A History of Rome During the Later Republic and Early Principate

by A. H. J. Greenidge

Even before the storm of criticism had again gathered strength, there was great anxiety in the senate over the recent action in Numidia. That body could doubtless read between the lines and see the real motives of policy which had led up to the present compact; they could see that the agreement was a compromise between the views of two opposing sections of their own house; and they must have approved of it in their hearts in so far as it expressed the characteristic objection of the senate as a whole to imperil the security of their imperial system, perhaps even to expose the frontiers of their northern possessions now threatened by barbarian hordes, through undertaking an unnecessary war in a southern protectorate. But none the less they saw clearly the invidious elements in the recent stroke of diplomacy, the combination of inconsistency and dishonesty exhibited in the comparison between the magnificent preparations and the futile result—a result which, as interpreted by the ordinary mind, made its authors seem corrupt and the senate look ridiculous. Their anxiety was increased by the fact that an immediate decision on their part was imperative. Were they to sanction what had been done, or to refuse to ratify the decision of the consul?[945]

The latter was of itself an extreme step, but it was rendered still more difficult by the fact that every one knew that Bestia would never have ventured on such a course had he not possessed the support of Scaurus.[946] To frame a decision which must be interpreted to mean a vote of lack of confidence in Scaurus, was to unseat the head of the administration, to abandon their ablest champion, perhaps to invite the successful attacks of the leaders of the other camp who were lying in wait for the first false step of the powerful and crafty organiser. Again, as in the discussion which had followed the fall of Cirta, the debates in the senate dragged on and there was a prospect of the question being indefinitely shelved—a result which, when the popular agitation had cooled, would have meant the acceptance of the existing state of things. Again the stimulus to greater rapidity of decision was supplied by Memmius. The leader of the agitation was now invested with the tribunate, and his position gave him the opportunity of unfettered intercourse with the people. His Contiones were the feature of the day,[947] and these popular addresses culminated in the exhortation which he addressed to the crowd after the return of the unhappy Bestia. His speech[948] shows Memmius to be both the product and the author of the general character which had now been assumed by this long continued agitation on a special point. The golden opportunity had been gained of emphasising anew the fundamental differences of interest between the nobility and the people, of reviewing the conduct of the governing class in its continuous development during the last twenty years,[949] of pointing out the miserable consequences of uncontrolled power, irresponsibility and impunity. For the purpose of investing an address with the dignity and authority which spring from distant historical allusion, of brightening the prosaic present with something of the glamour of the half-mythical past, even of flattering his auditors with the suggestion that they were the descendants and heirs of the men who had seceded to the Aventine, it was necessary for a popular orator to touch on the great epoch of the struggle between the orders. But Memmius, while satisfying the conditions of his art by the introduction of the subject, uses it only to point the contrast between the epoch when liberty had been won and that wherein it had been lost, or to illustrate the uselessness of such heroic methods as the old secessions as weapons against a nobility such as the present which was rushing headlong to its own destruction. More important was the memory of those recent years which had seen the life of the people and of their champions become the plaything of a narrow oligarchy. The judicial murders that had followed the overthrow of the Gracchi, the spirit of abject patience with which they had been accepted and endured, were the symbol of the absolute impunity of the oligarchy, the source of their knowledge that they might use their power as they pleased. And how had they used it? A general category of their crimes would be misleading; it was possible to exhibit an ascending scale of guilt. They had always preyed on the commonwealth; but their earlier depredations might be borne in silence. Their earlier victims had been the allies and dependants of Rome; they had drawn revenues from kings and free peoples, they had pillaged the public treasury. But they had not yet begun to put up for sale the security of the empire and of Rome itself. Now this last and monstrous stage had been reached. The authority of the senate, the power which the people had delegated to its magistrate, had been betrayed to the most dangerous of foes; not satisfied with treating the allies of Rome as her enemies, the nobility were now treating her enemies as allies.[950] And what was the secret of the uncontrolled power, the shameless indifference to opinion that made such misdeeds possible? It was to be found partly in the tolerance of the people—a tolerance which was the result of the imposture which made ill-gained objects of plunder—consulships, priesthoods, triumphs—seem the proof of merit. But it was to be found chiefly in the fact that co-operation in crime had been raised to the dignity of a system which made for the security of the criminal. The solidarity of the nobility, its very detachment from the popular interest, was its main source of strength. It had ceased even to be a party; it had become a clique—a mere faction whose community of hope, interest and fear had given it its present position of overweening strength.[951] This strength, which sprang from perfect unity of design and action, could only be met and broken successfully by a people fired with a common enthusiasm. But what form should this enthusiasm assume? Should an adviser of the people advocate a violent resumption of its rights, the employment of force to punish the men who have betrayed their country? No! Acts of violence might indeed be the fitting reward for their conduct, but they are unworthy instruments for the just vengeance of an outraged people. All that we demand is full inquiry and publicity. The secrets of the recent negotiations shall be probed. Jugurtha himself shall be the witness. If he has surrendered to the Roman people, as we are told, he will immediately obey your orders; if he despises your commands, you will have an opportunity of knowing the true nature of that peace and that submission which have brought to Jugurtha impunity for his crimes, to a narrow ring of oligarchs a large increase in their wealth, to the state a legacy of loss and shame.

