THE JUGURTHINE WAR.
[Sidenote: Attalus of Pergamus.] Attalus III., the last of that
supple dynasty which had managed to thrive on the jealous and often
treacherous patronage of Rome, left his dominions at his death to
the Republic. He had begun his reign by massacring all his father's
friends and their families, and ended it as an amateur gardener and
dilettante modeller in wax; so perhaps the malice of insanity had
something to do with the bequest, if indeed it was not a forgery.
Aristonicus, a natural son of a previous king, Eumenes II., set it at
naught and aspired to the throne.
[Sidenote: Aristonicus usurps the kingdom of Pergamus.] Attalus died
in 133, the year of the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus, when Scipio
was besieging Numantia, and the first slave revolt was raging in
Sicily. The Romans had their hands full, and Aristonicus might have
so established himself as to give them trouble, had not some of the
Asiatic cities headed by Ephesus, and aided by the kings of Cappadocia
and Bithynia, opposed him. He seized Leucae (the modern Lefke) and
was expelled by the Ephesians. But when the Senate found time to send
commissioners, he was already in possession of Thyatira, Apollonia,
Myndus, Colophon, and Samos. Blossius, the friend of Gracchus, had
come to him, and the civil strife at Rome must have raised his
hopes. [Sidenote: Conduct of Crassus, illustrating Roman rule in the
province.] But in the year 131 P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus, the
father-in-law of Caius Gracchus, was consul, and was sent to Asia. He
was Pontifex Maximus, rich, high-born, eloquent, and of great legal
knowledge; and from his intimacy with the Gracchi and Scipio he must
have been an unusually favourable specimen of the aristocrat of the
day. And this is what he did in Asia. He was going to besiege Leucae,
and having seen two pieces of timber at Elaea, sent for the larger
of them to make a battering ram. The builder, who was the chief
magistrate of the town, sent him the smaller piece as being the most
suitable, and Crassus had him stripped and scourged. Next year he was
surprised by the enemy near Leucae. Apparently he could have got off
if he had not been laden with his collections in Asia, to procure
which he had intrigued to prevent his colleague Flaccus getting that
province. Unable to escape, he provoked his captor to kill him by
thrusting a stick into his eye. His death was a striking comment on
the Senate's government. Cruelty and culture, personal bravery and.
incompetence--such an alloy was now the best metal which its most
respectable representatives could supply.
[Sidenote: End of Aristonicus and settlement of the kingdom.]
Aristonicus was now the more formidable because he had roused the
slaves, among whom the spirit of revolt, in sympathy with the rest of
their kind throughout the Roman world, was then working. But in the
year 130 M. Perperna surprised him, and carried him to Rome. Blossius
committed suicide. The pretender was strangled in prison. Part of his
territory was given to the kings who had helped the consul, one of
whom was the father of the great Mithridates. Phrygia was the share
assigned to him; but the Senate took it back from his successor,
saying that the consul Aquillius had been bribed to give it. The
consul may have been base or the Senate mean, or, what is more
probable, the baseness of the one was used as a welcome plea by the
other's meanness. The European part was added to the province of
Macedonia. The Lycian confederacy received Telmissus. The rest was
formed into a province, which was called Asia--the name being at once
an incentive to and a nucleus for future annexation. Such a nucleus
they already possessed in the province of Africa, and there also war
was kindled by the ambition of a bastard.
[Sidenote: Jugurtha.] Jugurtha was the illegitimate son of Mastanabal,
Micipsa's brother. He had served at Numantia under Scipio, along with
his future conqueror Marius. There he had begun to intrigue with
influential Romans for the succession to the Numidian kingdom, and
had been rebuked by Scipio, who told him he should cultivate the
friendship, not of individual Romans, but of the State. But in
Jugurtha's heart a noble sentiment found no echo. Brave, treacherous,
restless, an able commander, a crafty politician, adroit in discerning
and profiting by other men's bad qualities, wading to the throne
through the blood of three kinsmen, he in some respects resembles
Shakspeare's Richard III.,--his 'prime of manhood daring, bold, and
venturous,' his 'age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody.'
