as a hint that Metellus did not recognise him as a probable

successor to Jugurtha. He was in an anxious and moody frame of mind when

he was approached by Marius and urged to lean on him, if he would gain

satisfaction for the commander's contumely. The glowing words of his new

friend made hope appeal to his weak mind almost with the strength of

certainty. He was the grandson of Masinissa, the immediate occupant of

the Numidian throne, should Jugurtha be captured or slain; the crown

might be his at no distant date, should Marius be made consul and sent

to the war. He should make appeal to his friends in Rome to secure the

means which would lead to the desired end. The ship that bore the

prince's letter to Rome took many other missives from far more important

men--all of them with a strange unanimity breathing the same purport,

"Metellus was mismanaging the war, Marius should be made commander".

They were written by knights in the province--some of them officers in

the army, others heads of commercial houses[1062]--to their friends and

agents in Rome. All of these correspondents had not been directly

solicited by Marius, but in some mysterious way the hope of peace in

Africa had become indissolubly associated with his name. The central

bureau of the great mercantile system would soon be working in his

favour. Who would withstand it? Certainly not the senate still shaken by

the Mamilian law; still less the people who wanted but a new suggestion

to change the character of their attack. All things seemed working

for Marius.

It was soon shown that, whoever the future commander of Numidia was to

be, he would have a real war on his hands; for the struggle had suddenly

sprung into new and vigorous life, and one of the few permanent

successes of Rome was annihilated in a moment by the craft of the

reawakened Jugurtha. The preparations of the king must have been

conjectured from their results; their first issue was a complete

surprise; for few could have dreamed that the personal influence of the

monarch, who had given away so much for an elusive hope of safety and

had almost been a prisoner in the Roman lines, should assert itself in

the very heart of the country believed to be pacified and now held by

Roman garrisons. The town of Vaga, the intended basis of supplies for an

army advancing to the south or west, the seat of an active commerce and

the home of merchants from many lands who traded under the aegis of the

Roman peace and a Roman garrison perched on the citadel, was suddenly

thrilled by a message from the king, and answered to the appeal with a

burst of heartfelt loyalty--a loyalty perhaps quickened by the native

hatred of the ways of the foreign trader. The self-restraint of the

patriotic plotters was as admirable as their devotion to a cause so

nearly lost. Many hundreds must have been cognisant of the scheme, yet

not a word reached the ears of those responsible for the security of the

town. Even the poorest conspirator did not dream of the fortune that

might be reaped from the sale of so vast a secret, and the Roman was as

ignorant of the hidden significance of native demeanour as he was of the

subtleties of the native tongue. In eye and gesture he could read

nothing but feelings of friendliness to himself, and he readily accepted

the invitation to the social gathering which was to place him at the

mercy of his host.[1063] The third day from the date at which the plot

was first conceived offered a golden opportunity for an attack which

should be unsuspected and resistless. It was the day of a great national

festival, on which leisured enjoyment took the place of work and every

one strove to banish for the time the promptings of anxiety and fear.

The officers of the garrison had been invited by their acquaintances

within the town to share in their domestic celebrations. They and their

commandant, Titus Turpilius Silanus, were reclining at the feast in the

houses of their several hosts when the signal was given. The tribunes

and centurions were massacred to a man; Turpilius alone was spared; then

the conspirators turned on the rank and file of the Roman troops. The

position of these was pitiable. Scattered in the streets, without

weapons and without a leader, they saw the holiday throng around them

suddenly transformed into a ferocious mob. Even such of the meaner

classes as had up to this time been innocent of the murderous plot, were

soon baying at their heels; some of these were hounded on by the

conspirators; others saw only that disturbance was on foot, and the

welcome knowledge of this fact alone served to spur them to a senseless

frenzy of assault. The Roman soldiers were merely victims; there was

never a chance of a struggle which would make the sacrifice costly, or

even difficult.[1064] The citadel, in which their shields and standards

hung, was in the occupation of the foe; when they sought the city gates,

they found the portals closed; when they turned back upon the streets,

the line of fury was deeper than before, for the women and the very

children on the level housetops were hurling stones or any missiles that

came to hand on the hated foreigners below. Strength and skill were of

no avail; such qualities could not even prolong the agony; the veteran

and the tyro, the brave and the shrinking, were struck or cut down with

equal ease and swiftness. Only one man succeeded in slipping through the

gates. This was the commandant Turpilius himself. Even the lenient view

that a lucky chance or the pity of his host had given him his freedom,

did not clear him of the stain which the tyrannical tradition of Roman

arms stamped on every commander who elected to survive the massacre of

the division entrusted to his charge.[1065]

When the news was brought to Metellus, the heart-sick general buried

himself in his tent.[1066] But his first grief was soon spent, and his

thoughts turned to a scheme of vengeance on the treacherous town.

