A History of Rome, Vol 1 by A H.J. Greenidge

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In a few days the travellers had reached the spot where Bocchus held his
court. The secret advocates of Numidia and Rome were already in
possession of the king.[1181] Jugurtha's representative was Aspar, a
Numidian subject who had been sent by his master as soon as the news had
been brought of Bocchus's demand for the presence of Sulla. He had been
sent to watch the negotiations and, if possible, to plead his monarch's
cause. The advocate of Rome was Dabar, also a Numidian but of the royal
line and therefore hostile to Jugurtha. He was a grandson of Masinissa,
but not by legitimate descent, for his father had been born of a
concubine of the king.[1182] His great parts had long recommended him to
Bocchus, and his known loyalty to Rome made him a useful intermediary
with the representative of that power. He was now sent to Sulla with the
intimation that Bocchus was ready to meet the wishes of the Roman
people; that he asked Sulla himself to choose a day, an hour and a place
for a conference; that the understanding, which already existed between
them, remained wholly unimpaired. The presence of a representative of
Jugurtha at the court should cause no uneasiness. This representative
was only tolerated because there was no other means of lulling the
suspicion of the Numidian king. We do not know what Sulla made of this
presentment of the case; but somewhere in the annals of the time there
was to be found an emphatic conviction that Bocchus was still playing a
double game, that he was still revolving in his mind the respective
merits of a surrender of Jugurtha to the Romans and of Sulla to
Jugurtha;[1183] that his fears prompted the first step, his inclinations
the second, and that this internal struggle was waged throughout the
whole of the tortuous negotiations which ensued.

Sulla, in accepting the promised interview, replied that he did not
object to the presence of Jugurtha's legate at the preliminaries; but
that most of what he wished to say was for the king's ear alone, or at
least for those of a very few of his most trusted counsellors. He
suggested the reply that he expected from the king, and after a short
interval was led into Bocchus's presence. At this meeting he gave the
barest intimation of his mission; he had been sent, he said, by the
proconsul[1184] to ask the king whether he intended peace or war. It had
been arranged that Bocchus should make no immediate answer to this
question, but should reserve his reply for another date. The king now
adjourned the audience to the tenth day, intimating that on that day his
intention would be decided and his reply prepared. Sulla and Bocchus
both retired to their respective camps; but the king was restless, and
at a late hour of that very night a message reached Sulla entreating an
immediate and secret interview. No one was present but Dabar, the trusty
go-between, and interpreters whose secrecy was assured. The narrative of
this momentous meeting[1185] is therefore due to Sulla, whose fortunate
possession of literary tastes has revealed a bit of secret history to
the world. The king began with some complimentary references to his
visitor, an acknowledgment of the great debt that he owed him, a hope
that his benefactor would never be weary of attempting to exhaust his
boundless gratitude. He then passed to the question of his own future
relations with Rome. He repeated the assertion, which he had made on the
occasion of Sulla's earlier visit, that he had never made, or even
wished for, war with the people of Rome, that he had merely protected
his frontiers against armed aggression. But he was willing to waive the
point. He would impose no hindrance to the Romans waging war with
Jugurtha in any way they pleased. He would not press his claim to the
disputed territory east of the Muluccha. He would be content to regard
that river, which had been the boundary between his own kingdom and that
of Micipsa, as his future frontier. He would not cross it himself nor
permit Jugurtha to pass within it. If Sulla had any further request to
urge, which could be fairly made by the petitioner and honourably
granted by himself, he would not refuse it.