[Sidenote: Micipsa's will.] Micipsa had shared the kingdom with his
two brothers, who died before him; and as this, which was Scipio's
arrangement, had not worked badly in his own case, he in his turn left
his kingdom between Adherbal, Hiempsal, and Jugurtha. Adherbal was
weak and pusillanimous, Hiempsal hot-tempered and rash. Jugurtha, ten
or fifteen years older than either, was the favourite of the nation,
his handsome, martial figure and his reputation as a soldier according
with the notions of a race of riders as to what a king should be.
Hiempsal soon provoked him by refusing to yield the place of honour to
him at their first meeting; and when Jugurtha said that Micipsa's acts
during the last five years of his life should be held as null because
of his impaired faculties, Hiempsal retorted that he agreed with him,
for it was within three years that he had adopted Jugurtha. [Sidenote:
Jugurtha gets rid of Hiempsal.] Hiempsal went to a town called
Thirmida, to the house of a man who had been in Jugurtha's service.
This man Jugurtha bribed to procure a model of the town keys, which
were taken to Hiempsal each evening. Then his men, getting into
Thirmida one night, cut off Hiempsal's head and took it to their
master. He then proceeded to seize town after town; all the best
warriors rallied to his standard, and in a pitched battle he defeated
Adherbal, who fled to Rome, whither he had previously sent ambassadors
imploring aid. Jugurtha also sent envoys with plenty of money, to be
given first to his old comrades, and then to men likely to be useful.
At once the indignation which the wrongs of the brothers had roused
at Rome cooled down. [Sidenote: M. Aemilius Scaurus.] But M. Aemilius
Scaurus, the chief of the aristocracy, seems to have been bidding for
a higher price than was at first offered him, and by his influence ten
commissioners were appointed to divide the kingdom. Scaurus had in his
youth thought of becoming a money-lender, a trade in which he would
certainly have excelled; and he may very likely have hoped to make
something out of the commission, as the exemplary Opimius, murderer of
Caius Gracchus, did. [Sidenote: Jugurtha bribes the commissioners.]
This man, whom Cicero extols as a most excellent citizen, had opposed
Jugurtha at Rome but being in consequence treated by the king in
Numidia with marked deference, joined the majority of his colleagues
in swallowing the bribes offered to them. So Adherbal received the
eastern half which, though it contained the capital Cirta and better
harbours and towns, consisted mostly of barren sand, while the more
fertile portion was assigned to his rival.
[Sidenote: Jugurtha assails Adherbal, who appeals to the Senate.] This
took place in the year 117 B.C. Scarcely had the commissioners left
the province when the successful villain again took up arms. Adherbal,
after much long-suffering and sending a complaint to Rome, was driven
to do the same in self-defence. But he was defeated between Cirta and
the sea, and would have been taken in Cirta had not the colony of
Italians resident there beaten off the horsemen in pursuit. [Sidenote:
A second commission, hoaxed or bribed by Jugurtha.] Meanwhile
Adherbal's message had reached Rome, and the Senate, with its
high sense of responsibility, sent ten young men to Numidia as
adjudicators. Perhaps, indeed, it was not mere carelessness which sent
these young hopefuls to the best school of bribery in the world. They
were bidden to insist simply on the war ceasing, and the two kings
settling their disputes by law. And yet the news of the battle and the
siege of Cirta had reached Rome. Jugurtha came to them, and said that
his merits had won Scipio's approval, and that, conscious of right,
he could not submit to wrong; he then gravely charged Adherbal with
plotting against his life, and promised to send ambassadors to Rome.
Then the ten young men without even seeing Adherbal, left Africa, not
we may conjecture so lightly laden as they came there.
The town of Cirta stood on the promontory of a peninsula formed by a
loop of the river Ampsaga, and was almost impregnable. Modern writers
represent it as a square spur, thrust out into a gorge which runs
between two mountain-ranges, this gorge being spanned by a bridge at
one corner of the square. The town, now known as Constantina, and
distant 48 miles from the sea and 200 from Algiers, has been described
as occupying a bold and commanding situation on a steep, rocky hill,
with the river Rummel flowing on three sides of its base, the country
around being a high terrace between the chains of the maritime and
central Atlas. [Sidenote: Adherbal blockaded in Cirta.] Such being
the strength of the place, Jugurtha could only hope to reduce it by
blockade, and it was only after four months that two of Adherbal's men
got out and carried a piteous appeal from their master to the Senate,
adjuring them, not indeed to give him back his kingdom, but to save
his life. [Sidenote: A third commission.] Some of the Senate were for
sending an army to Africa at once, but in those days honest men
were always in the minority, and three commissioners were sent
instead--Scaurus, the man who had so lively an appreciation of his
own value, at their head. [Sidenote: Jugurtha is admonished by it.]
