A History of Rome During the Later Republic and Early Principate

by A. H. J. Greenidge

It is sufficiently likely that, even had there been no corruption or suspicion of corruption, the opinions of the House would have been divided on the question that was put before them. Some minds naturally suspicious might have been doubtful of the facts. Were Hiempsal's death and Adherbal's flight due to national discontent or the unprovoked ambition of Jugurtha? If the former was the case, was the restoration of the king to an unwilling people by an armed force a measure conducive to the interest of the protecting state? But even some who accepted Adherbal's statement of the case, may have doubted the wisdom of a policy of armed intervention; for it was manifest that a considerable degree of force would have to be employed to lead Jugurtha to relinquish his claims and to stamp out the loyalty of his adherents. The senate could have been in no humour for another African war; they regarded their policy as closed in that quarter of the world; they had shifted the burden of frontier defence on to the Kings of Numidia, and must have viewed with alarm the prospect of something far worse than a frontier war arising from the quarrels of those kings. It is probable, therefore, that proposals for a peaceful settlement would in any case have commanded the respectful attention of the senate; had these been made with a show of decency, with a general recognition of Adherbal's claims, and some censure of Jugurtha's overbearing conduct (for this must have been better attested than his share in Hiempsal's death), but little adverse comment might have been excited by the tone of the debate. As it was, when member after member rose, lauded Jugurtha's merits to the skies and poured contempt on the statements of Adherbal,[892] an unpleasant feeling was excited that this fervour was not wholly due to a patriotic interest in the security of the empire. The very boisterousness of the championship induced a more rigorous attitude on the part of those who had not been approached by Jugurtha's envoys or had resisted their overtures. They maintained that Adherbal must be helped at all costs, and that strict punishment should be exacted for Hiempsal's murder. This minority found an ardent advocate in Scaurus, the keeper of the conscience of the senate, the man who knew better than any that an individual or a government lives by its reputation, who saw with horror that no specious pretexts were being employed to clothe a policy which the malevolent might interpret as a political crime, and that the sinister rumours which had been current in Rome were finding their open verification in the senate. A vigorous championship of the cause of right from the foremost politician of the day, might not influence the decision of the House, and would certainly not lead to a quixotic policy of armed intervention; but it might prove to critics of the government that the inevitable decision had not been reached wholly in defiance of the claims of the suppliant and wholly in obedience to the machinations of a usurper. The decision, which closed the unreal debate, recognised Jugurtha and Adherbal as joint rulers of Numidia. It wilfully ignored Hiempsal's death, it wantonly exposed the lamb to the wolf, it was worthless as a settlement of the dynastic question, unless Jugurtha's supporters entertained the pious hope that their favourite's ambition might be satisfied with the increase now granted to his wealth and territory, and that his prudence might withhold him from again testing the forbearance of the protecting power. But those who possessed keener insight or who knew Jugurtha better, must have foreseen the probable result of the impunity which had been granted; they must have presaged, with anxious foreboding or with patient cynicism, the final disappearance of Adherbal from the scene and a fresh request for the settlement of the Numidian question, which would have become less complex when there was but one candidate for the throne. The decree of the senate enjoined the creation of a commission of ten, which should visit Numidia and divide the whole of the kingdom which had been possessed by Micipsa, between the rival chiefs.[893]

The head of the commission was Lucius Opimius, whose influence amongst the members of his order had never waned since he had exercised and proved his right of saving the State from the threatened dangers of sedition. His selection on this occasion gave an air of impartiality to the commission, for he was known to be no friend to Jugurtha.[894]

