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.
The summer must have been well advanced when Marius landed at Utica with his untried forces. The veterans were handed over to his care by the legate Rutilius[1114] for Metellus had fled the sight of the man, whose success had been based on a slanderous attack on his own reputation. It must have been with a heavy heart that he accomplished the voyage to Rome; for the greatest expert in the moods of the people could scarcely have foretold the surprise that awaited him there. The popular passion was spent; it was a feverish force that had burnt itself out; the country voters had at last bethought themselves of their work and returned to their farms; many of the most active and disorderly spirits, the restless loud-voiced men who are the potent minority in an agitation, had been removed by the levy of Marius; with the city mob docility generally alternated with revolution, and it was now inclined to look to the verdict of the recognised heads of the State. In this moment of reaction, too, many must have been inclined to wonder what after all could be said against this general who had never lost a battle, who had conquered cities and pitilessly revenged the one disaster which was not his fault, who had constantly swept the terrible King of Numidia as a helpless fugitive before him. The presence of Metellus completed the work by giving stability to these half-formed views. The common folk are the true idealists. They love a hero rather better than a victim, although it often depends on the turn of a hair which part the object of their attentions is to play. Now they followed the lead of the senate; the returned commander was the man of the day[1115] he had exalted the glory of the Roman name; and if there was no fault, there could only have been misfortune; but misfortune might be compensated by honour. There was the prospect of a triumph in store, that mixed source of sensuous satisfaction and national self-congratulation. Thus Metellus won his prizes from the Numidian war, a parade through the streets to the Capitol and the addition of the surname "Numidicus" to the already lengthy nomenclature of his house[1116]
The war itself, under the guidance of Marius, soon assumed the character which it had possessed under that of all his predecessors. The originality of the new commander seemed to have spent itself in the selection of his troops; no new idea seems to have been introduced into the conduct of operations, which resumed their old shapes of precautions against surprise, weary marches from end to end of Numidia, and the siege of strongholds which were no sooner taken than they proved to be beyond the area of actual hostilities. Perhaps no new idea was possible except one that exchanged the weapons of war for those of diplomacy; but even the final attempt that had been made in this direction by Metellus was not continued by Marius. Bocchus, unwilling to lose the chance which had been presented of a definite convention with Home, sent repeated messages to her new representative to the effect that he desired the friendship of the Roman people, and that no acts of hostility on his part need be feared[1117] but his protestations were received with distrust, and Marius, accustomed to the duplicity of the African mind and rejecting the view that the king might really be wavering between war and peace, chose to regard them as the treacherous cover for a sudden attack. The desultory campaign which followed seems to have been directed by two motives. The first was the training of the raw levies which had just been brought from Rome; the second the supposed necessity of cutting Jugurtha off from the strongholds which he still held at the extremities of his kingdom. As these extremities were now threatened or commanded, on the south by the Gaetulians and on the west by the Mauretanians, the area of the war was no less than that of Numidia itself; and, as the occupation of such an area was impossible, the destruction of these strongholds, which was little loss to a mobile self-supporting force such as that which Jugurtha had at his command, was the utmost end which could be secured.
The practice of the untrained Roman levies was rendered easy by the fact that Jugurtha had resumed the offensive. He no longer had the help of his Mauretanian auxiliaries, for Bocchus had retired to his own kingdom, and he had therefore lost his desire for a pitched battle; but his swarms of Gaetulian horse had enabled him to resume his old style of guerilla fighting, and he had taken advantage of the practical suspension of hostilities which had accompanied the change in the Roman command, to set on foot a series of raids against the friends of Rome and even to penetrate the borders of the Roman province itself.[1118] For some time the attention of Marius was absorbed in following his difficult tracks, in striving to anticipate his rapidly shifting plans, in creating in his own men the habits of endurance, the mobility and the strained attention, which even a brief period of such a chase will rapidly engender in the rawest of recruits. The pursuit gradually shifted to the west, and a series of sharp conflicts on the road ended finally in the rout of the king in the neighbourhood of Cirta. With troops now seasoned to the toils of long marches and deliberate attack, Marius turned to the more definite, if not more effective, enterprise of beleaguering such fortified positions as were still strongly held, and by their position seemed to give a strategic advantage to the enemy. His object was either to strip Jugurtha of these last garrisons or to force him to a battle if he came to their defence. At first he confined his operations within a narrow area; the best part of the summer months seems to have been spent in the territory lying east and south of Cirta, and within this region several fortresses and castles still adhering to the king were reduced by persuasion or by force.[1119] Yet Jugurtha made no move, and Marius gained a full experience of the helpless irritation of the commander who hears that his enemy is far away, neglectful of his efforts and wholly absorbed in some deep-laid scheme the very rudiments of which are beyond the reach of conjecture. His operations seem to have brought him to a point somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sicca, and this proximity to the southern regions of Numidia suggested the thought of an enterprise that might rival and even surpass Metellus's storm of Thala. About thirteen miles west of that town[1120] lay the strong city of Capsa.