Jugurtha, after a desperate attempt to storm Cirta before they
arrived, came to them at Utica, where he was admonished at great
length. Then this precious trio left Africa, as the ten young men had
done; and the surrender of Cirta followed, either because despair led
its defenders to hope that submission, as it would save the enemy
trouble, might conciliate him, or perhaps because water or food
ran short. [Sidenote: Cirta taken and Adherbal murdered.] Jugurtha
immediately tortured Adherbal to death, and put every Numidian and
Italian in the place to the sword.
[Sidenote: Genuine indignation at Rome.] Then at last a thrill of
genuine anger went through Rome. The honour of the State had been
sorely wounded, but gold had been thus far a pleasant salve. Now,
however, the equites were touched in their hearts at the fate probably
of some of their own kinsmen, and almost certainly in an even more
sensitive part--their purses. For no doubt there were commercial
relations between the Italian community at Cirta and the Roman
merchants, and here their gains were confiscated at one stroke by a
savage. The senators, on the other hand, who had taken Numidian money,
tried to quash discussion, and would have succeeded if the tribune,
Caius Memmius, had not overawed them by his harangues. [Sidenote: War
declared. Bestia sails to Africa.] Fresh envoys, who had been sent by
Jugurtha with a fresh bribery fund, were ordered to leave Italy in ten
days; and Bestia sailed for Africa, taking with him as his second
in command Scaurus, who felt, no doubt, that a patriot was at last
rewarded. [Sidenote: Jugurtha bribes the generals.] There was some
fighting, and then the money from which Roman virtue had shrunk in
Italy could be resisted no longer. The itching palm of Scaurus was at
length filled as full as he thought mere decency demanded. Bestia
was also gratified, Jugurtha's submission was accepted, hostilities
ceased, and the consul sailed home to superintend the next year's
elections.
[Sidenote: Harangues of the tribune Memmius.] But Memmius, justly
incensed, now took a bolder tone. We cannot tell how far Sallust
reports what he really said, or how far he drew on his own invention.
But if he has given us Memmius's own words, they must have rung in the
ears of many an honest Roman like the trumpet-notes of that still more
eloquent tribune whose body, ten years before, had been hurled
into the Tiber. For he cast in the teeth of his audience their
pusillanimity in suffering their champions to be murdered, and
allowing so worthless a crew to lord it over them. It had been
shameful enough that they had witnessed in silence the plunder of the
treasury, the monopoly of all high office, and kings and free states
cringing to a handful of nobles; but now a worse thing had been done,
and the honour of the Republic trafficked away. And the men who had
done this felt neither shame nor sorrow, but strutted about with a
parade of triumphs, consulships, and priesthoods, as if they were men
of honour and not thieves. After these and similar home-thrusts, he
called upon the people to insist on Jugurtha being brought to Rome,
for so they would test the reality of his surrender. The tribune's
eloquence prevailed. The praetor Cassius was sent to bring Jugurtha
under a promise of safe-conduct. Jugurtha hesitated. Bestia's officers
were treading in their general's steps, taking bribes, selling as
slaves the Numidians who had deserted to them, and pillaging the
country. Jugurtha was fast becoming the national hero instead of the
chief of a faction, and might have even then dreamt of defying Rome.
However, he yielded and, as it was not in his nature to do things by
halves, came in the mean dress which was assumed to excite compassion.
He did more. This was the year of the so-called Thorian law.
[Sidenote: Jugurtha comes to Rome, and bribes the tribune Baebius.]
Caius Baebius, who may have been the author of that law, was tribune,
and not of the stamp of Memmius. He took Jugurtha's bribes, and when
the king was being cross-questioned by Memmius, interposed his veto,
and forbade him to reply. Thus once again, though the people were
furious, the old plan seemed to be working well.