It was on this happily constructed dilemma that Memmius acted when he brought his positive proposal before the people. It was to the effect that the praetor Lucius Cassius Longinus should be sent to Jugurtha and bring him to Rome on the faith of a safe conduct granted by the State; Jugurtha's revelations were to be the key by which the secret chamber of the recent negotiations was to be unlocked, with the desired hope of convicting Scaurus and all others whose contact with the Numidian king, whether in the late or in past transactions,[952] had suggested their corruption. The object of this mission had been rapidly regaining the complete control of Numidia, which had been momentarily shaken by the Roman invasion. The presence of the Roman army, some portion of which was still quartered in a part of his dominions, was no check on his activity; for the absence of the commander, the incapacity and dishonesty of the delegates whom he had left in his place, and the demoralising indolence of the rank and file, had reduced the forces to a condition lower than that of mere ineffectiveness or lack of discipline. The desire of making a profit out of the situation pervaded every grade. The elephants which had been handed over by Jugurtha, were mysteriously restored; Numidians who had espoused the cause of Rome and deserted from the army of the king—loyalists whom, whatever their motives and character, Rome was bound to protect—were handed back to the king in exchange for a price;[953] districts already pacified were plundered by desultory bands of soldiers. The Roman power in Numidia was completely broken when Cassius arrived and revealed his mission to the king. The strange request would have alarmed a timid or ignorant ruler; Jugurtha himself wavered for a moment as to whether he should put himself unreservedly into the power of a hostile people; but he had sufficient imagination and familiarity with Roman life to realise that the principles of international honour that prevailed amongst despotic monarchies were not those of the great Republic even at its present stage, and he professed himself encouraged by the words of the amiable praetor that "since he had thrown himself on the mercy of the Roman people, he would do better to appeal to their pity than to challenge their might".[954] His guide added his own word of honour to that of the Republic, and such was the repute of Cassius that this assurance helped to remove the momentary scruples of the king. Once he was assured of personal safety, Jugurtha's visit to Rome became merely a matter of policy, and his rapid mind must have surveyed every issue depending on his acceptance or refusal before he committed himself to so doubtful a step. His real plan of action is unfortunately unknown; for we possess but the barest outline of these incidents, and we have no information on the really vital point whether communications had reached him from his supporters in the capital, which enabled him to predict the course events would take if he obeyed the summons of Cassius. Had such communications reached him, he might have known that the projected investigation would be nugatory. But a failure in the purpose for which he was summoned could convey no benefit to Jugurtha or his supporters; it would simply incense the people and place both the king, and his friends amongst the nobility, in a worse position than before. The course of action, by turns sullen, shifty and impudent, which he pursued at Rome, must have been due to the exigencies of the moment and the frantic promptings of his frightened friends; for it could scarcely have appealed to a calculating mind as a procedure likely to lead to fruitful results. Its certain issue was war; but war could be had without the trouble of a journey to Rome. He had but to stay where he was and decline the people's request, and this policy of passive resistance would have the further merit of saving his dignity as a king. It may seem strange that he never adopted the bold but simple plan of standing up in Rome and telling the whole truth, or at least such portions of the truth as might have satisfied the people. It was a course of action that might have secured him his crown. Doubtless if his transactions with Roman officials had been innocent, the truth, if he adhered to it, might not have been believed; but, if his evidence was damning, the people might well have been turned from the insignificant question "Who was to be King of Numidia?" to the supreme task of punishing the traitors whom he denounced. But we have no right to read Jugurtha's character by the light of the single motive of a self-interest which knew no scruples. He may have had his own ideas of honour and of the protection due to a benefactor or a trusty agent. Self-interest too might in this matter come to the aid of sentiment; for it was at least possible that the popular storm might spend its fury and leave the nobility still holding their ground. So far as we with our imperfect knowledge can discern, Jugurtha could have had no definite plan of action when he consented to take the journey to Rome. But he had abundant prospects, if even he possessed no plan. His presence in the capital was a decided advantage, in so far as it enabled him to confer with his leading supporters, and to attend to a matter affecting his dynastic interests which we shall soon find arousing the destructive energy which was becoming habitual to his jealous and impatient mind.