[1121] It marked almost the extremest limit of Jugurtha's empire in this direction, placed as it was just north of the great lakes and west of the deepest curve of the Lesser Syrtis. The town was the gift of an oasis, which here broke the monotony of the desert with pleasant groves of dates and olives and a perennial stream of water. The sources of this stream, which was formed by the union of two fountains, had been enclosed within the walls, and supplied drinking water for the city before it passed beyond it to irrigate the land. Even this supply hardly sufficed for the moderate needs of the Numidians, who supplemented it by rain water[1122] which they caught and stored in cisterns. A siege of Capsa in the dry season might therefore prove irksome to the inhabitants; but the invading army might be even less well supplied, for although four other springs outside the walls fed the canals which served the work of irrigation, they tended to run low when the season of rain was past. The security of the city, although its defences and its garrison were strong, was thought to reside mainly in its desert barrier. The waste through which an invading army would have to pass was waterless and barren, while the multitude of snakes and scorpions that found a congenial home on the arid soil increased the horror, if not the danger, of the route.[1123] Jugurtha had dealt kindly by the lonely citizens of Capsa; they were free from taxes and had seldom to answer to any demand of the king: and this favour, which was perhaps as much the product of necessity as of policy, had strengthened their loyalty to the Numidian throne. It is probable that some strategic, or at least military, motive was mingled in the mind of Marius with the mere desire of excelling his predecessor and creating a deep impression in the minds of the proletariate in his army and at home. Although Capsa, with its limited resources, could hardly ever have served as the point of departure for a large Numidian or Gaetulian host, it might have been of value as a refuge for the king when he wished to vanish from the eyes of his enemies, and perhaps as a means of communication with friendly cities or peoples situated between the two Syrtes. To vanquish the difficulties of such an enterprise might also strike terror into the Numidian garrisons of other towns, and the subjects of Jugurtha might feel that no stronghold was safe when the unapproachable Capsa had been taken or destroyed. But the difficulties of the task were great. The Numidians of these regions were more attached to a pastoral life than to agriculture; the stores of corn to be found along the route were therefore scanty, and their scarcity was increased by the fact that the king, who seems but lately to have passed through these regions, had ordered that large supplies of grain should be conveyed from the district and stored in the fortresses which his garrisons still held.[1124] Nothing could be got from the fields, which at this late period of the autumn showed nothing but arid stubble. It was fortunate that some stores still lay at Lares (Lorbeus), a town at a short distance to the south-east of his present base;[1125] these were to be supplemented by the cattle that the foraging parties had driven in, and the Roman soldier would at least have his unwelcome supply of meat tempered by a moderate allowance of meal. Yet the terrors of the journey were so great that Marius thought it wise to conceal the object of his enterprise even from his own men, and even when, after a six days' march to the south, he had reached a stream called the Tana,[1126] the motive of the expedition was still in all probability unknown. Here, as in Metellus's march on Thala, a large supply of water was drawn from the river and stored in skins, all heavy baggage was discarded, and the lightened column prepared for its march across the desert. By day the soldiers kept their camp and every stage of the journey was accomplished between night-fall and dawn. On the morning of the third day they had reached some rising ground not more than two miles from Capsa.[1127] The sun had not yet risen when Marius halted his men in a hollow of the dunes, and watched the town to see whether his cautious plans had really effected a surprise. Evidently they had; for, when day broke, the gates were seen to open and large numbers of Numidians could be observed leaving the city for the business of the fields. The word was given, and in a moment the whole of the cavalry and the lightest of the infantry were dashing on the town. They were meant to block the gates; while Marius and the heavier troops followed as speedily as they could, driving the straggling Numidians before them. It was the possession of these hostages that decided the fate of the town. The commandant parleyed and agreed to admit the Romans within the walls, the condition, whether tacit or expressed, of this surrender being that the lives of the citizens should be spared. The condition was immediately broken. The town was given over to the flames, all the Numidians of full age were put to the sword, the rest were sold into slavery, and the movable property which had been seized was divided amongst the soldiers. The breach of international custom was not denied; the only attempt at palliation was drawn from the reflection that it was due neither to motiveless treachery nor to greed; a position like Capsa, it was urged,—difficult of approach, open to the enemy, the home of a race notorious for its mobile cunning-could be held neither by leniency nor by fear.[1128] The expedition had miscarried, if the town was not destroyed; and, as frequently happens in the pursuit of wars with peoples to whom the convenient epithet of "barbarian" can be applied, the successful fruit of cruelty and treachery was perhaps defended on the ground that the obligations of international law must be either reciprocal or non-existent.
The destruction of Capsa was followed by other successes of a similar though less arduous kind. The event had served the purpose of Marius well in so far as it spread before him a name of terror which caused some of the Numidian garrisons to flee their strong places without a struggle. In the few cases where resistance was met, it was beaten down, and the fortified places which Jugurtha's soldiers were not rash enough to defend, were utterly destroyed by fire.[1129] Marius left a wilderness behind him on his return march to winter quarters,[1130] and perhaps renewed his devastating course in the south-eastern parts of Numidia during the spring of the following year, before his attention was suddenly called to another point in the vast area of the war. This easy triumph which cost little Roman blood and enriched the soldiers with the spoils of war, created in his men a belief in his foresight and prowess which seemed sufficient to stand the severest strain.[1131] A great effort had now to be made in a quarter of Numidia which lay not less than seven hundred miles from the recent scene of operations. As neither the site of Marius's recent winter quarters nor the base which he chose for his spring campaign are known to us, we cannot say whether the expedition which he now directed to the extreme west of Numidia was an unpleasant diversion from a scheme already in operation, or whether it was the result of a plan matured in the winter camp; but in either case this conviction of the necessity for sweeping the country in such utterly diverse directions proves the full success of the plan which Jugurtha was pursuing. It is more difficult to determine whether Marius increased the success of this plan by a political blunder of his own. The point at which he is now found operating was near the river Muluccha or Molocath,[1132] the dividing line between the kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania. If the incursion which he made into this region was unprovoked, it was a challenge to King Bocchus and an impolitic disturbance of the recent attitude of quiescence that had been assumed by that hesitating monarch; but it is possible that news had reached Marius that a Mauretanian attack was impending, and that the same motive which had impelled Metellus to hasten from the south to the defence of Cirta, now urged his successor to push his army more than five hundred miles farther to the west up to the very borders of Mauretania. The movement seems to have been defensive, for at the moment when we catch sight of his efforts he had not attempted to cross the admitted frontier,[1133] but was endeavouring to secure a strong position that lay within what he conceived to be the Numidian territory. A giant rock rose sheer out of the plain, tapering into the narrow fortress which continued by its walls an ascent so smoothly precipitous that it seemed as though the work of nature had been improved by the hand of man.