That prince, however, did not allow his past relations to be an obstacle to his present enterprise. The conquest of Opimius was the immediate object to which he devoted all his energies. As soon as the commissioners had appeared on African soil, they and their chief were received with the utmost deference by the king. The frequent and secret colloquies which took place between the arbitrators and one of the parties interested in their decision were not a happy omen for an impartial judgment, and, if the award could by the exercise of malevolent ingenuity be interpreted as unfair, would certainly breed the suspicion, and, in case the matter was ever submitted to a hostile court of law, the proof that the honour of the commissioners had succumbed to the usual vulgar and universally accredited methods of corruption. On the face of it the award seemed eminently just. Numidia was becoming a commercial and agricultural state; but since commerce and agriculture did not flourish in the same domains, it was impossible to endow each of the claimants equally with both these sources of wealth. To Adherbal was given that part of the kingdom which in its external attributes seemed the more desirable; he was to rule over the eastern half of Numidia which bordered on the Roman province, the portion of the country which enjoyed a readier access to the sea and could boast of a fuller development of urban life. Cirta the capital lay within this sphere, and Adherbal could continue to give justice from the throne of his fathers. But those who held that the strength of a country depended mainly on its people and its soil, believed that Jugurtha had received the better part. The territories with which he was entrusted were those bordering on Mauretania, rich in the products of the soil and teeming with healthy human life.[895] From the point of view of military resources there could be no question as to which of the two kings was the stronger. The peaceful character of Adherbal may have seemed a justification for his peaceful sphere of rule; but the original aggressor was kept at his normal strength. Jugurtha ruled over the lands in which the national spirit, of which he was himself the embodiment, found its fullest and fiercest expression. He did not mean to acquiesce for a moment in the settlement effected by the commission. No sooner had it completed its task and returned home, than he began to devise a scheme which would lead to war between the two principalities and the consequent annihilation of Adherbal. He shrank at first from provoking the senate by a wanton attack on the neighbouring kingdom which they had just created; his design was rather to draw Adherbal into hostilities which would lead to a pitched battle, a certain victory, the disappearance of the last of Micipsa's race and the union of the two crowns. With this object he massed a considerable force on the boundary between the two kingdoms and suddenly crossed the frontier. His mounted raiders captured shepherds with their flocks, ravaged the fields of the peasantry, looted and burned their homes; then swept back within their own borders.[896] But Adherbal was not moved to reprisals. His circumstances no less than his temperament dictated methods of peace: and, if he could not keep his crown by diplomacy, he must have regarded it as lost. The Roman people was a better safeguard than his Numidian subjects, and it was necessary to temporise with Jugurtha until the senate could be moved by a strong appeal. Envoys were despatched to the court of the aggressor to complain of the recent outrage; they brought back an impudent reply; but Adherbal, steadfast in his pacific resolutions, still remained quiescent, Jugurtha's plan had failed and he was in no mood for further delay; he held now, as he had done once before, that his end could best be effected by vigorous and decisive action. The lapse of time could not improve his own position but might strengthen that of Adherbal, and it was advisable that a new Roman commission should witness an accomplished fact and make the best of it rather than engage again in the settlement of a disputed claim. It was no longer a predatory band but a large and regular army that he now collected; his present purpose was not a foray but a war.[897] He advanced into his rival's territory ravaging its fields, harrying its cities and gathering booty as he went. At every step the confidence of his own forces, the dismay of the enemy increased.

Adherbal was at last convinced that he must appeal to the sword for the security of his crown. A second flight to Rome would have utterly discredited him in the eyes of his subjects, perhaps in those of the Roman government itself; yet, as his chief hope still lay in Rome, he hurriedly despatched an embassy to the suzerain city[898] while he himself prepared to take the field. With unwilling energy he gathered his available forces and marched to oppose Jugurtha's triumphant progress. The invading host had now skirted Cirta to the west and was apparently attempting to cut off its communications with the sea. The disastrous results that would have followed the success of this attempt, may have been the final motive that spurred Adherbal to his appeal to arms; and it was somewhere within the fifty miles that intervened between the capital and its port of Rusicade and at a spot nearer to the sea than to Cirta,[899] that the opposing armies met. The day was already far spent when Adherbal came into touch with his enemy: there was no thought of a pitched battle in the gathering gloom, and either party took up his quarters for the night. Towards the late watches of the night, in the doubtful light of the early dawn, the soldiers of Jugurtha crept up to the outposts of the enemy; at a given signal they rushed on the camp and carried it by storm. Adherbal's soldiers, heavy with sleep and groping for their arms, were routed or slain; the prince himself sprang on his horse and with a handful of his knights sped for safety to the walls of Cirta, Jugurtha's troops in hot pursuit. They had almost closed on the fugitive before the walls were reached; but the race had been watched from the battlements, and, as the flying Adherbal passed the gates, the walls were manned by a volunteer body of Italian merchants who kept the pursuing Numidians at bay.[900] It was the merchant class that had most to fear from the cruelty and cupidity of the nomad hordes that now beat against the fortress, and during the siege that followed they controlled the course of events far more effectually than the unhappy king whom they had for the moment saved from destruction.