A strict and safe neutrality was the tentacle put out by Bocchus. The
only shadow of a positive service by which he proposed to deserve the
alliance of Rome, was the abandonment of a highly disputable claim to a
part of Jugurtha's possessions. It was certainly time to bring the
monarch to the real point at issue, and Sulla pressed it home. He began
by a brief acknowledgment of the complimentary references which the king
had made to himself, and then indulged in some plain speaking as to the
expectations which the Roman government had formed of their would-be
ally.[1186] He pointed out that the offers made by Bocchus were scarcely
needed by Rome. A power that possessed her military strength would not
be likely to regard them in the light of favours. Something was expected
which could be seen to subserve the interests of Rome far more than
those of the king himself. The service was patent. He had Jugurtha in
his power; if he handed him over to Rome, her debt would certainly be
great, and it would be paid. The recognition of friendship, the treaty
which he sought, and the portion of Numidia which he claimed--all these
would be his for the asking. The king drew back; he urged the sacred
bonds of relationship, the scarce less sacred tie of the treaty which
bound him to his son-in-law; he emphasised the danger to himself of such
a flagrant breach of faith. It might alienate the hearts of his
subjects, who loved Jugurtha and hated the name of Rome.[1187] But Sulla
continued to press the point; the king's resistance seemed to give way,
and at last he promised to do everything that his persistent visitor
demanded. It was agreed, however, between the two conspirators that it
was necessary to preserve a semblance of peaceful relations with
Jugurtha. A pretence must be made of admitting him to the terms of the
convention; this would be a ready bait, for he was thoroughly tired of
the war. Sulla agreed to this arrangement as the only means of
entrapping his victim; to Bocchus it may have had another significance
as well; it still left his hands free.

The next day witnessed the beginning of the machinations that were to
end in the sacrifice of a Numidian king or a Roman magistrate. Bocchus
summoned Aspar, the agent of Jugurtha, and told him that a communication
had been received from Sulla to the effect that terms might be
considered for bringing the war to a close; he therefore asked the
legate to ascertain the views of his sovereign.[1188] Aspar departed
joyfully to the headquarters of Jugurtha, who was now at a considerable
distance from the scene of the negotiations. Eight days later he
returned with all speed, bearing a message for the ear of Bocchus.
Jugurtha, it appeared, was willing to submit to any conditions. But he
had little confidence in Marius. It had often happened that terms of
peace sanctioned by Roman generals had been declared invalid. But there
was a way of obtaining a guarantee. If Bocchus wished to secure their
common interests and to enjoy an undisputed peace, he should arrange a
meeting of all the principals to the agreement, on the pretext of
discussing its terms. At that meeting Sulla should be handed over to
Jugurtha. There could be no doubt that the possession of such a hostage
would wring the consent of the senate and people to the terms of the
treaty; for it was incredible that the Roman government would leave a
member of the nobility, who had been captured while performing a public
duty, in the power of his foes.

Bocchus after some reflection consented to this course. Then, as later,
it was a disputed question whether the king had even at this stage made
up his mind as to his final course of action.[1189] When the time and
place for the meeting had been arranged, the nature of the treachery was
still uncertain. At one moment the king was holding smiling converse
with Sulla, at another with the envoy of Jugurtha. Precisely the same
promises were made to both; both were satisfied and eager for the
appointed day. On the evening before the meeting Bocchus summoned a
council of his friends; then the whim took him that they should be
dismissed, and he passed some time in silent thought. Before the night
was out he had sent for Sulla, and it was the cunning of the Roman that
set the final toils for the Numidian. At break of day the news was
brought that Jugurtha was at hand. Bocchus, attended by a few friends
and the Roman quaestor, advanced as though to do him honour, and halted
on some rising ground which put the chief actors in the drama in full
view of the men who lay in ambush. Jugurtha proceeded to the same spot
amidst a large retinue of his friends; it had been agreed that all the
partners to the conference should come unarmed.[1190] A sign was given,
and the men of the ambuscade had sprung from every side upon the mound.
Jugurtha's retinue was cut down to a man; the king himself was seized,
bound and handed over to Sulla. In a short while he was the prisoner
of Marius.