Rapidly and carefully the scheme was unfolded in his mind, and by the

setting of the sun the first steps towards the recovery of Vaga had been

taken. In the dusk he left his camp with the legion which had been

stationed in his own quarters and as large a force of Numidian cavalry

as he could collect. Both horse and foot were slenderly equipped, for he

was bent on a surprise and a long and hard night's march lay before him.

He was still speeding on three hours after the sun had risen on the

following day. The tired soldiers cried a halt, but Metellus spurred

them on by pointing to the nearness of their goal (Vaga, he showed, was

but a mile distant, just beyond the line of hills which shut out their

view), the sanctity of the work of vengeance, the certainty of a rich

reward in plunder. He paused but to reform his men. The cavalry were

deployed in open order in the van; the infantry followed in a column so

dense that nothing distinctive in their equipment or organisation could

be discerned from afar, and the standards were carefully

concealed.[1067] When the men of Vaga saw the force bearing down upon

their town, their first and right impression led them to close the

gates; but two facts soon served to convince them of their error. The

supposed enemy was not attempting to ravage their land, and the horsemen

who rode near the walls were clearly men of Numidian blood. It was the

king himself, they cried, and with enthusiastic joy they poured from the

gates to meet him. The Romans watched them come; then at a given signal

the closed ranks opened, as each division rushed to its appointed task.

Some charged and cut in pieces the helpless multitude that had poured

upon the plain; others seized the gates, others again the now undefended

towers on the walls. All sense of weariness had suddenly vanished from

limbs now stimulated by the lust of vengeance and of plunder. The

slaughter was pitiless, the search for plunder as thorough as the

slaughter. The war had not yet given such a prize as this great trading

town. Its ruin was the general's loss as it was the soldiers' gain; but

the need for rapid vengeance vanquished every other sentiment in

Metellus's mind. Roman punishment was as swift as it was sure, if but

two days could elapse between the sin and the suffering of the men of

Vaga. A gloomy task still remained. Inquiry must be made as to the mode

in which Turpilius the commandant had escaped unharmed from the

massacre. The investigation was a bitter trial to Metellus; for the

accused was bound to him by close ties of hereditary friendship, and had

been accredited by him with the command of the corps of engineers.[1068]

The command at Vaga had been a further mark of favour, and it was

believed by some that Turpilius had justified his commander's hopes only

too well, and that it was his very humanity and consideration for the

townsfolk under his command which had offered him means of escape such

as only the most resolute would have refused.[1069] But the scandal was

too grave to admit of a private inquiry, in which the honour of the army

might seem to be sacrificed to the caprice of the friendly judgment of

Metellus. His very familiarity with the accused entailed the duty of a

cold impartiality, and Turpilius found little credence or excuse for the

tale that he unfolded before the members of the court which adjudicated

on his case. The harsh view of Marius was particularly recalled in the

light of subsequent events. The fact or fancy that it was Marius who had

himself condemned and had urged his brother judges to deliver an adverse

vote, was seized by the gatherers of gossip, ever ready to discover a

sinister motive in the actions of the man who never forgot, was embedded

in that prose epic of the "Wrath of Marius" which subsequently adorned

the memoirs of the great, and became a story of how the relentless

lieutenant had, in malignant disregard of his own convictions, caused

Metellus to commit the inexpiable wrong of dooming a guest-friend to an

unworthy death.[1070] The death was inflicted with all the barbarity of

Roman military law; Turpilius was scourged and beheaded,[1071] and

through this final expiation the episode of Vaga remained to many minds

a still darker horror than before.

But much had been gained by the recovery of the revolted town. It is

true that in its present condition it was almost useless to its

possessors; but its fate must have stayed the progress of revolt in

other cities, and the rapidity of Metellus's movements had hampered

Jugurtha's immediate plans. The king had probably intended that Vaga

should be a second Zama, and that the Romans should be kept at bay by

its strong walls while he himself harassed their rear or attacked their

camp. Now the scene of a successful guerilla warfare must be sought

elsewhere. Its choice depended on the movements of the Roman army; but

the time for the commencement of the new struggle was postponed longer

than it might have been by a domestic danger which, while it confirmed

the king in his resolution to struggle to the bitter end, absorbed his

attention for the moment and hampered his operations in the field.

Bomilcar's negotiations with Rome were bearing their deadly fruit.[1072]

The minister was a victim of that expectant anguish, which springs from

the failure of a treacherous scheme, when the cause of that failure is

unknown. Why had the king broken off the negotiations? Was he himself

suspected? Would the danger be lessened, if he remained quiescent? It

might be increased, for the peril from Rome still existed, and there was

the new terror from the vengeance of a master, whose suspicion seemed to

his affrighted soul to be revealing itself in a cold neglect. Bomilcar

determined that he would face but a single peril, and plunged into a

course of intrigue far more dangerous than any which he had yet essayed.