When Jugurtha appeared in Rome under the guidance of Cassius, he had laid aside all the emblems of sovereignty and assumed the sordid garb that befitted a suppliant for the mercy of the sovereign people.[955] He seemed to have come, not as a witness for the prosecution, but as a suspected criminal who appeared in his own defence. He was still keeping up the part of one whom the fortune of war had thrown absolutely into the power of the conquering state—a part perhaps suggested by the friendly Cassius, but one that was perfectly in harmony with the pretensions of Bestia and Scaurus. But the heart beneath that miserable dress beat high with hope, and he was soon cheered by messages from the circle of his friends at Rome and apprised of the means which had been taken to baffle the threatened investigation,[956] The senate had, as usual, a tribune at its service. Caius Baebius was the name of the man who was willing to play the part, so familiar to the practice of the constitution, of supporter of the government against undue encroachments on its power and dignity, or against over-hasty action by the leaders of the people. The government undoubtedly had a case. It was contrary to all accepted notions of order and decency that a protected king should be used as a political instrument by a turbulent tribune. Memmius had impeached no one and had given no notice of a public trial; yet he intended to bring Jugurtha before a gathering of the rabble and ask him to blacken the names of the foremost men in Rome. It was exceedingly probable that the grotesque proceeding would lead to a breach of the peace; the sooner it was stopped, the better; and, although it was unfortunately impossible to prevent Memmius from initiating the drama by bringing forward his protagonist, the law had luckily provided means for ending the performance before the climax had been reached. It was believed that the sound constitutional views of Baebius were strengthened by a great price paid by Jugurtha,[957] and, if we care to believe one more of those charges of corruption, the multitude of which had not palled even on the easily wearied mind of the lively Roman, it is possible to imagine that the implicated members of the senate, in whose interest far more than in that of Jugurtha Baebius was acting, had persuaded the king that it was to his advantage to make the gift.

The eagerly awaited day arrived, on which the scandal-loving ears of the people were to be filled to the full with the iniquities of their rulers, on which their long-cherished suspicions should be changed to a pleasantly anticipated certainty. Memmius summoned his Contio and produced the king. Even the suppliant garb of Jugurtha did not save him from a howl of execration. From the tribunal, to which he had been led by the tribune, he looked over a sea of angry faces and threatening hands, while his ears were deafened by the roar of fierce voices, some crying that he should be put in bonds, others that he should suffer the death of the traitor if he failed to reveal the partners of his crimes.[958] Memmius, anxious for the dignity of his unusual proceedings which were being marred by this frantic outburst, used all his efforts to secure order and a patient hearing, and succeeded at length in imposing silence on the crowd—a silence which perhaps marked that psychological moment when pent up feeling had found its full expression and passion had given way to curiosity. The tribune also vehemently asserted his intention of preserving inviolate the safe conduct which had been granted by the State. He then led the king forward[959] and began a recital of the catalogue of his deeds. He spared him nothing; his criminal activity at Rome and in Numidia, his outrages on his family—the whole history of that career, as it continued to live in the minds of democrats, was fully rehearsed. He concluded the story, which he assumed to be true, by a request for the important details of which full confirmation was lacking. "Although the Roman people understood by whose assistance and ministry all this had been done, yet they wished to have their suspicions finally attested by the king. If he revealed the truth, he could repose abundant hope on the honour and clemency of the Roman people; if he refused to speak, he would not help the partners of his guilt, but his silence would ruin both himself and his future." Memmius ceased and asked the king for a reply; Baebius stepped forward and ordered the king to be silent.[960] The voice of Jugurtha could legally find utterance only through the will of the magistrate who commanded; it was stifled by the prohibition of the colleague who forbade. The people were in the presence of one of those galling restraints on their own liberty to which the jealousy of the magistracy, expressed in the constitutional creations of their ancestors, so often led. Baebius was immediately subjected to the terrorism which Octavius, his forerunner in tribunician constancy, had once withstood. The frantic mob scowled, shouted, made rushes for the tribunal, and used every effort short of personal assault which anger could suggest, to break the spirit of the man who balked their will. But the resolution—or, as his enemies said, the shamelessness[961]—of Baebius prevailed. The multitude, tricked of its hopes, melted from the Forum in gloomy discontent. It is said that the hopes of Bestia and his friends rose high.[962] Perhaps they had lived too long in security to realise the danger threatened by a disappointed crowd that might meet to better purpose some future day; that had gained from the insulting scene itself an embittered confirmation of its views, with none of the softening influence which springs from a curiosity completely satiated; that, as an assembly of the sovereign people, might at any moment avenge the latest outrage which had been inflicted on its dignity.