Every one had long known that the war would be closed with the capture
of the king. Marius could leave for other fields and dream other dreams
of glory. But even the utter collapse of resistance in Numidia did not
obviate the necessity for a considerable amount of detailed labour,
which absorbed the energy of the commander during the closing months of
the year. Even when news had been brought from Rome that a grateful
people had raised him to the consulship for the second time, and that a
task greater than that of the Numidian war had been entrusted to his
hand,[1191] he did not immediately quit the African province, and it is
probable that at least the initial steps of the new settlement of
Numidia determined by the senate, were taken by him. The settlement was
characteristic of the imperialism of the time. The government declined
to extend the evils of empire westward and southward, to make of
Mauretania another Numidia, and to enter on a course of border warfare
with the tribes that fringed the desert. It therefore refused to
recognise Numidia as a province. In default of an abler ruler, Gauda was
set upon the throne of his ancestors;[1192] he had long had the support
of Marius, and seems indeed to have been the only legitimate claimant.
But he was not given the whole of the realm which had been swayed by
Masinissa and Micipsa. The aspirations of Bocchus for an extension of
the limits of Mauretania had to be satisfied, partly because it would
have been ungenerous and impolitic to deprive of a reward that had been
more than hinted at, a man who had violated his own personal
inclinations and the national traditions of the subjects over whom he
ruled, for the purpose of performing a signal service to Rome; partly
because it would have been dangerous to the future peace of Numidia, and
therefore of Rome, to leave the question of Bocchus's claims to
territory east of the Muluccha unsettled, especially with such a ruler
as Gauda on the throne. The western part of Numidia was therefore
attached to the kingdom of Mauretania; nearly five hundred miles of
coast line may have been transferred, and the future boundary between
the two dominions may have been the port of Saldae on the west of the
Numidian gulf.[1193] The wisdom of this settlement is proved by its
success. Until Rome herself becomes a victim to civil strife, and her
exiles or conquerors play for the help of her own subjects, Numidia
ceases to be a factor in Roman politics. The mischief of interfering in
dynastic questions had been made too patent to permit of the rash
repetition of the dangerous experiment.

In comparison with the settlement of Numidia, the ultimate fate of its
late king was a matter of little concern. But Jugurtha had played too
large a part in history to permit either the historian, or the lounger
of the streets who jostled his neighbour for the privilege of gazing
with hungry eyes at the visage and bearing of the terrible warrior, to
be wholly indifferent to his end. The prisoner was foredoomed. Had he
not for years been treated as an escaped criminal, not as a hostile
king? If one ignored his outrages on his own race, had he not massacred
Roman merchants, prompted the treacherous slaughter of a Roman garrison,
and devised the murder of a client of the Roman people in the very
streets of Rome? In truth, a formidable indictment might be brought
against Jugurtha, nor was it the care of any one to discriminate which
of the counts referred to acts of war, and which must be classed in the
category of merely private crimes. It was sufficient that he was an
enemy (which to the Roman mind meant traitor) who had brought death to
citizens and humiliation to the State, and it is probable that, had the
Numidian been the purest knight whose chivalrous warfare had shaken the
power of Rome, he would have taken that last journey to the Capitol. It
was the custom of Rome, and any derogation of the iron rule was an act
of singular grace. The stupidity of the mob, which is closely akin to
its brutality, was utterly unable to distinguish between the differences
in conduct which are the result of the varying ethical standards of the
races of the world, or even to balance the enormities committed by their
own commanders against those which could be fastened on the enemy whom
they had seized. And this lack of imagination was reflected in a
cultured government, partly because their culture was superficial and
they were still the products of the grim old school which had produced
their ferocious ancestors, partly for reasons that were purely politic.
The light hold which Rome held over her dependants, could only be
rendered light by acts of occasional severity; the world must be made to
see the consequences of rebellion against a sovereign. But the true
justification for Roman rigour was not dependent on such considerations,
which are often of a highly disputable kind, nearly so much as on the
normal attitude of the Roman mind itself. Cruelty was but an expression
of Roman patriotism; with characteristic consistency they applied much
the same views to their citizens and their subjects, and their treatment
of captured enemies was but one expression of the spirit which found
utterance in their own terrible law of treason.

When Marius celebrated his triumph on the 1st of January in the year
which followed the close of the Numidian war,[1194] Jugurtha and his two
sons walked before his chariot. While the pageant lasted, the king still
wore his royal robes in mockery of his former state; when it had reached
its bourne on the Capitol, the degradation and the punishment were
begun. But it was believed by some that neither could now be felt, and
that it was a madman that was pushed down the narrow stair which leads
to the rock-hewn dungeon below the hill.[1195] His tunic was stripped
from him, the golden rings wrested from his ears, and, as the son of the
south[1196] stepped shivering into the well-like cavern, the cry "Oh!
what a cold bath!" burst from his lips. Of the stories as to how the end
was reached, the more detailed speaks of a protracted agony of six days
until the prisoner had starved to death, his weakened mind clinging ever
to the hope that his life might yet be spared.[1197]