He no longer worked through underlings or appealed to the emissaries of

Rome. He aimed at internal revolution, at the fall of the king by the

hands of his servants--a stroke which he might exhibit to the suzerain

power as his own meritorious work--and he adopted as a confidant a man

of his own rank and at the moment of greater influence than himself.

Nabdalsa was the new favourite of Jugurtha. He was a man of high birth,

of vast wealth, of great and good repute in the district of Numidia

which he ruled. His fame and power had been increased by his appointment

to the command of such forces as the king could not lead in person, and

he was now operating with an army in the territory between the

head-quarters of Jugurtha and the Roman winter camp, his mission being

to prevent the country being overrun with complete impunity by the

invaders. His reason for listening to the overtures of Bomilcar is

unknown; perhaps he knew too much of the military situation to believe

in his master's ultimate success, and aimed at securing his own

territorial power by an appeal to the gratitude of Rome. But he had not

his associate's motive for hasty execution; and when Bomilcar warned him

that the time had come, his mind was appalled by the magnitude of a deed

that had only been prefigured in an ambiguous and uncertain shape. The

time for meeting came and passed. Bomilcar was in an agony of impatient

fear. The doubtful attitude of his associate opened new possibilities of

danger; a new terror had been added to the old, and the motive for

despatch was doubled. His alarm found vent in a brief but frantic letter

which mingled gloomy predictions of the consequences of delay with

fierce protestations and appeals. Jugurtha, he urged, was doomed, the

promises of Metellus might at any moment work the ruin of them both, and

Nabdalsa's choice lay between reward and torture.[1073]

When this missive was delivered by a faithful hand, the general, tired

in mind and body, had stretched himself upon a couch. The fiery words

did not stimulate his ardour; they plunged him still deeper in a train

of anxious thought, until utter weariness gave way to sleep. The letter

rested on his pillow. Suddenly the covering of the tent door was

noiselessly raised. His faithful secretary, who believed that he knew

all his master's secrets, had heard of the arrival of a courier. His

help and skill would be needed, and he had anticipated Nabdalsa's demand

for his presence. The letter caught his eye; he lightly picked it up and

read it, as in duty bound--for did he not deal with all letters, and

could there be aught of secrecy in a paper so carelessly laid down? The

plot now flashed across his eyes for the first time, and he slipped from

the tent to hasten with the precious missive to the king. When Nabdalsa

awoke, his thoughts turned to the letter which had harassed his last

waking moments. It was gone, and he soon found that his secretary had

disappeared as well. A fruitless attempt to pursue the fugitive

convinced him that his only hope lay in the clemency, prudence or

credulity of Jugurtha. Hastening to his master, he assured him that the

service which he had been on the eve of rendering had been anticipated

by the treachery of his dependent; let not the king forget their close

friendship, his proved fidelity; these should exempt him from suspicion

of participation in such a horrid crime.

Jugurtha replied in a conciliatory tone.[1074] Neither then nor

afterwards did he betray any trace of violent emotion. Bomilcar and many

of his accomplices were put to death swiftly and secretly; but it was

not well that rumours of a widely spread treason should be noised

abroad. The pretence of security was a means of ensuring safety, and he

had to ask too much of his Numidians to indulge even the severity that

he held to be his due. Yet it was believed that the tenor of Jugurtha's

life was altered from that moment. It was whispered that the bold

soldier and intrepid ruler searched dark corners with his eyes and

started at sudden sounds, that he would exchange his sleeping chamber

for some strange and often humble resting place at night, and that

sometimes in the darkness he would start from sleep, seize his sword and

cry aloud, as though maddened by the terror of his dreams.