[1134] But one narrow path led to the summit and was believed to be the only way, not merely to a position of supreme value for defensive purposes, but also to one of those rich deposits which the many-treasured king was held to have laid up in the strongest parts of his dominions. The difficulties of a siege were almost insurmountable. The garrison was strong and well supplied with food and water; the only avenue for a direct assault upon the walls was narrow and dangerous; the site was as ill-suited as it could be for the movement of the heavier engines of war. When the attack was made, the mantlets of the besiegers were easily destroyed by fire and stones hurled from above; yet the soldiers could not leave cover, nor get a firm hold on the steeply sloping ground; the foremost amongst the storming party fell stricken with wounds, and a panic seemed likely to prevail amidst the ever-victorious army if it were again urged to the attack. While Marius was brooding over this unexpected check, and his mind was divided between the wisdom of a retreat and the chances that might be offered by delay, an accident supplied the defects of strength and counsel.[1135] A Ligurian in quest of snails was tempted to pursue his search from ridge to ridge on that side of the hill which lay away from the avenue of attack and had hitherto been deemed inaccessible. He suddenly found that he had nearly reached the summit; a spirit of emulation urged him to complete the work which he had unconsciously begun, and the branches of a giant holmoak, which twisted amongst the rocks, gave him a hold and footing when the perpendicular walls of the last ascent seemed to deny all chance of further progress. When at length he craned over the edge of the highest ridge, the interior of the fort lay spread before him. No member of the garrison was to be seen, for every man was engaged in repelling the assault which had been renewed on the opposite side. A prolonged survey was therefore possible, and all the important details of the fortress were imprinted on the mind of the Ligurian before he began his leisurely descent. The features of the slope he traversed were also more cautiously observed; the next ascent would be attempted by more than one, and every irregularity that might give a foothold must be noted by the man who would have to prove and illustrate his tale. When the story was told to Marius he sent some of his retinue to view the spot; their reports differed according to the character of their minds; some of the investigators were sanguine, others more than doubtful; but the consul eventually determined to make the experiment. The escalade was to be attempted by a band of ten; five of the trumpeters and buglemen were selected and four centurions, the Ligurian was to be their guide. With head and feet bare, their only armour a sword and light leathern shield slung across their backs, the soldiers painfully imitated the daring movements of their active leader. But he was considerate as well as daring. Sometimes he would weave a scaling ladder of the trailing creepers; at others he would lend a helping hand; at others again he would gather up their armour and send them on before him, then step rapidly aside and pass with his burden up and down their struggling line. His cheery boldness kept them to their painful task until every man had reached the level of the fort. It was as desolate as when first seen by the Ligurian, for Marius had taken care that a frontal attack should engage the attention of the garrison. The climb had been a long one, and the battle had now been raging many hours when news was brought to the anxious commander that his men had gained the summit.[1136] The assault was now renewed with a force that astonished the besieged, and soon with a recklessness that led them to think the besiegers mad. They could see the Roman commander himself leaving the cover of the mantlets and advancing in the midst of his men up the perilous ascent under a tortoise fence of uplifted shields. Over the heads of the advancing party came a storm of missiles from the Roman lines below. Confident as the Numidians were in the strength of their position, scornful as were the gibes which a moment earlier they had been hurling against the foe, they could not think lightly of the serried mass that was moving up the hill and the rain of bullets that heralded its advance. Every hand was busy and every mind alert when suddenly the Roman trumpet call was heard upon their rear. The women and boys, who had crept out to watch the fight, were the first to take the alarm and to rush back to the shelter of the fort; most of the men were fighting in advance of their outer walls; those nearest to the ramparts were the first to be seized with the panic; but soon the whole garrison was surging backwards, while through and over it pressed the long and narrow wedge of Romans, cutting their way through the now defenceless mass until they had seized the outworks of the fort.
It is difficult to gauge the positive advantages secured by this feat of arms; but it is probable that the capture of this particular hill-fortress, although its difficulty gave it undue prominence in the annals of the war, was not an isolated fact, but one of a series of successful attempts to establish a chain of posts upon the Mauretanian border, which might bring King Bocchus to better counsels and interrupt his communications with Jugurtha. The enterprise may have been followed by a tolerably long campaign in these regions. This campaign has not been recorded, but that it was contemplated is proved by the fact that Marius had ordered an enormous force of cavalry to meet him near the Muluccha.[1137] The force thus summoned actually served the purpose of covering a retirement that was practically a retreat; but this could not have been the object which it was intended to fulfil when its presence was commanded. A large force of horse was essential, if Bocchus was to be paralysed and the border country swept clear of the enemy. The cloud that was to burst from Mauretania was not the only chance that could be foretold; it was the issue to be dreaded, if all plans at prevention failed; but it was one that might possibly be averted by the presence of a commanding force in the border regions.