[Sidenote: Murder of Massiva.] But now a cousin of the king, named
Massiva, a grandson of Masinissa, at the instigation of the consul
Albinus, claimed the Numidian crown. In the present state of parties
he was sure of support, so Jugurtha had recourse to the second
weapon which he always used when the first was useless. He had him
assassinated by his adherent Bomilcar, and assisted the latter to
escape from Italy. At last his savage audacity had overstepped even
the forbearance of the rogues in his pay. [Sidenote: Jugurtha expelled
from Rome.] He was ordered to leave Rome, and, as he went, uttered
the famous epigram, 'A city for sale, and when the first buyer comes,
doomed to ruin!' [Sidenote: Futile campaign of Albinus.] It is
possible that Spurius Albinus, who was next sent against him, was
playing the game of Scaurus and Bestia over again; for he effected
nothing in his campaign in 110. Nor does his brother's rashness
exonerate him. Left as propraetor in charge of the army, this man, in
January 109, determined to try and carry off Jugurtha's treasures by
a _coup de main_. To do this he marched against Suthul, where the
treasures were kept, at a season when the heavy rains turn the land
into water. [Sidenote: Jugurtha overthrows Aulus Albinus.] Jugurtha
retreated into the interior, enticing Aulus Albinus by hopes of coming
to terms, and meanwhile tampering with his officers. Then, on a
dark night, he surrounded the army. The traitors whom he had bribed
deserted their posts. The soldiers threw away their arms, and next day
Jugurtha forced Aulus to agree to go under the yoke, to make peace,
and, perhaps, in mockery of the Senate's treatment of the Numidian
envoys, to leave Numidia in ten days. Of course the Senate would not
acknowledge the treaty. Nor did they even go through the farce of
surrendering the man who had made it. The chivalry of the era of
Regulus would have seemed quixotic to cynics like Scaurus. The other
Albinus, hastening to Africa, found the troops mutinous, and could
effect nothing. Another tribune now stepped forward to impeach all,
whether soldiers or civilians, who had assisted Jugurtha to the
prejudice of the State. In spite of the aid of the rich Latins, who
had just been gratified by the remission of the vectigal, the
senators were beaten and the bill passed. Triumvirs were appointed to
investigate the matter; but one of them was Scaurus, sure to float
most buoyantly where the scum of scoundrelism was thickest. [Sidenote:
Banishment of Romans who had taken Jugurtha's bribes.] The judices
were equites, and among those condemned were Bestia, Sp. Albinus,
Opimius, and Caius Cato, the grandson of Cato the censor. Opimius died
at Dyrrhachium, a poor man; and probably no harder punishment could
have befallen him.
The history of the Jugurthine war has been thus far related at greater
length than the space at command would warrant if it was merely a
history of military details. But it is a striking commentary on the
politics of the time and the vices of the government. The state of
society could not be more succinctly summed up than in the words with
which Jugurtha quitted Rome. What was it which made the nobles so
greedy of money as to be lost to all shame in hunting for it? A speech
supposed to have been delivered that very year partly answers the
question: 'Gourmands say that a meal is not all that it ought to be
unless, precisely when you are relishing most what you are eating,
your plate is removed and another, and better, and richer one is
put in its place. Your exquisite, who makes extravagance and
fastidiousness pass for wit, calls that the "bloom of a meal." "The
only bird," says he, "which you should eat whole is the becafico. Of
every other bird, wild or tame, nothing, unless your host be a mean
fellow, but the hinder parts will be served, and enough of them to
satisfy everybody. People who eat the fore parts have no palate." If
luxury goes on at this rate there will soon be nothing left but for
them to have their meats nibbled at for them by some one else, to save
them the toil of eating. Already the couches of some men are decorated
more lavishly with silver and purple and gold than those of the
immortal gods.'
If the war up to this stage had revealed the hopeless depravity of the
senatorial government, its subsequent course revealed what shape
the revolution about to engulf that government would assume. The
consulship of Marius, won in spite of Metellus, signified really the
fall of the Republic and the rise of monarchy, while the rivalry of
Marius and Sulla showed that supreme authority would be competed for,
not in the forum but the camp. The law of Manilius necessitated an
earnest prosecution of the war. [Sidenote: Metellus appointed to the
command against Jugurtha. His character.] Quintus Caecilius Metellus
was elected consul for the year 109, and received Numidia as his
province. He was a stern, proud man; but if in his childish hauteur he
had a double portion of the foible of his order, he was free from many
of its vices. He set to work at once to rediscipline the army; and
his punishment of deserters, abominable in itself, was no doubt an
effective warning that the new general was not a man with whom it was
safe to trifle. The Romans were never gentle to the deserter unless he
deserted to them. They threw him to wild beasts, or cut off his hands.