The news of the fall of Bomilcar swept from Metellus's mind the last

faint hope that the war might be brought to a speedy close by the

immediate surrender of Jugurtha,[1075] and he began to make earnest

preparations for a fresh campaign. In the new struggle he was to be

deprived of the services of his ablest officer, for Marius had at length

gained his end and had won from his commander a tardy permit to speed to

Rome and seek the prize, which was doubtless still believed in the

uninformed circles of the camp to be utterly beyond his grasp. The

consent, though tardy, was finally given with a good will, for Metellus

had begun to doubt the wisdom of keeping by his side a lieutenant whose

restless discontent and growing resentment to his superior were beyond

all concealment. Marius must have wished that his general's choler had

been stirred at an earlier date, for the leave had been deferred to a

season which would have deterred a less strenuous mind, from all

thoughts of a political campaign during the current year. Delay,

however, might be fatal; the war might be brought to a dazzling close

before the consular elections again came round; the political balance at

Rome might alter; it was necessary to reap at once the harvest of

mercantile greed and popular distrust that had been so carefully

prepared. It is possible that the usual date for the elections had

already been passed and that It was only the postponement of the Comitia

that gave Marius a chance of success.[1076] Even then it was a slender

one, for it was believed in later times that his leave had been won only

twelve days before the day fixed for the declaration of the

consuls.[1077] In two days and a night he had covered the ground that

lay between the camp and Utica. Here he paused to sacrifice before

taking ship to Italy. The cheering words of the priest who read the

omens[1078] seemed to be approved by the good fortune of his voyage. A

favourable wind bore him in four days across the sea, and he reached

Rome to find men craving for his presence as the crowning factor in a

popular movement, delightful in its novelty and entered into with a

genuine enthusiasm by the masses, who were fully conscious that there

was a wrong of some undefined kind to be set right, and were as a whole

perhaps blissfully ignorant of the intrigues by which they were being

moved. Yet the thinking portion of the community had some grounds for

resentment and alarm. The Numidian was not merely injuring those

interested in African finance, but was engaging an army that was sadly

needed elsewhere. The struggle in the North was going badly for Rome,

and despatches had lately brought the news of the defeat of the consul

Silanus by a vast and wandering horde known as the Cimbri,[1079] who

hovered like a threatening cloud on the farther side of the Alps and

might at no distant date sweep past the barrier of Italy. The senatorial

government, although its position had not been formally assailed, had

been sufficiently shaken by the Mamilian commission to distrust its

power of stemming an adverse tide; and Scaurus, its chief bulwark, had

lately been so ill-advised as to force a conflict with constitutional

procedure in a way which could not be approved by a class of men to

which the smallest precedent of political life that had once been

stereotyped, appealed as a vital element in administration. He had

spoilt a magnificent display of energy during his tenure of the

censorship--an energy that issued in the rebuilding of the Mulvian

bridge[1080] and in the continuance of the great coast road[1081] from

Etruria past Genua to Dertona in the basin of the Po--by an

unconstitutional attempt to continue in his office after the death of

his colleague. His resignation had been enforced by some of the

tribunes;[1082] and the great man seems still to have been under the

passing cloud engendered by his own obstinate ambition, when the

intrigues of the ever-dreaded coalition of the mercantile classes and

the popular leaders were completed by the arrival of Marius.