Jugurtha had, perhaps through no fault of his own, sorely tried the patience of the people on the one occasion on which, as a professed suppliant, he had come into contact with his sovereign. He was now, on his own initiative, to try it yet further, and to test it in a manner which aroused the horror and resentment of many who did not share the views of Memmius. The king was not the only representative of Masinissa's house at present to be found in Rome. There resided in the city, as a fugitive from his power, his cousin Massiva, son of Gulussa and grandson of Masinissa. It is not known why this scion of the royal house had been passed over in the regulation of the succession, although it is easily intelligible that Micipsa, with two sons of his own, might not have wished to increase the number of co-regents of Numidia by recognising his brother's heirs, and would not have done so had he not been forced by circumstances to adopt Jugurtha. During the early struggles between the three kings, Massiva had attached himself to the party of Hiempsal and Adherbal, and had thus incurred Jugurtha's enmity; but he had continued to live in Numidia as long as there was any hope of the continuance of the dual kingship. The fall of Cirta and the death of Adherbal had forced him to find a refuge at Rome, where he continued to reside in peace until fate suddenly made him a pawn in the political game. At last there had arisen a definite section amongst the nobility which found it to its interest to offer an active opposition to Jugurtha's claims. The consuls who succeeded Bestia and Nasica, were Spurius Albinus and Quintus Minucius Rufus. The latter had won the province of Macedonia and the protection of the north-eastern frontier; to the former had fallen Numidia and the conduct of affairs in Africa. The fact that the senate had declared Numidia a consular province before the close of the previous year, was the ostensible proof that they had yielded to the pressure applied by Memmius and nominally at least repudiated the pacification effected by Bestia and Scaurus. But the rejection of this arrangement seems never to have been officially declared; there was still a chance of the recognition of Jugurtha's claims, and of the governor of Numidia being assigned the inglorious function of seeing to the restoration of the king and then evacuating his territory. Such a modest rôle did not at all harmonise with the views of Albinus. He wished a real command and a genuine war; but it was not easy to wage such a war as long as Jugurtha was the only candidate in the field. Even if his surrender were regarded as fictitious and the war were resumed on that ground, it was difficult to assign it an ultimate object, since the senate had no intention of making Numidia a province. But the object which would make the war a living reality could be secured, if a pretender were put forward for the Numidian crown; and such a pretender Albinus sought in the scion of Masinissa's race now resident in Rome, whose birth gave him a better hereditary claim than Jugurtha himself. The consul approached Massiva and urged him to make a case out of the odium excited and the fears inspired by Jugurtha's crimes, and to approach the senate with a request for the kingdom of Numidia.[963] The prince caught at the suggestion, the petition was prepared, and this new and unexpected movement began to make itself felt. Jugurtha's fear and anger were increased by the sudden discovery that his friends at Rome were almost powerless to help him. They could not parade a question of principle when it came to persons; a kingdom in Numidia was more easily defended than its king; every act of assistance which they rendered plunged them deeper in the mire of suspicion; it was a time to walk warily, for those who had no judge in their own conscience found one in the keen scrutiny of a hostile world. But the danger was too great to permit Jugurtha to relax his efforts through the failure of his friends. He appealed to his own resources, which consisted of the passive obedience of his immediate attendants and the power of his purse. To Bomilcar his most trusted servant he gave the mission of making one final effort with the gold which had already done so much. Men might be hired who would lie in wait for Massiva. If possible, the matter was to be effected secretly. If secrecy was impossible, the Numidian must yet be slain. His death was deserving of any risk. Bomilcar was prompt in carrying out his mission. A band of hired spies watched every movement of Massiva. They learnt the hours at which he left and returned to his home; the places he visited, the times at which his visits were paid. When the seasonable hour arrived, the ambush was set by Bomilcar. The elaborate precautions which had been taken proved to have been thrown away; the assassin who struck the fatal blow was no adept in the art of secret killing. Hardly had Massiva fallen when the alarm was given and the murderer seized.[964] The men who had an interest in Massiva's life were too numerous and too great to make it possible for the act to sink to the level of ordinary street outrages, or for the assassin caught red-handed to be regarded as the sole author of the crime. The consul Albinus amongst others pressed the murderer to reveal the instigator of the deed, and the senate must have promised the immunity that was sometimes given to the criminal who named his accomplices. The man named Bomilcar, who was thereupon formally arraigned of the murder and bound over to stand his trial before a criminal court. Even this step was taken with considerable hesitation, for it was admitted that the safe-conduct which protected Jugurtha extended to his retinue.