Metellus did more. He buried 3,000 men to their waists, made the
soldiers use them as targets, and finally burned them.
[Sidenote: Battle on the Muthul.] Jugurtha was alarmed, and sent to
offer terms, asking only a guarantee for his life. Metellus returned
evasive answers, and secretly intrigued with the messengers for the
surrender or assassination of the king. But though assassination had
become one of the recognised weapons of a Roman noble, Metellus was a
novice in the art by the side of Jugurtha, who determined to die hard
now he was at bay. The Romans had to cross a range of mountains, after
which they descended into a plain through which the river Muthul
(probably a branch of the modern Mejerda) ran eighteen miles off.
Between them and the river was hilly ground--probably a spur from
the range. On this hilly ground the king posted Bomilcar, with the
infantry and elephants. He himself, with the best of the foot and the
cavalry, waited nearer the mountains. Metellus saw the snare, but was
obliged to get water, and in making for the river was surrounded. But
the new discipline told. Though isolated, each Roman division fought
bravely. Metellus and Marius carried the hills. Rufus dispersed the
picked infantry, and killed or captured all the elephants. Jugurtha's
plan was masterly, but it had failed. [Sidenote: Jugurtha keeps up a
guerilla warfare.] His army dispersed, as such armies do upon defeat,
and he was reduced to carrying on a guerilla warfare, spoiling the
springs where Metellus was marching, and cutting off stragglers.
Metellus split his army into two columns; Marius commanded one and he
the other, and so they marched, ravaging the country and capturing the
towns, ready to form a junction whenever it was necessary. At last
they came to Zama; and, while Metellus was attempting to storm the
town, Jugurtha surprised his camp. Though beaten off in this assault
he attacked the Romans again next day, and Metellus was obliged to
give up his enterprise. [Sidenote: Metellus tampers with Bomilcar.]
After garrisoning the towns which he had taken, he went into winter
quarters, probably at Utica, where he proceeded to tamper with
Bomilcar. That traitor urged Jugurtha to surrender, and the king gave
up his elephants, the deserters, and a large sum of money. But when it
came to giving up himself his heart failed him, and, having discovered
Bomilcar's treachery, he slew him, and once more resolved to fight.
[Sidenote: Marius stands for the consulship, 107 B.C.] The preceding
military operations are supposed to have taken place in the year 108
B.C. Marius went to Rome to stand for the consulship, and while he was
away, in 107, Metellus retained the command. Jugurtha's cause even now
was not hopeless. The Numidians adored him, and were smarting under
the Roman devastations. [Sidenote: Revolt of Vaga.] The chief town
occupied by the Romans, Vaga--the modern Baja--revolted in the winter,
and the commander, Turpilius, a Latin, rightly or wrongly was executed
by Metellus for collusion with the enemy. But Metellus was eager to
end the war, and pressed the king hard. Jugurtha lost another battle,
and fled to Thala; but Metellus marched fifty miles across the desert,
and forced him to flee by night out of the town, which was taken after
a siege of forty days. But now a new enemy confronted the Romans.
[Sidenote: Bocchus joins Jugurtha.] Bocchus, king of Mauretania,
formed an alliance with his son-in-law, Jugurtha, and was induced by
him to march against Cirta, which was in the possession of the Romans.
About the same time Metellus heard that Marius was coming to supersede
him. The proud man shed tears of rage, and would not move further for
fear of hazarding his own reputation, or lessening the difficulties of
his successor.
[Sidenote: Marius succeeds to the command.] The African war now
promised hard work and little glory or profit to the soldiers, and
Jugurtha's bribing days were over. Hence it was hard to recruit the
legions, and Marius took men from the Proletarii and Capite Censi,
classes usually exempt from service. With these troops, who would be
more easily satisfied and more manageable, he filled up the gaps in
the legions in Africa, and set to work, as Metellus had done, taking
towns and forts and plundering the country. Bocchus had separated from
Jugurtha, for they hoped that the Romans having two foes to chase
would be the more easily harassed. But Marius was always on his guard,
and beat, though he could never capture, Jugurtha whenever he came
across him. [Sidenote: Capture of Capsa.] There is an oasis in the
south of Tunis, and a town, Gafsa, in it, which in those days was
called Capsa. This town Marius captured after a laborious march
of nine or ten days, and, though the inhabitants surrendered, he
ruthlessly massacred every adult Numidian in it, and sold the rest as
slaves. One other exploit of his is told by Sallust, but with
such blunders of geography as render identification of the place
impossible. Carrying fire and sword through the land, Marius reached
a fort in which the king's treasures were. It stood on a precipice,
which was considered inaccessible on all sides but one. For many days
he strove in vain to gain the walls by this road, and only an accident
saved him from failure in the end. A Ligurian in the army, while
gathering snails, unconsciously got nearly to the top of the hill.