It had taken nearly a year to collect and transport from Italy the cavalry force that now entered the camp of Marius. The reason why Italy and not Africa was chosen as the recruiting ground is probably to be found in the lack of confidence which the Romans felt even in those Numidians who professed a friendly attitude; otherwise cheapness and even efficiency might seem to have dictated the choice of native contingents, although it is possible that, as a defensive force, the tactical solidarity of the Italians gave them an advantage even over the Numidian horse. The Latins and Italian allies had furnished the troopers that had lately landed on African soil,[1138] perhaps not at the port of Utica, but at some harbour on the west, for the time consumed by Marius in the march to his present position, even had not his campaign been planned in winter quarters, would have given him an opportunity to send notice of his whereabouts to the leader of the auxiliary force. This leader was Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who had spent nearly the whole of the first year of his quaestorship in beating up on Italian soil the troops of horsemen which he now led into the camp. In comparison with the arrival of the force that of the quaestor was as nothing; yet the advent of such a subordinate was always a matter of interest to a general. Tradition had determined that the ties between a commander and his quaestor should be peculiarly close; the superior was responsible for every act of the minor official whom the chance of the lot might thrust upon him; if his subordinate were capable, he was the chosen delegate for every delicate operation in finance, diplomacy, jurisdiction, or even war: if he were incapable, he might be dismissed,[1139] but could not be neglected, for he was besides the general the only man in the province holding the position of a magistrate, and was in titular rank superior even to the oldest and most distinguished of the legates.[1140] It was a matter of chance whether a government or a campaign was to be helped or hindered by the arrival of a new quaestor; and Marius, when he first heard of the man whom destiny had brought to his side, was inclined to be sceptical as to the amount of assistance which was promised by the new appointment.[1141] Apart from a remarkable personal appearance—an impression due to the keen blueness of the eyes, the clear pallor of the face, the sudden flush that spread at moments over the cheeks as though the vigour of the mind could be seen pulsing beneath the delicate skin[1142]—there was little to recommend Sulla to the mind of a hard and stern man engaged in an arduous and disappointing task. The new lieutenant had no military experience, he was the scion of a ruined patrician family, and, if the gossip of Rome were true, his previous life suggested the light-hearted adventurer rather than the student of politics or war. In his early youth he seemed destined to continue the later traditions of his family—those of an unaspiring temper or a careless indolence, which had allowed the consulship to become extinct in the annals of the race and had been long content with the minor prize of the praetorship. Even this honour had been beyond the reach of the father of Sulla; the hereditary claim to office had been completely broken, and the family fortune had sunk so low that there seemed little chance of the renewal of this claim. The present bearer of the name, the elder son of the house, had lived in hired rooms, and such slender means as he could command seemed to be employed in gratifying a passion for the stage.[1143] Yet this taste was but one expression of a genuine thirst for culture;[1144] and, whatever the opinion of men might be, this youth whose most strenuous endeavours were strangely mingled with a careless geniality and an appetite that never dulled for the pleasures of the senses and the flesh, had a wonderful faculty for winning the love of women. His father had made a second marriage with a lady of considerable means; and the affection of the step-mother, who seems to have been herself childless, was soon centred on her husband's elder son.[1145] At her death he was found to be her heir, and the fortune thus acquired was added to or increased by another that had also come by way of legacy from a woman. This benefactress was Nicopolis, a woman of Greek birth, whose transitory loves, which had Brought her wealth, were closed by a lasting passion for the man to Whom this wealth was given.[1146] The possession of this competence, which might have completed the wreck of the nerveless pleasure-seeker that Sulla seemed to be, proved the true steel of which the man was made. The first steps in his political career gave the immediate lie to any theory of wasted opportunities. He had but exceeded by a year or two the minimum age for office when he was elected to the quaestorship; he was but thirty-one when he was scouring Italy for recruits;[1147] a year later he had entered Marius's camp near the Muluccha with his host of cavalry. A very brief experience was sufficient to convert the general's prejudice into the heartiest approval of his new officer. Any spirit of emulation which Sulla possessed was but shown in action and counsel; none could outstrip him in prowess and forethought, yet all that he did seemed to be the easy outcome either of opportunity or of a ready wit which charmed without startling: and he was never heard to breathe a word which reflected on the conduct of the pro-consul or his staff. Over the petty officers and the soldiers he attained the immediate triumph which attends supreme capacity combined with a facile temper and a sense of humour. His old companions of the stage had been perhaps his best instructors in the art of moulding the will of the common man. He had the right address for every one; a grumble was met by a few kind words; a roar of laughter was awakened by a ready jest, and its recipient was the happier for the day. When help was wanted, his resources seemed boundless; yet he never gave as though he expected a return, and the idea of obligation was dismissed with a shrug and a smile.[1148] Sulla was not one of the clumsy intriguers who laboriously lay up a store of favour and are easily detected in the attempt. He was a terrible man because his insight and his charm were a part of his very nature, as were also the dark current of ambition, scarcely acknowledged even by its possessor, and the surging tides of passion, carefully dammed by an exquisitely balanced intellect into a level stream, on which crowds might float and believe themselves to be victims or agents of an overmastering principle, not of a single man's caprice.
The capacity of every officer in Marius's army was soon to be put to an effective test; for the coalition of Jugurtha and Bocchus, which the campaign might have been meant to prevent, turned out to be its immediate result. The Moor was still hesitating between peace and war—looking still, it may be, for another bid from the representative of Rome, and waiting for the moment when he might compel the attention of Metellus's rude successor, who preferred the precautions of war to those of diplomacy—when the Numidian king, in despair at this ruinous passivity and at the loss of the magnificent strategic chance that was being offered by the enemy, approached his father-in-law with the proposal that the cession of one-third of Numidia should be the price of his assistance. The cession was to take effect, either if the Romans were driven out of Africa, or if a settlement was reached with Rome which left the boundaries of Numidia intact.[1149] Bocchus may not have credited the likelihood of the realisation of the first alternative; but combined action might render the second possible, and even if that failed, his chances of a bargain with Rome were not decreased by entering on a policy of hostility which might be closed at the opportune moment. For the time, however, he played vigorously for Jugurtha's success. His troops of horsemen poured over the border to join the Numidian force, and the combined armies moved rapidly to the east to encompass the columns of Marius, that had just begun their long march to the site which had been chosen for winter quarters.