This new figurehead of the democracy had a comparatively easy part

assigned him. Had it been necessary for him to persuade, he would

probably have failed, for he lacked the gifts of the orator and the

suppleness of the intriguer; but he was expected only to confirm, and

better confirmation was to be gained from his martial bearing and his

rugged manner than from his halting words. The speaking might be done by

others more practised in the art; a few words of harsh verification from

this living exemplar of the virtues of the people were all that was

demanded. His censure of Metellus was followed by a promise that he

would take Jugurtha alive or dead.[1083] The censure and the promise

gave the text for a fiery stream of opposition oratory. Threats of

prosecuting Metellus on a capital charge were mingled with passionate

assertions of confidence in the true soldier who could vindicate the

honour of Rome. The excitement spread even beyond the lazier rabble of

the city. Honest artisans, who were usually untouched by the delirious

forms of politics, and even thrifty country farmers,[1084] to whom time

meant money at this busy season of the year, were drawn into the throng

that gazed at Marius and listened to the burning words of his

supporters. Against such a concourse the nobility and its dependents

could make no head. The people who had come to listen stayed to vote,

and the suffrage of the centuries gave the "new man" as a colleague to

Lucius Cassius Longinus. But this triumph was but the prelude to

another. The people, now assembled in the plebeian gathering of the

tribes, were asked by the tribune Titus Manlius Mancinus whom they

willed to conduct the war against Jugurtha. The answer "Marius" was

given by overwhelming numbers, and the decision already reached by the

senate was brushed aside. That body had, in the exercise of its legal

authority, determined the provinces which should be administered by the

consuls of the coming year.[1085] Numidia had not been one of these, for

it had unquestionably been destined for Metellus. Gaul, on the other

hand, called for the presence of a consul and a soldier; and the senate,

although it had no power to make a definite appointment to this

province, had perhaps intended that Marius, if elected, should be

entrusted with its defence. Had this resolution been adopted, the paths

of Marius and Metellus would have ceased to cross; the Numidian war,

which demanded patience and diplomacy but not genius, might have

dwindled gradually away; and the barbarians of the North might have

yielded to their future victor before they had established their gloomy

record of triumphs over the arms of Rome. But this was not to be. The

party triumph would be incomplete if the senate's nominee was not ousted

from his command. We cannot say whether Marius shared in the blindness

which saw a more glorious field for military energy in Numidia than in

Gaul; personal rivalry and political passion may have already blunted

the instincts of the soldier. But, whatever his thoughts may have been,

his actions were determined by a superior force. He was but a pawn in

the hands of tribunes and capitalists; he had made promises which had

raised hopes, definitely commercial and vaguely political. These hopes

it must be his mission to fulfil. Before quitting Rome he found

words[1086] which vented all the spleen of the classes screened out of

office by the close-drawn ring of the nobility. The platitudes of merit,

tested by honest service and approved by distinctions won in war, were

advanced against the claims of birth; the luxurious life of the nobility

was gibbeted on the ground that sensuality was a bar to energy and

efficiency; even the elegant and conscientious taste of the cultured

commander, who supplied the defects of experience by the perusal of

Greek works on military tactics during his journey to the scene of war,

was held up to criticism as a sign that the vain and ignorant amateur

was usurping the tasks that belonged to the tried and hardy

expert.[1087] Fortunately the energy of Marius was better expended on

deeds than words. Whether the African war really required a more

vigorous army than that serving under Metellus, might be an open

question. Marius pretended that the need was patent, and exhibited the

greatest energy in beating up veteran legionaries and attracting to his

standard such of the Latin allies as had already approved their skill in

service.[1088] The senate lent a ready hand. Nothing was more unpopular

than a drastic levy, and the favourite might fail when he called for a

fulfilment of the brave language that had been heard on every side. But

the confidence in the new commander baffled its hopes; the conscripts

were marching to glory not to danger, and the supplementary army, that

was to avert a phantom peril and save an imaginary situation, was soon

enrolled. Such a demonstration had often been seen before in Rome; the

energy of an ambitious commander had with lamentable frequency rebuked

the indolence or confidence of his predecessor, and Marius was but

following in the footsteps of Bestia and Albinus. The real merits of his

labours were due to his freedom from a strange superstition which had

hitherto clung to the minds even of the best commanders that the later

Republic had produced. They had continued to hold the theory that the

effective soldier must be a man of means--a belief inherited from the

simple days of border warfare, when each conscript supplied his panoply

and the landless man could serve only as a half-armed skirmisher. For

ages past the principle had been breaking down. The vast forces required

for foreign wars demanded a wider area for the conscription; but this

area, as defined by the old conditions of service, so far from

increasing, was ever becoming less. In the age of Polybius the minimum

qualification requisite for service in the legions had sunk from eleven

thousand to four thousand asses;[1089] later it had been reduced to a

yet lower level;[1090] but, in spite of these concessions to necessity,

the senate had refused to accept the lesson, taught by the military

needs of the State and the social condition of Italy, that an empire

cannot be garrisoned by an army of conscripts. The legal power to effect

a radical alteration had long been in their hands; for the poorer

proletariate of Rome whom the law described as the men assessed "on

their heads," not on their holdings, had probably been liable to

military service of any kind in time of need.[1091] Perhaps it was mere

conservatism, perhaps it was a faint perception of the truth that an

armed rabble is fonder of men than institutions, and an appreciation of

the fact that the hold of the nobility over the capital would be

weakened if their clients were allowed to don the armour which made them

men, that had kept the senate within the strait limits of the antiquated

rules. Fortunately, however, the methods of raising an army depended

almost entirely on the discretion of the general engaged on the task.

Did he employ the conscription in a manner not justified by convention,

he might be met by resistance and appeals; but, if he chose to invite to

service, there was no power which could prescribe the particular modes

in which he should employ the units that flocked to his standard. It was

this latter method that was adopted by Marius. He did not strain his

popularity, and invite a conflict with senatorial tribunes, by forcing

foreign service on the ragged freemen who had hailed him as the saviour

of the State; but he invited their assistance in the glorious work and

asked them to be his comrades in the triumphal progress that lay before

him.[1092] The spirit of adventure, if not of patriotism, was touched:

the call was readily answered, and the stalwart limbs that had lounged

idly on the streets or striven vainly to secure the subsistence of the

favoured slave, became the instruments by which the State was to be

first protected and finally controlled. The conscription still remained

as the resort of necessity; but the creation of the first mercenary army

of Rome pointed to the mode in which any future commander could avoid

the friction and unpopularity which often attended the enforcement of

liability to service. The innovation of Marius was sufficiently

startling to attract comment and invite conjecture. Some held that the

army had been democratised to suit the consulship, and that the masses

who had seen in Marius's elevation the realisation of the vague and

detached ambitions of the poor, would continue to furnish a sure support

to the power which they had created.[1093] It is not unlikely that

Marius, with his knowledge of the tone of the army of Metellus, may have

wished to create for himself an environment that would mould the temper

of his future officers; but those more friendly critics who held that

efficiency was his immediate aim, and that "the bad" were chosen only

because "the good" were scarce,[1094] suggested the reason that was

probably dominant as a motive and was certainly adequate as a defence.

No thought of the ultimate triumph of the individual over the State by

the help of a devoted soldiery could have crossed the mind either of the

consul or of his critics. The Republic was as yet sacred, however

unhealthy its chief organs might be deemed; and although Marius was to

live to see the sinister fruit of his own reform, the harvest was to be

reaped by a rival, and the first fruits enjoyed by the senate whom that

rival served.