Finding this out he clambered further and got a full view of the town.
[Sidenote: Capture of another stronghold.] Next day Marius sent ten
men with horns and trumpets and the Ligurian as guide, while he
himself assailed the town by the road. As soon as they were at the
top he ordered an assault on the walls. The men marched up with their
shields locked over their heads, and at the same moment the Roman
trumpets were heard at the side of the town over the precipice. The
Numidians fled and the fort was won.
[Sidenote: Marius marches for Cirta.] Here, wherever the place was,
Marius was joined by Sulla with some cavalry; and having gained his
end, he marched eastward towards Cirta, intending to winter his men in
the maritime towns. [Sidenote: Attempts of Jugurtha to surprise
his march.] But the Numidian king had nerved himself for one last
desperate effort. By the promise of a third of his kingdom he bribed
Bocchus to join him, and one night at dusk surprised the retiring
army. Only discipline saved it. Like the English at Inkermann, the
Romans fought in small detached groups, till Marius was able to
concentrate his men on a hill, while Sulla by his orders occupied
another hard by. The barbarians surrounded them and kept up a revel
all night, deeming their prey secure. But at dawn Marius bade the
horns strike up, and with a shout the soldiers charged down and
dispersed the enemy with ease. Then the march went on till they were
near Cirta. Again Jugurtha attempted to cut off the retreat. Volux,
son of Bocchus, had brought him some fresh infantry. While the cavalry
engaged Sulla, Bocchus led these men round to attack the rear.
Jugurtha, who was fighting against Masinissa in the front, rode also
to the rear, and, holding up a bloody head, cried out that he had
slain Marius. The Romans began to give way, when Sulla, like Cromwell
at Marston Moor, having done his own work charged the troops of
Bocchus on the flank. Still Jugurtha fought on, and fled only when
all around him were slain. The result of this battle was that Bocchus
became anxious to come to terms. Sulla was sent to arrange them.
But Bocchus hated the Romans, while he feared them; and fresh
solicitations from Jugurtha made him again waver. [Sidenote:
Negotiations of Bocchus with Rome.] Soon afterwards, by permission
of Marius, he sent an embassy to Rome. The Senate replied that they
excused his past errors, and that he should have the friendship and
alliance of Rome when he had earned it. Then ensued intrigue upon
intrigue. [Sidenote: Sulla persuades Bocchus to betray Jugurtha.]
Sulla daringly visited Bocchus, and after some days' hesitation,
during which Sulla pressed him to betray Jugurtha, and Jugurtha
pressed him to betray Sulla, the Moorish king at last decided on which
side his interests lay. The Roman devised a trap. The arch-traitor was
ensnared, and was carried in chains to Rome, where he was led in his
royal robes by the triumphal car of Marius, and, it is said, lost his
senses as he walked along. One wonders with what relish Scaurus and
his tribe, after gazing at the spectacle, sat down to their becaficoes
that day. Then he was thrust into prison, and as they hasted to strip
him, some tore the clothes off his back, while others in wrenching out
his earrings pulled off the tips of his ears with them. And so he was
thrust down naked into the Tullianum. 'Hercules, what a cold bath!' he
cried, with the wild smile of idiocy, as they cast him in. [Sidenote:
Death of Jugurtha.] For six days he endured the torments of
starvation, and then died. [Sidenote: Division of the Numidian
kingdom.] The most westerly portion of his kingdom, corresponding to
the modern province of Algiers, was given to Bocchus, the rest of it
to Gauda, Jugurtha's half-brother. The Romans did not care to turn
into a province a country of which the frontiers were so hard to
guard. But they received some Gaetulian tribes in the interior into
free alliance, so that they had plenty of opportunities for meddling
if they wished to do so.
* * * * *