The object of the Roman general was to keep in touch with the sea for the purpose of facilitating the supply of his army. But we cannot say whether his original choice was a station so distant as the neighbourhood of Cirta,[1150] or whether his movement in this direction, which severed him by some hundreds of miles from the region which he had lately commanded, was a measure forced on him by the danger to which his army was exposed in the distant west from the overwhelming forces of the enemy. He had at any rate covered a great stretch of territory before he actually came into touch with the combined forces of Bocchus and Jugurtha; for the almost continuous fighting that ensued, when once the armies had come into contact, seems all to have been confined to the last few days before Cirta was reached and to a period of time which could have formed but a small fraction of the whole duration of the march. The first attack was planned for the closing hours of the day.[1151] The advent of night would be of advantage to the native force whether they were victorious or defeated. In the first case their knowledge of the ground would enable them to follow up their success, in the second their retreat would be secured. Under all circumstances a struggle in the darkness must increase the difficulties of the Romans. A complete surprise was impossible, for Marius's scouting was good, and from all directions horsemen dashed up to tell him the enemy was at hand. But the quarter from which such an attack would be aimed could not be determined, and so incredibly rapid were the movements of the Moorish and Gaetulian horse that scarcely had the last messenger ridden up when the Roman column was assailed on every side. The Roman army had no time to form in line, and anything approaching battle array was scorned by the enemy. They charged in separate squadrons, the formation of which seemed to be due to chance as much as to design; this desultory mode of attack enabled them to assail the Roman forces at every point and to prevent any portion of the men from acquiring the stability that might save the helplessness of the others; they harried the legionaries as they shifted their heavy baggage, drew their swords and hurried into line, and the cavalry soldiers as they strove to mount their frightened horses. Horse and foot were inextricably mixed, and no one could tell which was the van and which the rear of the surrounded army. The general fought like a common soldier, but he did not forget the duties of a commander. With his chosen troop of horse he rode up and down the field, detecting the weak points of his own men, the strong points of the enemy, lending a timely succour to the first and throwing his weight against the second.[1152] But it was the experience of the well-trained legionaries that saved the day. Schooled in such surprises, they began to form small solid squares, and against these barriers the impact of the light horsemen beat in vain.[1153] But night was drawing on—the hour which the allied kings had chosen as the crowning moment of their attack—and Marius was as fully conscious as his enemies how helpless the Roman force would be if such a struggle were protracted into the darkness. Fortunately the place of the attack had been badly chosen; the neighbouring ground did not present a wholly level expanse on which cavalry could operate at will. But a short distance from the scene of the fight two neighbouring hills could be seen to rise above the plain; the smaller possessed an abundant spring of water, the larger by its rugged aspect seemed to promise an admirable rampart for defence.[1154] It was impossible to withdraw the whole army to the elevation which contained the welcome stream, for its space did not permit of an encampment; but Marius instructed Sulla to seize it with the cavalry. He then began to draw his scattered infantry together, taking advantage of the disorder in the enemy which the last sturdy stand of the veterans had produced, and when the divisions were at last in touch with one another, he led the whole force at a quick march to the place which he had chosen for its retreat. The kings soon recognised that this retreat was unassailable; their plan of a night attack had failed; but they did not lose the hope that they held the Romans at their mercy. The fight had become a blockade; they would coop the Romans within their narrow limits, or force them to straggle on their way under a renewal of the same merciless assault. To have withstood the legions and occupied their ground, was itself a triumph for Gaetulians and Moors. They spread their long lines round either hill and lighted a great ring of watchfires; but their minds were set on passing the night in a manner conducive neither to sleep nor vigilance. They threw away their victory in a manner common to barbarism, which often lacks neither courage nor skill, but finds its nemesis in an utter lack of self-restraint. From the silent darkness of the ridge above the Romans could see, in the circles of red light thrown by the blazing watch-fires, the forms of their enemies in every attitude of careless and reckless joy; while the delirious howls of triumph which reached their ears, were a source, not of terror, but of hope. In the Roman camp no sound was heard; even the call of the patrol was hushed by the general's command.[1155] As the night wore on, the silence spread to the Plain below, but here it was the silence of the deep and profound sleep that comes on men wearied by the excesses of the night. Suddenly there was a terrific uproar. Every horn and trumpet in the Roman lines seemed to be alive, every throat to be swelling the clamour with ear-piercing yells. The Moors and Gaetulians, springing from the ground, found the enemy in their very midst. Where the slaughter ended, the pursuit began. No battle in the war had shown a larger amount of slain; for flight, which was the Numidian's salvation and the mockery of his foe, had been less possible in this conflict than in any which had gone before.
Marius continued his march, but with precautions even greater than those which he had previously observed. He formed his whole army into a "hollow square" [1156]—in fact, a great oblong, arranged equally for defence on front, flanks, and rear, while the baggage occupied the centre. Sulla with the cavalry rode on the extreme right; on the left was Aulus Manlius with the slingers and archers and some cohorts of Ligurians; the front and rear were covered by light infantry selected from the legions under the command of military tribunes. Numidian refugees scoured the country around, their knowledge of the land giving them a peculiar value as a scouting force. The camp was formed with the same scrupulous care; whole cohorts formed from legionaries kept watch against the gates, fortified posts were manned at short distances along the enclosing mound, and squadrons of auxiliary cavalry moved all night before the ramparts. Marius was to be seen at all points and at all hours, a living example of vigilance not of distrust, a master in the art of controlling men, not by terror but by sharing in their toils. Four days had the march progressed and Cirta was reported to be not far distant, when suddenly an ominous but now familiar sight was seen. Scouts were riding in on every hand; all reported an enemy, but none could say with certainty the quarter from which he might appear.[1157] The present disposition of the Roman troops had made the direction of the attack a matter of comparatively little moment, and Marius called a halt without making any change in the order of his march. Soon the enemy came down, and Jugurtha, when he saw the hollow square, knew that his plan had been partly foiled. He had divided his own forces into four divisions; some of these were to engage the Roman van; but some at least might be able to throw themselves at the critical moment on the undefended rear of the Roman column, when its attention was fully engaged by a frontal attack.[1158]
As things were, the Roman army presented no one point that seemed more assailable than another, and Jugurtha determined to engage with the Roman cavalry on the right, probably with the idea that by diverting that portion of the Roman force which was under the circumstances its strongest protecting arm, he might give an opportunity to his ally to lead that attack upon the rear which was to be the crowning movement of the day. His assault, which was directed near to the angle which the right flank made with the van, was anticipated rather than received by Sulla, who rapidly formed his force into two divisions, one for attack, the other for defence. The first he massed in dense squadrons, and at the head of these he charged the Moorish horse; the second stood their ground, covering themselves as best they could from the clouds of missiles that rose from the enemy's ranks, and slaughtering the daring horsemen that rode too near their lines. For a time it seemed as if the right flank and the van were to bear the brunt of the battle; the king was known to be there in person: and Marius, knowing what Jugurtha's presence meant, himself hastened to the front.