The minor prize of the Numidian war was a quantity of treasure including
more than three thousand pounds' weight of gold and over five thousand
of silver[1198]--which was shown in the triumph of Marius before it was
deposited in the treasury. It was indeed the only permanent prize of the
war which could be exhibited to the people; if one excepted two triumphs
and the recognition of the merit of three officials, there was nothing
else to show. It was difficult to justify the war even on defensive
grounds, for it would have required a courageous advocate to maintain
that the mere recognition of Jugurtha as King of Numidia would have
imperilled the Roman possessions in Africa; and, if the struggle had
assumed an anti-Roman character, this result had been assisted, if not
secured, by the tactics of the opposition which had systematically
foiled every attempt at compromise. But a war, which it is difficult to
justify and still more difficult to remember with satisfaction, may be
the necessary result of a radically unsound system of administration:
and the disasters which it entails may be equally the consequence of a
military system, excellent in itself but ill-adapted to the
circumstances of the country in which the struggle is waged. These are
the only two points of view from which the Numidian war is remarkable on
strategic or administrative grounds. The strategic difficulties of the
task do nothing more than exhibit the wisdom of the majority of the
senate, and of the earlier generals engaged in the campaign, in seeking
to avoid a struggle at almost any cost. A military system is conditioned
by the necessities of its growth; even that of an empire is seldom
sufficiently elastic to be equally adapted to every country and equally
capable of beating down every form of armed resistance. The Roman system
had been evolved for the type of warfare which was common to the
civilised nations around the Mediterranean basin--nations which employed
heavily armed and fully equipped soldiers as the main source of their
fighting strength, and which were forced to operate within a narrow
area, on account of the possession of great centres of civilisation
which it was imperative to defend. Its mobility was simply the mobility
of a heavy force of infantry with a circumscribed range of action; in
the days of its highest development it was still strikingly weak in
cavalry. It had already shown itself an imperfect instrument for putting
down the guerilla warfare of Spain; it had never been intended for the
purposes of desert warfare, or to effect the pacification of nomad
tribes extending over a vast and desolate territory. Even as the
Parthian war of Trajan required the formation of what was practically a
new army developed on unfamiliar lines, so the complete reorganisation
of the Republican system would have been essential to the effective
conquest of Numidia. The slight successes of this war, such as the
taking of Thala and of Capsa and the victories near Cirta, were attained
by judicious adaptations to the new conditions, by the employment of
light infantry and the increased use of cavalry; but even these
improvements were of little avail, for effective pursuit was still
impossible, and without pursuit the conflict could not be brought to a
close. The unkindness of the conditions almost exonerates the generals
who blundered during the struggle, and to an unprejudiced observer the
record of incompetence is slight. The fact that the inconclusive
proceedings of Metellus and Marius were deemed successes, almost
justifies the exploits of a Bestia, and even the crowning disaster of
the war--the surprise of the army of Aulus Albinus--might have been the
lot of a better commander opposed to an enemy so far superior in
mobility and knowledge of the land. Most wars of this type are
destructive of military reputations; the general is fortunate who can
emerge as the least incapable of the host of blunderers. If we adopt
this relative standard, one fortunate issue of the campaign may be held
to be the discovery that Marius was not unworthy of his military
reputation. The verdict, it is true, was not justified by positive
results; but it was the verdict of the army that he led and as incapable
of being ignored as all such judgments are. His leadership had been
characterised at least by efficiency in detail, and this efficiency had
been secured by gentle measures, by unceasing vigilance, by the
cultivation of a true soldierly spirit, and by the untiring example of
the commander. The courage of the innovator--a courage at once political
and military--had also given Rome, in the mass of the unpropertied
classes, a fathomless source from which she could draw an army of
professional soldiers, if she possessed the capacity to use her
opportunities.