Jugurtha's plans were foiled; Adherbal had escaped, and there lay before him the irksome prospect of a siege, of probable interference from Rome and, it might be, of the necessity of openly defying the senate's commands. But it was now too late to draw back, and he set himself vigorously to the work of reducing Cirta by assault or famine. The task must have been an arduous one. The town formed one of the strongest positions for defence that could be found in the ancient world. It was built on an isolated cube of rock that towered above the vast cultivated tracts of the surrounding plain. At its eastern extremity the precipice made a sheer drop of six hundred feet, and was perhaps quite inaccessible on this side, although it threw out spurs, whether natural or of artificial construction, which formed a difficult and easily defensible communication with the lower land around. Its natural bastions were completed by a natural moat, for the river Ampsaga (the Wäd Remel) almost encircled the town, and on the eastern side its deep and rushing waters could only be crossed by a ledge of rock, through which it bored a subterranean channel and over which some kind of bridge or causeway had probably been formed.[901] The natural and easy mode of approach to the city was to be found in the south-west, where a neck of land of half a furlong's breadth led up to the principal gate.

In spite of the formidable difficulties of the task Jugurtha attempted an assault, for it was of the utmost importance that he should possess the person of Adherbal before interference was felt from Rome. Mantlets, turrets and all the engines of siege warfare were vigorously employed to carry the town by storm;[902] but the stout walls baffled every effort, and Jugurtha was forced to face as best he might another Roman embassy which Adherbal's protests had brought to African soil. The senate, when it had learnt the news of the renewed outbreak of the war, was as unwilling as ever to intervene as a third partner in a three-sided conflict. To play the part of the policeman as well as of the judge was no element in Roman policy; the very essence of a protectorate was that it should take care of itself; were intervention necessary, it should be decisive, and it would be a lengthy task and an arduous strain to gather and transport to Africa a force sufficient to overawe Jugurtha. The easy device of a new commission was therefore adopted. If its Suggestions were obeyed, all would be well; if they were neglected, matters could not be much worse than they were at present. As the new commissioners had merely to take a message and were credited with no discretionary power, it was thought unnecessary to burden the higher magnates of the State with the unenviable task, or to expose them to the undignified predicament of finding their representations flouted by a rebel who might have eventually to be recognised as a king. A chance was given to younger members of the senatorial order, and the three who landed in Africa were branded by the hostile criticism that was soon to find utterance and in the poverty of its indictment to catch at every straw, as lacking the age and dignity demanded by the mission—qualities which, had they been present, would probably have failed to make the least impression on Jugurtha's fixed resolve. The commissioners were to approach both the kings and to bring to their notice the will and resolution of the Roman senate and people, which were to the effect that hostilities should be suspended and that the questions at issue between the rivals should be submitted to peaceful arbitration. This conduct the senate recommended as the only one worthy of its royal clients and of itself.[903]

The speed of the envoys was accelerated by the impression that they might find but one king to be the recipient of their message. On the eve of their departure the news of the decisive battle and the siege of Cirta had reached their ears. Haste was imperative, if they were to retain their position as envoys, for the next despatch might bring news of Adherbal's death. The actual news received fell short of the truth,[904] and was perhaps still further softened for the public ear; the fact that the envoys had sailed was itself an official indication that all hope had not been abandoned. If they cherished a similar illusion themselves, it must almost have vanished before the sight that met their eyes in Numidia. They saw a closely beleaguered town in which one of the kings, who were to be the recipients of their message, was so closely hemmed that access to him was impossible.[905] The other, without abating one jot of his military preparations, met them with an answer as uncompromising as it was courteous. Jugurtha held nothing more precious than the authority of the senate; from his youth up he had striven to meet the approbation of the good; it was by merit not by artifice, that he had gained the favour of Scipio; it was desert that had won him a place amongst Micipsa's children and a share in the Numidian crown. But qualities carry their responsibilities; the very distinction of his services made it the more incumbent on him to avenge a wrong. Adherbal had treacherously plotted against his life; the crime had been revealed and he had but taken steps to forestall it; the Roman people would not be acting justly or honourably, if they hindered him from taking such steps in his own defence as were the common right of all men.[906]

He would soon send envoys to Rome to deal with the whole question in dispute.