While the election of Marius, his appointment to Numidia, and his

preparations for the campaign were in progress, the war had been passing

through its usual phases of skirmishes and sieges. For a time no certain

news could be had of the king; he was reported at one moment to be near

the Roman lines, at another to be buried in the solitude of the

desert;[1095] the annoyance caused by his baffling changes of plan was

avenged by the interpretation that they were symptoms of a disordered

mind; his old counsellors were said to have been dispersed, his new ones

to be distrusted; it was believed that he changed his route and his

officers from day to day, and that he retreated or retraced his steps as

the terrors of suspicion and despair alternated with the faintly

surviving hope that a stand might yet be made. Only once did he come

into conflict with Metellus.[1096] The site of the skirmish is unknown,

and its result was indecisive. The Numidian army is said to have been

surprised and to have formed hastily for battle. The division led by the

king offered a brief resistance; the rest of the line yielded at once to

the Roman onset. A few standards and arms, a handful of prisoners, were

all that the victors had to show for their triumph. The nimble enemy had

disappeared beyond all hope of capture or pursuit.

After a time news was brought that the king had made for the southern

desert with a fraction of his mounted troops and the Roman deserters,

whose despair ensured their loyalty. He had shut himself up in

Thala,[1097] a large and wealthy town to which his treasures and his

children had already been transferred. This city lay some thirteen miles

east of the oasis of Capsa, and a dismal and waterless desert stretched

between the Romans and the refuge of the king. No Roman army had at any

part of the campaign attempted to penetrate such trackless regions, and

the court at Thala may have believed even this foretaste of the desert

to be an adequate protection against an enemy which clung to towns and

cultivated lands and relied, in the cumbrous manner of civilised

warfare, on organised lines of communication. But the news that Jugurtha

had at last occupied a position, the strength of which, together with

the presence of his family and treasures within its walls, might supply

a motive for a lengthy residence within the town and even suggest the

resolution of holding it against every hazard, fired Metellus with a

hope which the awkward political situation at Rome must have made more

real than it deserved to be. The end of the war might be in sight, if he

could only cross that belt of burning land. His plan was rapidly formed.

The burden of the baggage animals was reduced to ten days' supply of

corn; skins of water were laid upon their backs; the domestic cattle

from the fields were driven in, and they were laden with every kind of

vessel that could be gathered from the Numidian homesteads. The

villagers in the neighbourhood of the recent victory, whom the flight of

the king had made for the moment the humble servants of Rome, were

bidden to bring water to a certain spot, and the day was named on which

this mission was to be fulfilled. Metellus's own vessels were filled

from the river, and the rapid march to Thala was begun. The resting

place was reached and the camp was entrenched; water was there in

greater abundance than had been asked or hoped, for a sharp downpour of

rain made the plethoric skins presented by the punctual Numidians almost

a superfluous luxury and, as a happy omen, cheered the souls of the

soldiers as much as it refreshed their bodies.[1098] The devoted

villagers had also brought an unexpectedly large supply of corn, so

eager were they to give emphatic proof of their newly acquired loyalty.

But one day more and the walls of Thala came in sight. Its citizens were

surprised but not dismayed; they made preparations for the siege, while

their king vanished into the desert with his children and a large

portion of his hoarded wealth. It was too much to hope that Jugurtha

would be caught in such a trap. The alternative prospects at Thala were

immediate capture or a siege as protracted as the nature of the

territory would permit. In the latter case a cordon would be drawn round

the town and a price would probably be put upon the rebel's head. It is

strange that the desperate band of deserters did not accompany the king

in his flight. There may have been no time for the retreat of so large a

force, or the strength and desolation of the site may have filled them

with confidence of success. But, if things came to the worst, they had a

surprise in store for their former comrades who were now battering

against the walls.

Metellus, in spite of the fact that he had lightened his baggage animals

of all the superfluities of the camp, must have brought his siege train

with him; it would, indeed, have been madness to attempt an assault on a

fortified town without the necessary instruments of attack. He seems in

his lines round Thala to have had all that he needed for a blockade;

even the planks for the great moving turrets were ready to his

hand.[1099] The engines were soon in place on an artificial mound raised

by the labour of the troops, the soldiers advanced under cover of the

mantlets, and the rams began to batter against the walls. For forty days

the courage of the besieged tried the patience of assailants already

wearied with the toils of a long forced march. Had human endurance been

the deciding factor, Metellus might have been forced to retire. But the

wall of Thala was weaker than the spirit of its defenders; a portion of

the rampart crumbled beneath the blows of the ram, and the victorious

Romans rushed in to seize the plunder of the treasure-city. They found

instead a holocaust of wealth and human victims. The royal palace had

been invaded by the deserters from the Roman army whom Jugurtha had left

behind. Thither they had borne the gold, the silver and the precious

stuffs which formed the glory of the town. A feast was spread and

continued until the banqueters were heavy with meat and wine. The palace

was then fired, and when the plundering mob of Romans had made their way

to the centre of the city's wealth, they found but the smouldering

traces of a baffled vengeance and a disappointed greed.