But suddenly the chief point of the attack was changed. Bocchus had been joined by a force of native infantry, which his son Volux had just brought upon the field. It was a force that had not yet known defeat, for some delay upon the route had prevented it from taking part in the former battle. With this infantry, and probably with a considerable body of Moorish horse,[1159] Bocchus threw himself upon the Roman rear. Neither the general nor his chief officers were present with the division that was thus attacked; Marius and Sulla were both engrossed with the struggle at the other end of the right wing, and Manlius seems still to have kept his position on the left flank; the absence of an inspiring mind amongst the troops assailed, their ignorance of the fate of their distant comrades, moved Jugurtha to lend the weight of his presence and his words to the efforts of his fellow king. With a handful of horsemen he quitted the main force under his command and galloped down the whole length of the right wing, until he wheeled his horse amidst the front ranks of the struggling infantry. He raised a sword streaming with blood and shouted in the Latin tongue that Marius had already fallen by his hand, that the Romans might now give up the struggle. The suggestion conveyed by his words shook the nerves even of those who did not credit the horrifying news,[1160] while the presence of the king, here as everywhere, stirred the Africans to their highest pitch of daring. They pressed the wavering Romans harder than before, the battle at this point had almost become a rout, when suddenly a large body of Roman horse was seen to be bearing down on the right flank of the Moorish infantry. They were led by Sulla, whose vigorous attacks had scattered the enemy on the right wing; he could now employ his cavalry for other purposes, and the Moorish infantry shook beneath the flank attack, Jugurtha refused to see that the tide of victory had turned; with a reckless courage he still strove to weld together the shattered forces of the Moors and to urge them against the Roman lines; his own escape was a miracle; men fell to left and right of him, he was pressed on both sides by the Roman horse; at times he seemed almost alone amidst his foes; yet at the last moment he vanished, and the capture which would have ended the war was still beyond the reach of Roman skill and prowess.[1161] Sulla had saved the day, the advent of Marius was but needed to put the final touches to the victory. He had seen the cavalry on the right scatter beneath the charges of the Roman horse, and almost at the same moment news was brought him that his men were being driven back upon the rear. His succour was scarcely needed, but his presence gave an impulse to pursuit. The sight of the field when that pursuit was at its height, lived ever in the minds of those who shared in its glory and its horror. The sickening spectacle which a hard fought battle yields, was protracted in this instance by the vast vista of the plains. Wherever the eye could reach there were prostrate bodies of men and horses, whose only claim to life was the writhing agony of their wounds; on a stage dyed red with blood and strewn with the furniture of shattered weapons little moving groups could be seen. The figures of these puppets showed all the phases of helpless flight, violent pursuit, and pitiless slaughter.
In spite of the carnage of this battlefield, victory here, as elsewhere throughout the war, meant little more than driving off the foe. We possess but a fragmentary record of this terrible retreat to Cirta, but it is certain that its dangers and losses were by no means exhausted in two pitched battles. A chance notice torn from its context[1162] tells of a third great contest which closed a long period of harassing attacks. Close to the walls of Cirta the Roman army was met by the two kings at the head of sixty thousand horse. The combatants were swathed in a cloud raised by the dust of battle, the Roman soldiers massed in a narrow space were such helpless victims of the missiles of the enemy that the Numidian and Moorish horsemen ceased to single out their targets, and threw their javelins at random into the crowded ranks with the certainty that each would find its mark. For three days was the running fight continued. A charge was impossible against the volleys of the foe, and retreat was cut off by the multitude of light horsemen that hemmed the army in on every side. In the last desperate effort which Marius made to free himself from the meshes of the kings, even the centre of his column shook under the hail of missiles that assailed it, and to the weapons of the enemy were soon added the terrors of blinding heat and intolerable thirst. Suddenly a storm broke over the warring hosts. It cooled the throats of the Romans and refreshed their limbs, while it lessened the power of their foes. The strapless javelins[1163] of the Numidians could not be hurled when wet, for they slipped from the hands of the thrower; their shields of elephants' hide absorbed water like a sponge and weighed down the arms on which they hung. The Moors and Numidians, seeing that even their means of defence had failed them, took to flight: but only to appear on another day with their army raised to ninety thousand and to repeat the attempt to surround the Roman host. This last effort ended in a signal victory for Marius. The forces of the two kings were not only defeated but almost destroyed.
The events thus recorded can scarcely be regarded as mere variants of the two battles which we have previously described. Vague and rhetorical as is the account which sets them forth, it shows that there were traditions of suffering and loss endured by the army of Marius such as found no parallel in the campaign of his predecessor. Marius had attempted what Metellus had never dared—a campaign in the far west of Numidia. Its results were fruitless successes of the paladin type followed by a burdensome and disastrous retreat. The west was lost, the east was threatened, yet the lesson was not without its fruit. The general when he reached the walls of Cirta had lost something of his hardy faith in the use of blood and iron; he was more ready to appeal to the motives which make for peace, to pretend a trust he did not feel, to make promises which might induce the fluid treachery of Bocchus to harden into a definite act of treason to his brother king, above all, to lean on some other man who could play the delicate game of diplomatic fence with a cunning which his own straightforward methods could not attain. Everything depended on the attitude of the King of Mauretania; and here again the campaign had not been without some healthful consequences. If the Romans had gained no material advantage, Bocchus had suffered some very material losses. His forces had been cut up, the stigma of failure attached (perhaps for the first time) to their leader, the first contact with the Romans had not been encouraging to his subjects. And the campaign may also have revealed the difficulty, if not the hopelessness, of Jugurtha's cause. The plan of driving the Romans from Africa could not be perfected even with the combined forces of the two kingdoms at their fullest strength; however much they might harass, they had proved themselves utterly unable to attain such a success as even the most complacent patriotism could name a victory; while the sturdiness of the resistance of Rome seemed to banish the hypothesis that Jugurtha would be included in any terms that might be made. Yet the campaign had left Bocchus in an excellent position for negotiation. He had shown that Mauretania was a great make-weight in the scale against Rome; he had advertised his power as an enemy, his value as an ally; now was the time to see whether the power and the value, so long ignored, would be appreciated by Rome.