This answer showed the Roman commissioners the utter helplessness of their position. Their presence in Jugurtha's camp within sight of a city in which a client king and a number of their own citizens were imprisoned, was itself a stigma on the name of Rome. If they had prayed to see Adherbal, the request, must have been refused; to prolong the negotiations was to court further insult, and they set their faces once more for Rome after faithfully performing the important mission of repeating a message of the senate with verbal correctness. Jugurtha granted them the courtesy of not renewing his active operations until he thought that they had quitted Africa. Then, despairing of carrying the town by assault, he settled to the work of a regular siege. The nature of the ground must have made a complete investment impossible; but it also rendered it unnecessary. The cliffs and the river bed made escape as difficult as attack. On some sides it was but necessary to maintain a strenuous watch on every possible egress; on others lines of circumvallation, with ramparts and ditches, kept the beleaguered within their walls. Siege-towers were raised to mate the height of the fortifications which they threatened, and manned with garrisons to harry the town and repel all efforts of its citizens to escape. The blockade was varied by a series of surprises, of sudden assaults by day or night; no method of force or fraud was left untried; the loyalty of the defenders who appeared on the walls was assailed by threats or promises; the assailants were strenuously exhorted to effect a speedy entry.

It would seem that Cirta was ill-provided with supplies.[907] Adherbal, who had made it the basis of his attack and must have foreseen the probability of his defeat, should have seen that it was well provisioned; and the vast cisterns and granaries cut in the solid rock, that were in later times to be found within the city, should have supplied water and food sufficient to prolong the siege to a degree that might have tried the senate's patience as sorely as Jugurtha's. But neither the king nor his advisers were adepts in the art of war; it must have been difficult to regulate the distribution of provisions amidst the trading classes, of unsettled habits and mixed nationalities, that were crowded within the walls; discontent could not be restrained by discipline and might at any moment be a motive to surrender. The imprisoned king saw no prospect of a prolongation of the war that could secure even his personal safety; no help could be looked for from without and a ruthless enemy was battering at his gates. His only hope, a faint one, lay in a last appeal to Rome; but the invader's lines were drawn so close that even a chance of communicating with the protecting city seemed denied. At length, by urgent appeals to pity and to avarice, he induced two of the comrades who had joined his flight from the field of battle, to risk the venture of penetrating the enemy's lines and reaching the sea.[908] The venture, which was made by night, succeeded; the two bold messengers stole through the enclosing fortifications, rapidly made for the nearest port, and thence took ship to Rome. Within a few days they were in the presence of the senate,[909] and the despairing cry of Adherbal was being read to an assembly, to whom it could convey no new knowledge and on whom it could lay no added burden of perplexity. But emotion, although it cannot teach, may focus thought and clarify the promptings of interest. To many a loose thinker Adherbal's missive may have been the first revelation, not only of the shame, but of the possible danger of the situation. The facts were too well known to require detailed treatment. It was sufficient to remind the senate that for five months a friend and ally of the Roman people had been blockaded in his own capital; his choice was merely one between death by the sword and death by famine. Adherbal no longer asked for his kingdom; nay, he barely ventured to ask for his life; but he deprecated a death by torture—a fate that would most certainly be his if he fell into the hands of his implacable foe. The appeal to interest was interwoven with that made to pity and to honour. What were Jugurtha's ultimate motives? When he had consummated his crimes and absorbed the whole of Numidia, did he mean to remain a peaceful client-king, a faithful vassal of Rome? His fidelity and obedience might be measured by the treatment which he had already accorded to the mandate and the envoys of the senate. The power of Rome in her African possessions was at stake; and the majesty of the empire was appealed to no less than the sense of friendship, loyalty, and gratitude, as a ground for instant assistance which might yet save the suppliant from a terrible and degrading end.