The capture of Thala was one of those successes which might have been

important, had it been possible to limit the area of the war or to check

the disaffection which was now spreading throughout almost the whole of

Northern Africa. The fringe of the desert had but been reached; the king

had fled beyond it; the south and west were soon to be in a blaze; we

shall soon see Metellus forced to take up his position in the north; and

a slight incident which occurred while Metellus was at Thala showed that

even cities of the distant east, which had never been under the

immediate sway of the Numidian power, were wavering in their attachment

to Rome. The Greater Leptis, situate in the territory of the Three

Cities between the gulfs which separated Roman Africa from the territory

of Cyrene, had sought the friendship and alliance of Rome from the very

commencement of the war. A Sidonian settlement,[1100] it had, like most

commercial towns which sought a life of peace, preferred the

protectorate of Rome to that of the neighbouring dynasties, and had

readily responded to the calls made on it by Bestia, Albinus and

Metellus.[1101] Such assistance as it furnished must have been supplied

by sea, for it was more than four hundred miles by land from the usual

sphere of Roman operations; but the commissariat of the Roman army was

so serious a problem that the ships of the men of Leptis must always

have been a welcome sight at the port of Utica. Now the stability of

their constitution, and their service to Rome, were threatened by the

ambition of a powerful noble. This Hamilcar was defying the authority

both of laws and magistrates, and Leptis, they wrote, would be lost, if

Metellus did not send timely help. Four cohorts of Ligurians with a

praefect at their head were sent to the faithful state, and the Roman

general turned to meet the graver dangers which were threatening in

the west.

Jugurtha had crossed the desert with a handful of his men and was now

amongst the Gaetulian tribes,[1102] who stretched from the limits of his

own dominions far across the southern frontier of his brother king of

Mauretania. His eyes were now turned to the west; the men of the desert,

the King of the Moors, would be infallible means of prolonging the war

with Rome, if their help could be secured. No Roman army had yet dared

to penetrate even into Western Numidia, and such a venture would be more

hopeless than ever, if the nomad tribes of the desert frontier and

Bocchus of Mauretania enclosed that district with myriads of mounted men

that might sweep it at any time from point to point, and destroy in a

moment the laborious efforts at occupation that might be made by Rome.

The Gaetulians, although perhaps a nomad, were not a barbarian people.

They plied with Mediterranean cities a trade in purple dye, the material

for which was gathered on the Atlantic coast; and their merchants were

sometimes seen in the marketplace at Cirta;[1103] but as fighting men

they lacked even the organisation to which the Numidians had attained,

and Jugurtha, while he sought or purchased their help, was obliged to

teach them the rudiments of disciplined warfare. Gradually they learnt

to keep the line, to follow the standards, to wait for the word of

command before they threw themselves upon the foe;[1104] these untrained

warriors must have been fired mainly by the love of adventure, of pay or

of plunder, or have been impressed by the greatness of the fugitive who

had suddenly appeared amongst their tribes; they had no hatred or

previous fear of the power of Rome, for most of the Gaetulian chiefs

were ignorant even of the name of the imperial city.[1105]

This name, however, had long been in the mind of the king who governed

the northern neighbours of the Gaetulians, and it was to the fears or

hopes of Bocchus of Mauretania that Jugurtha now appealed with the

design of gaining an auxiliary force greater than any which he himself

could put into the field. He had a claim on the Mauretanian king which

might have been valid in a land in which polygamy did not prevail, for

he was the husband of that monarch's daughter; but the dissipation of

affection amongst a multitude of wives and their respective progeny did

not permit the connection with a son-in-law to be a particularly binding

tie.[1106] There were, however, other motives which might spur the king

to action. His early overtures to Rome had been rejected, and this

neglect must have aroused in his mind a feeling of anxiety as well as of

wounded pride. If Rome conquered Numidia, she might become his

neighbour. What in that case would be the position of Mauretania,

connected as it would be by no previous ties of friendship or alliance

with the conquering state? If Bacchus joined Jugurtha, he would

immediately become a power with whom Rome would be forced to deal. An

ally detached from her enemies had often become her most trusted friend;

it was thus that the power of Masinissa had been secured and his kingdom

had been increased. If Jugurtha were victorious, the Romans would be

kept at bay; if he showed signs of failure, the defection of Bocchus

might be bought at a great price. The game on which he had entered was

absolutely safe; he could only be the loser if at the critical moment

chivalry or national sentiment interfered with the designs of a

calculating prudence. The great necessity of his position was to force

the hand of the Roman general and the Roman senate; but meanwhile he

would keep an open mind and see whether the power which he dreaded might

not be permanently kept at bay.