[965] The king and his court were strictly speaking extra-territorial, and the strict letter of international law would have handed Bomilcar over for trial by his sovereign. But it was felt that a departure from custom was a less evil than to allow such an outrage to remain unpunished, and it was easier to satisfy the popular conscience by finding Bomilcar guilty than to fix the crime on the man whom every one named as its ultimate author. Jugurtha himself was inclined for a time to acquiesce in this view; he regarded the trial of his favourite as inevitable and furnished fifty of his own acquaintances who were willing to give bail for the appearance of the accused. But reflection convinced him that the sacrifice was unnecessary; his name could not be saved by Bomilcar's doom, and no influence or wealth could create even a pretence at belief in his own innocence. His standing in Rome was gone, and this made him the more eager to consider his standing as King of Numidia. If Bomilcar were sacrificed, his powerlessness to protect the chief member of his retinue might shake the allegiance of his own subjects.[966] He therefore smuggled his accused henchman from Rome and had him conveyed secretly to Numidia. This, of all Jugurtha's acts of perfidy perhaps the mildest and most excusable, in spite of the awkward predicament in which it left the fifty securities, was the last of the baffling incidents that had been crowded into his short sojourn at Rome. His presence must have been an annoyance to every one. He had exhausted his friends, had failed to serve the purposes of the opposition leader, and had inspired in the senate memories and anticipations which they were willing to forget. When that body ordered him to quit Italy—it must have expressed the wish of every class. Within a few days of Bomilcar's disappearance the king himself was leaving the gates. It is said that he often turned and took a long and silent look at the distant town, and that at last the words broke from him "A city for sale and ripe for ruin, if only a purchaser can be found!" [967]

The departure of Jugurtha implied the renewal of the war. The compact made with Bestia and Scaurus had been tacitly, if not formally, repudiated by the senate, and the fiction that Jugurtha had surrendered, although it had played its part in the negotiations which brought him to Rome, disappeared with the compact. Since, however, the right of Jugurtha to retain Numidia, which was the objectionable element in the late agreement, seems to have been implied rather than expressed, it may have seemed possible to take the view that Jugurtha's surrender was unconditional, and that the war was now the pursuit of an escaped prisoner of Rome. Such a conception was absolutely worthless so far as most of the practical difficulties of the task were concerned; for, whether Jugurtha was an enemy or a rebel, he was equally difficult to secure; but it may have had a considerable influence on the principles on which the Numidian war was now to be conducted, and we shall find on the part of Rome a growing disinclination to give Jugurtha the benefits of those rules of civilised warfare of which she generally professed a scrupulous observance in the letter if not in the spirit. The object of the war was, through its very simplicity, extraordinarily difficult of attainment. It was neither more nor less than the seizure of the person of Jugurtha. Numidia had no common government and no unity but those personified in its king, and the conquest of fragments of the country would be almost useless until the king was secured. The hope of setting up a rival pretender, whose recognition by Rome might have enabled organisation to keep pace with conquest, had perished with the murder of Massiva,[968] although it is very questionable whether the name even of the son of the warlike Gulussa would have detached any of the military strength of Numidia from a monarch who had stirred the fighting spirit of the nation and was regarded as the embodiment of its manliest traditions. The outlook of the consul Albinus, the new organiser of the war on the Roman side, was indeed a poor one, and it was made still poorer by the fact that a considerable portion of his year of office had already lapsed, and the events of his campaign must of necessity be crowded into the few remaining months of the summer and the early autumn. Had there been any spirit of self-sacrifice in Roman commanders, or any true continuity in Roman military policies, Albinus might have set himself the useful task of organising victory for his successors; yet he cannot be wholly blamed for the hope, wild and foolish as it seems, of striking some decisive blow in the narrow time allowed him.[969] The military operations of the war at this stage become almost wholly subordinate to political considerations. Senate and consuls were being swept off their feet and forced into a disastrous celerity or superficiality of action by the growing tide of indignation which animated commons and capitalists alike; and the feeling that something decisive must be accomplished for the satisfaction of public opinion, was supplemented by the lower but very human consideration that a general must seem to have attained some success if he hoped to have his command prolonged for another year. The senate, it is true, might have insight enough to see that success in a war such as that in Numidia could not be gauged by the brilliance of the results obtained; but how were they to defend their verdict to the people unless they could point to exploits such as would dazzle the popular eye? But although a feverish policy seemed the readiest mode of escape from public suspicion or inglorious retirement, it had its own particular nemesis, of which Albinus seemed for the moment to be oblivious. To finish the war in a short time meant to finish it by any means that came to hand. But, if a striking victory did not surrender Jugurtha into the hands of his conqueror—and even the most glorious victory did not under the circumstances of the war imply the capture of the vanquished—what means remained except negotiation and the voluntary surrender of the king?[970] Such means had been employed by Bestia, and every one knew now with what result. The policy of haste might breed more suspicion and bitterness than the most desultory conduct of the campaign.

