[932] Possibly not at this time, but the date of its recovery is unknown. The town is in the hands of Metellus during the closing months of his campaign (Sall. Jug. 81. 2). Cf. p. 431.
[933] Sall. Jug. 19. 7 Mauris omnibus rex Bocchus imperitabat, praeter nomen cetera ignarus populi Romani, itemque nobis neque bello neque pace antea cognitus. Practically nothing is known of the predecessors of this king. Livy (xxix. 30) mentions an earlier Baga of Mauretania, and perhaps this name is identical with that of Bocchus or [Greek: Bogos]. See Biereye Res Numidarum et Maurorum. For the earlier history of Mauretania see also Göbel Die Westküste Afrikas im Altertum. The boundaries of the kingdom were the Atlantic and the Muluccha on the west and east respectively (Liv. xxiv. 49, xxi. 22; Sall. Jug. 110). The southern boundary naturally shifted. At times the Mauretanian kings ruled over some of the Gaetulian tribes, and Strabo (ii. 3.4) makes the kingdom extend at one time to tribes akin to the Aethiopians—presumably to the Atlas range. Elsewhere (xvii. 3. 2) he speaks of it as extending over the Rif to the Gaetulians. See Göbel op. cit. pp. 79-82.
[934] Ibid. 80. 4 Bocchus initio hujusce belli legatos Romam miserat foedus et amicitiam petitum.
[935] Sall. Jug. 29. 2 Scaurus … tametsi a principio, plerisque ex factione ejus conruptis, acerrume regem inpugnaverat, tamen magnitudine pecuniae a bono honestoque in pravom abstractus est.
[936] Sall. Jug. 29. 3.
[937] Ibid. 29. 4 Interea fidei causa mittitur a consule Sextius quaestor in oppidum Jugurthae Vagam.
[938] Vaga (Bêdja) marks the frontier between the Numidian kingdom and the Roman province—the frontier created in 172 B.C. by the invasions of Masinissa and finally fixed in 146 B.C. The town lay on the west of the Wad Bédja, which joins the Medjerda, and on the right of the road from Carthage to Bulla Regia. There was another Vaga in the heart of Numidia, between the Ampsaga and Thabraca. See Tissot Géographie comparée ii. pp. 6, 302; Wilmanns in C.I.L. viii. p. 154.
[939] Long Decline of the Rom. Republic i. p. 400.
[940] Sall. Jug, 29, 5 Rex … pauca praesenti consilio locutus de invidia fact! sui atque uti in deditionem acciperetur, reliqua cum Bestia et Scauro secreta transigit.
[941] Ibid. (Rex) quasi per saturam sententiis exquisitis in deditionem accipitur.