The political issues of the war were bound up with those which were
strategic, both in so far as the hesitancy of the senate to enter on
hostilities was based on a just estimate of the difficulties of the
campaign, and in so far as the policy of smoothing over difficulties in
a client state by diplomatic means, in preference to stirring up a
hornet's nest by the thrust of the sword, was one of the traditional
maxims of the Roman protectorate. But this second issue raised the whole
of the great administrative question of the limits of the duties which
Rome owed to her client kings. Such a question not infrequently suggests
a conflict of duty with interest. The claims of Adherbal for protection
against his aggressive cousin might be just, but even to many moderate
men, not wholly vitiated by the maxims of a Machiavellian policy, they
may have appeared intolerable. Was Rome to waste her own strength and
stake the peace of the empire on a mere question of dynastic succession?
Might it not be better to allow the rivals to fight out the question
amongst themselves, and then to see whether the man who emerged
victorious from the contest was likely to prove a client acceptable and
obedient to Rome? There was danger in the course, no doubt: the danger
inherent in a vicious example which might spread to other protected
states; but might it not be a slighter peril than that involved in
dethroning a ruler, who had proved his energy and ability, his
familiarity with Roman ways, and his knowledge of Roman methods, above
all, his possession of the confidence of the great mass of the Numidian
people? Nay, it might be argued that Adherbal had by his weakness proved
his unfitness to be an efficient agent of Rome. It might be asked
whether such a man was likely to be an adequate representative of Roman
interests in Africa, an adequate protector of the frontiers of the
province. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the advocates of
interference had something more than the claim of justice and the claim
of prestige on their side. It was an undisputed fact that the division
of power in Numidia, at the time when the question was presented to
Rome, showed that Adherbal stood for civilisation and Jugurtha for
barbarism. This was an issue that might not have been manifest at first,
although any one who knew Numidia must have been aware that the military
spirit of the country which was embodied in Jugurtha, was not
represented in the coast cities with their trading populations drawn
from many towns, but in the remote agricultural districts and the
deserts of the west and south; but it was an issue recognised by the
commissioners when they assigned the more civilised portion of the
kingdom to Adherbal, and the territories, whose strength was the natural
wealth and the manhood which they yielded, to his energetic rival; and
it was one that became painfully apparent when Jugurtha led his
barbarous hordes against Cirta, and when these hordes in the hour of
victory slew every merchant and money-lender whom they could find in the
town. It was this aspect of the question that ultimately proved the
decisive factor in bringing on the war; for the claims of justice could
now be reinforced by those of interest, and the interest which was at
stake was that of the powerful moneyed class at Rome. It was this class
that not only forced the government to war, but insisted on seeing the
war through to its bitter end. It was this class that systematically
hindered all attempts at compromise, that brandished its control of the
courts in the face of every one who strove to temper war with hopes of
peace, that tolerated Metellus until he proved too dilatory, and sent
out Marius in the vain hope that he might show greater expedition. The
close of the war was a singular satire on their policy, a remarkable
proof of the justice of the official view. The end came through
diplomacy, not through battle, through an unknown quaestor who belonged
to the old nobility and possessed its best gifts of facile speech and
suppleness in intrigue, not through the great "new man" who was to be a
living example of what might be done, if the middle class had the making
of the ministers of the State.

But the moneyed class could hardly have developed the power to force the
hand of the council of state, had it not been in union with the third
great factor in the commonwealth, that disorganised mass of fluctuating
opinion and dissipated voting power which was known as "the people." How
came the Populus Romanus to be stirred to action in this cause, with the
result that the balance of power projected by Caius Gracchus was again
restored? Much of their excitement may have been the result of
misrepresentation, of the persistent efforts made by the opposition to
prove that all parleying with the enemy was tantamount to treason; more
must have been due to the dishonouring news of positive disaster which
marked a later stage of the war; but the mingled attitude of resentment
and suspicion with which the people was taught to regard its council and
its ministers, seems to have been due to the genuine belief that many of
the former and nearly all of the latter were hopelessly corrupt. This
darkest aspect of the Numidian war is none the less a reality if we
believe that the individual charges of corruption were not well founded,
and that they were mere party devices meant to mask a policy which would
have been impossible without them. The proceedings of the Mamilian
commission certainly commanded little respect even from the democrat of
a later day; but it is with the suspicion of corruption, rather than
with the justice of that suspicion in individual cases, that we are most
intimately concerned. A political society must be tainted to the core,
if bribery can be given and accepted as a serious and adequate
explanation of the proceedings of its leading members. The suspicion was
a condemnation of the State rather than of a class. It might be tempting
to suppose that the disease was confined to a narrow circle (by a
curious accident to the circle actually in power); but of what proof did
such a supposition admit? The leaders of the people were themselves
members of the senatorial order and scions of the nobility of office.
Marius the "new man" might thunder his appeal for a purer atmosphere and
a wider field; but it would be long, if ever, before the councils of the
State would be administered by men who might be deemed virtuous because
their ancestors were unknown.