But five days are said to have elapsed since the last great conflict with the Moors when envoys from Bocchus waited on Marius in his winter quarters at Cirta.[1164] The request which they brought was that "two of the Roman general's most trusty friends should wait on the king, who desired to speak with them on a matter of interest to himself and the Roman people".[1165] Marius forthwith singled out Sulla and Manlius, who followed the envoys to the place of meeting that had been arranged. On the way it was agreed by the representatives of Rome that they should not wait for the king to open the discussion. Hitherto every proposal had come from Bocchus; he had been played with, but never given a straightforward answer, still less a sign of real encouragement. Yet no good could be gained by expecting the king to assume a grovelling attitude, by forcing him to begin proposals for peace with a confession of his own humiliation. It would be far wiser if the commissioners opened with a few spontaneous remarks which might restore rest and dignity to the royal mind. Manlius the elder readily yielded the place of first speaker to the more facile Sulla. If the words which history has attributed to the quaestor[1166] were really used by him, they are a record of one of those rare instances in which a diplomatist is able to tell the naked truth. Sulla began by dwelling on the joy which he and his friends derived from the change in Bocchus's mind—from the heaven-sent inspiration which had taught the king that peace was preferable to war. He then dwelt on the fact, which he might have adduced the whole of his country's history to prove, that Rome had been ever keener in the search for friends than subjects, that the Republic had ever deemed voluntary allegiance safer than that compelled by force. He showed that Roman friendship might be a boon, not a burden, to Bocchus; the distance of his kingdom from the capital would obviate a conflict of interests, but no distance was too great to be traversed by the gratitude of Rome. Bocchus had already seen what Rome could do in war; all that he needed to learn was the still greater lesson that her generosity was as unconquerable as her arms. Sulla's words were a genuine statement of the whole theory of the Protectorate, as it was held and even acted on at this period of history. As a proof of the ruinous lengths to which Roman generosity might proceed, he could have pointed to the Numidian war now in the sixth year of its disastrous course. The darker side of the Protectorate—the rapacity of the individual adventurer—was no creation of the government, and needed not to be reproduced on the canvas of the bright picture which he drew. The hopes held out to Bocchus were genuine enough; the burden of his alliance was but slight, its security immense.
The king seemed impressed by the gracious overtures of the commissioners. His answer was not only friendly, but apologetic.[1167] He urged that he had not taken up arms in any spirit of hostility to Rome, but simply for the purpose of defending his own frontiers. He claimed that the territory near the Muluccha, which had been harried by Marius, did not belong to Jugurtha at all. He had expelled the Numidian king from this region and it was his by the right of war. He appealed finally to the fact of his own former embassy to Rome: he had made a genuine effort to secure her friendship, but this had been repulsed.[1168] He was, however, willing to forget the past; and, if Marius permitted, he would like to send a fresh embassy to the senate. This last request was provisionally granted by the commissioners; Bocchus, in making it, showed a wise and, in consideration of some of the events of this very war, a natural sense of the insecurity of the promises made by Roman commanders, at the same time as he exhibited a justifiable faith in a word once given by the great organ of the Republic. Yet, when the commissioners had taken their departure, his old hesitancy seemed to revive. He consented at least to listen to those of his advisers who still urged the claims of Jugurtha.[1169] They had raised their voices again, either at the time when the Roman commissioners were waiting on Bocchus, or immediately after their departure; for Jugurtha had no sooner learnt of his father-in-law's renewed negotiations with Rome than he had used every means (amongst others, we are told, that of costly gifts) to induce his Mauretanian supporters to advocate his cause.
A further stage in the negotiations was reached before the winter season was over, although it is probable that, at the time when this next step was taken by the Mauretanian king, the new year had been passed and the advent of spring was not far off. Marius, who was not fettered in his operations by respect for the traditional seasons which were deemed suitable to a campaign, had started with some flying columns of infantry and a portion of the cavalry to some desert spot, with a view to besiege a fortress still held by Jugurtha, and garrisoned by all the deserters from the Roman army who were now in the king's service. Sulla had been left with the usual title of pro-praetor to represent his absent commander. To the headquarters of the winter camp[1170] Bocchus now sent five of his closest friends, men chosen for their approved loyalty and ability.[1171] His last access of hesitancy, if it were more than a semblance, had certainly been shortlived, and the envoys were given full powers to arrange the terms of peace. They had set out with all speed to reach the Roman winter camp, but their journey had been long and painful. They had been seized and plundered on the route by Gaetulian brigands, and now appeared panic-stricken and in miserable plight before the representative of Rome. Stripped of their credentials and the symbols of their high office, they expected to be treated as vagrant impostors from a hostile state; Sulla received them with the lavish dignity that might be the due of princes. The simple nomads felt the charm and the surprise of this first glimpse of the public manners of Rome. Was it possible that these kindly and courteous men were the spoilers of the world? The rumour must be the false invention of the enemies of the bounteous Republic. The untrained mind rapidly argues from the part to the whole, and Sulla's tact had done a great service to his country. He had also established a claim on the Mauretanian king,[1172] and this personal tie was not to be without its consequences.