It may have been with thoughts like these that Bocchus bowed to the

teaching of his counsellors when they urged a meeting with

Jugurtha.[1107] The meeting was that of equals, not of a suppliant and

his protector. The Numidian king again headed an army of his own, and,

after the oath of alliance had been given and received, exhorted his

father-in-law in his own interest to join in a war that was as necessary

as it was just. The Romans, he pointed out, had been made by their lust

for conquest the common enemies of the human race. One had only to look

at their treatment of Perseus of Macedon, of Carthage, of himself. Who

was Bocchus that he alone should be immune from such a danger? The mood

of the king responded to Jugurtha's words, and without an instant's

delay they took the field together. Jugurtha was insistent on despatch,

for he knew the varying temper of his relative and feared that even a

slight delay would cool his resolve for decisive action.

The scene of the war now shifts with amazing suddenness to the north and

centres for the first time round the walls of Cirta.[1108] Metellus had

evidently been drawn from the south by the news of the threatened

coalition; for, if the territories near the coast were undefended, the

Mauretanians might sweep like a devastating storm over the land that

might have been held with some show of justice to be in the possession

of Rome. Cirta now appears as within the pacified territory and,

although we have no record as to the time when it was lost by

Jugurtha,[1109] its possession by the Romans need excite no surprise. It

may have been lost at an early period of the war, for there is no sign

that it was employed by Jugurtha either as a military or political

capital, and if, in spite of the massacre that had followed its capture

from Adherbal, its cosmopolitan mercantile life had been revived, the

attachment of the town to Rome would be assured on the news of the

waning fortunes of its king. Its surrender was certainly peaceful, and

the strength which might have defied the arms of Rome had rendered it

incapable of recovery by its former owner. To Cirta Metellus had

transferred his prisoners, his booty and his baggage,[1110] and it was

against Cirta that the two kings moved with their formidable force.

Jugurtha was the moving spirit in the enterprise, his idea being that,

even if the town could not be taken, the Romans would be forced to come

to its support and a battle would be fought beneath its walls. A battle

was now an issue to be courted, for never had he faced the enemy with

greater numbers on his side.

Metellus was as fully conscious of the change in the situation. Lately

he had been forcing himself on Jugurtha at every point; now he held back

and waited for the favourable chance. He wished above all to learn

something of the fighting spirit and methods of the Moors;[1111] they

were an untried foe, and Roman success was usually the fruit of

knowledge and not of experiment. He waited in his fortified camp near

Cirta to watch events, when news was brought from Rome which proved to

his mind that cautious inaction was now not merely the wiser but the

only policy. The news that came by letter was of stunning force.

Metellus had already learnt of Marius's election to the consulship. This

knowledge should have prepared him for the worst; but a proud man,

conscious of his deserts, will not meet in anticipation an event that,

however probable, seems incredible. Yet here it was before him in black

and white. He had been superseded in his command and the province of

Numidia belonged to Marius.[1112] There was no pretence of

self-restraint; tears rose to his eyes, as bitter language flowed from

his lips. It was disputed whether natural pride or the sense of

unmerited wrong was the secret of his wrath, or whether he held (as many

thought) that a victory already won was being wrested from his grasp.

But it was safely conjectured that his grief would not have been so

violent had any man but Marius been his successor.

To risk a defeat at the moment when the command was slipping from his

grasp seemed to Metellus the height of folly; but, even had he not

possessed this additional motive for inaction, the situation would

probably have forced him to temporise and to attempt to dissolve the

hostile coalition by diplomacy. He therefore sent a message to Bocchus

urging him to think seriously of the course of action which he had

adopted.[1113] An opportunity was still open to him of becoming the

friend and ally of Rome; why should he adopt this motiveless attitude of

hostility? The cause of Jugurtha was desperate; did the King of

Mauretania wish to bring his own country into the same miserable plight?

These were the first words that Bocchus had heard of a possible

convention with Rome; he had scored the first point, but was much too

wise to give away the game. Definite offers must be made and securely

guaranteed before he would withdraw the terror of his presence. Firmness

and conciliation must be blended in his answer, which, when delivered,

was both gracious and chivalrous. He longed, he said, for peace, but was

stirred to pity for the fortunes of Jugurtha. If the latter were also

given the chance of making terms with Rome, all might be arranged.

Metellus replied with another message framed to meet the position taken

up by the king; the answer of Bocchus was a cautious mixture of assent

and protest. As he showed no unwillingness to continue the discussion,

Metellus occupied the remainder of his own tenure of the command in

further parleyings. Envoys came and went, and the war was practically

suspended. A delicate and promising negotiation was on foot; it remained

to be seen whether it would be patiently continued or rudely interrupted

by the new governor of Numidia.