The envoys revealed to the quaestor the instructions of their master, and asked his help and advice in the mission that lay before them. They dwelt with pardonable pride on the wealth, the magnificence, and the honour of their king, and dilated on every point in which the alliance with such a potentate was likely to serve the cause of Rome.[1173] Sulla promised them the plenitude of his help; he instructed them in the mode in which they should address Marius, in which they should approach the senate, and continued to be their host for forty days, until his commander was ready to listen to their proposals and forward them on their way. When Marius returned to Cirta after the successful completion of his brief campaign, and heard of the arrival of the envoys, he asked Sulla to bring them[1174] to his quarters, and made preparations for assembling as formal a council as the resources of the province permitted. A praetor happened to be within its limits and several men of senatorial rank. All these sat to listen to the proposals made by Bocchus. The verdict of the council was in favour of the genuineness of the king's appeal, and the proconsul granted the envoys permission to make their way to Rome. They asked an armistice for their king[1175] until the mission should be completed. Loud and angry voices were heard in protest—the voices of the narrow and suspicious men who are haunted by the fixed conviction that a request for a cessation of hostilities is always a treacherous attempt at renewed preparations for war. But Sulla and the majority of the board supported the request of the envoys, and the wiser counsel at length prevailed. The embassy now divided; two of its members returned to their king, while three were escorted to Rome by Cnaeus Octavius Ruso, a quaestor who had brought the last instalment of pay for the army and was ready for his return homewards. The language of the envoys before the Roman senate assumed the apologetic tone which had been suggested by Sulla. Their king, they said, had erred; Jugurtha had been the cause of this error. Their master asked that Rome should admit him to treaty relations with herself, that she should call him her friend. It is not impossible that these negotiations had a secret history; that Bocchus was told of some very material reward that he might expect, if Jugurtha were surrendered. But the assumption is not necessary. The magic of the name of Rome had fired the imagination of the African king at the commencement of the struggle; now that his fears were quieted, the end, in whatever form it was attained, may have seemed supremely desirable in itself. His envoys had been schooled by Sulla to expect much more than was promised and to read the senate's words aright. Certainly, if a prize had been offered for Bocchus's fidelity, the offer was carefully concealed. The official form in which the government accepted the petitioner's request, granted a free pardon and expressed a cold probation. "The senate and Roman people (so ran the resolution) are used to be mindful of good service and of wrongs. Since Bocchus is penitent for the past, they excuse his fault. He will be granted a treaty and the name of friend, when he has proved that he deserves the grant." [1176]
When Bocchus received this answer, he despatched a letter to Marius asking that Sulla should be sent to advise with him on the matters that touched the common interests of himself and Rome.[1177] It was tolerably clear what the subject of interest was. If it could be made "common," the end of the war had been reached. Sulla was despatched, and the final triumph, if attained, would be that of the diplomatist, not of the soldier. The quaestor was accompanied by an escort of cavalry, slingers, and archers, and a cohort of Italians bearing the weapons of a skirmishing force; for the adventures of Bocchus's envoys had shown the insecurity of the route. On the fifth day of the march, a large body of horse was seen approaching from a distance—a force that looked larger and more threatening than it afterwards proved to be; for it rode in open order, and the wild evolutions of the horsemen seemed to be the preliminary to an attack. Sulla's escort sprang to their arms; but the returning scouts soon removed all sense of fear. The approaching band of cavalry proved to be but a thousand strong and their leader to be Volux the son of Bocchus. The prince saluted Sulla and told him that he had been sent to meet and escort him to the presence of the king. For two days the combined forces advanced together, and there were no adventures by the road; but on the evening of the second day, when their resting place had been already chosen, the Moorish prince came hastily to Sulla with a look of perplexity on his face. He said that his scouts had just informed him that Jugurtha was close at hand, he entreated Sulla to join him in flight from the camp while it was yet night.[1178] The request was met by an indignant refusal; Sulla pointed to his men, whose lives might be sacrificed by the disgraceful disappearance of their leader. But, when Volux shifted his ground and merely insisted on the utility of a march by night from the dangerous neighbourhood, the quaestor yielded assent. He ordered that the soldiers should take their evening meal, and that a large number of fires should be lit which were to be left burning in the deserted camp. At the first watch the Moors and Romans stole silently from the lines. The dawn found them jaded, heavy with sleep, and longing for rest. Sulla was supervising the measurement of a camp, when some Moorish horsemen galloped up with the news that Jugurtha was but two miles in advance of their position. It was clear that the anxious Numidian was watching their every movement; the question to be answered was "Was Prince Volux in the plot?" The facts seemed dark enough to justify any suspicion. The nerves of the Romans had been shaken by the unknown danger which had forced them to leave their camp, by the night of sleepless watchfulness which had followed its abandonment. A panic was the inevitable result, and panic leads to fury. Voices were raised that the Moorish traitor should be slain, and that, if the fruit of his treason was reaped, he at least should not be allowed to see it. Sulla himself was weighed down with the same suspicion that animated his men, but he would not allow them to lay violent hands on the Moor.[1179] He encouraged them as best he might, then he turned with a passionate protest on his dubious companion. He called the protecting god of his own race, the guardian of its international honour, Jupiter Maximus, to witness the crime and perfidy of Bocchus, and he ordered Volux to leave his camp. The unhappy prince was probably in a state of genuine terror of Jugurtha, of complete uncertainty as to the intentions of that jealous kinsman and ally. Even had Volux known that his father Bocchus wished to play a double game, to balance the helplessness of Sulla against that of Jugurtha, to hold two valuable hostages in his hands at once, how could he be certain that Jugurtha would be content to play the part of a mere pawn in the king's game, to be dependent for his safety on the passing whim of a man whom he distrusted? Jugurtha might have everything to gain by massacring the Romans and seizing Sulla. The act would compromise Bocchus hopelessly in the eyes of the Roman government. There was hardly a man that would not believe in his treason, and from that time forth Bocchus would have no choice but to be the firm ally of Numidia against the vengeance of Rome. Yet, if Volux acted or spoke as though he believed in the possibility of this issue, he might seem to be incriminating his father and himself, he might seem to deserve the stern rebuke of Sulla and the order of expulsion from the Roman camp. His fears must therefore be concealed and he must profess a confidence which he did not feel. With tears which may have expressed a genuine emotion, he entreated Sulla not to harbour the unworthy suspicion. There had been no preconcerted treachery; the danger was at the most the product of the cunning of Jugurtha, who had discovered their route. Volux implied that the object of the Numidian's movement was to compromise the Moorish government in the eyes of Sulla; but he stated his emphatic belief that Jugurtha would, or could, do no positive hurt to the Roman envoy or his retinue. He pointed out that the king had no great force at his command, and (what was more important still) that he was now wholly dependent on the favour of his father-in-law. It was incredible, he maintained, that Jugurtha would attempt any overt act of hostility, when the son of Bocchus was present to be a witness to the crime. Their best plan would be to show their indifference to his schemes, to ride in broad daylight through the middle of his camp. If Sulla wished, he would send on the Moorish escort, or leave it where it was and ride with him alone.