Albinus made rapid but ample preparation of supplies, money and munitions of war, and hurried off to the scene of his intended successes. The army which he found must have been in a miserable condition, if we may judge by the state which the last glimpse of it revealed; but his fixed intention of accomplishing something, no matter what, must have rendered adequate re-organisation impossible, and he took the field against Jugurtha with forces whose utter demoralisation was soon to be put to a frightful test. The war immediately assumed that character of an unsuccessful hunt, varied by indecisive engagements and fruitless victories, which it was to retain even under the guidance of the ablest that Rome could furnish. Jugurtha adhered to his inevitable plan of a prolonged and desultory campaign over a vast area of country; the size and physical character of his kingdom, the extraordinary mobility of his troops, the credulity and anxious ambition of his opponent, were all elements of strength which he used with consummate skill. He retired before the threatening column; then, that his men might not lose heart, he threw himself with startling suddenness on the foe; at other times he mocked the consul with hopes of peace, entered into negotiations for a surrender and, when he had disarmed his adversary by hopes, suddenly drew back in a pretended access of distrust. The futility of Albinus's efforts was so pronounced—a futility all the more impressive from the intensity of his preparations and his excessive eagerness to reach the field of action—that people ignorant of the conditions of the campaign began again to whisper the perpetual suspicion of collusion with the king.[971] The suspicion might not have been avoided even by a commander who declined negotiation; but Albinus's case had been rendered worse by his unsuccessful efforts to play with a master of craft, and it was with a reputation greatly weakened from a military, and slightly damaged from a moral, point of view that he brought the campaign to a close, sent his army into winter quarters, and left for Rome to preside at the electoral meetings of the people.[972] The Comitia for the appointment of the consuls and the praetors were at this time held during the latter half of the year, but at no regular date, the time for their summons depending on the convenience of the presiding consul and on his freedom from other and more pressing engagements.[973] Albinus may have arrived in Rome during the late autumn. Had he been able to get the business over and return to Africa for the last month or two of the year, his conduct of the war might have been considered ineffective but not disastrous, and the senate might have been spared a problem more terrible than any that had yet arisen out of its relations with Jugurtha. For Albinus, though sanguine and unpractical, seems to have been reasonably prudent, and he might have handed over an army, unsuccessful but not disgraced, and recruited in strength by its long winter quarters, to the care of a more fortunate successor. But, as it happened, every public department in Rome was feeling the strain caused by a minor constitutional crisis which had arisen amongst the magistrates of the Plebs. The sudden revival of the people's aspirations had doubtless led to a certain amount of misguided ambition on the part of some of its leaders, and the tribunate was now the centre of an agitation which was a faint counterpart of the closing scenes in the Gracchan struggles. Two occupants of the office, Publius Lucullus and Lucius Annius, were attempting to secure re-election for another year. Their colleagues resisted their effort, probably on the ground that the conditions requisite for re-election were not in existence, and this conflict not merely prevented the appointment of plebeian magistrates from being completed, but stayed the progress of the other elective Comitia as well.[974] The tribunes, whether those who aimed at re-election or those who attempted to prevent it, had either declared a justitium or threatened to veto every attempt made by a magistrate of the people to hold an electoral assembly; and the consequence of this impasse was that, when the year drew to a close,[975] no new magistrates were in existence and the consul Albinus was still absent from his African command.

Unfortunately the absence of the proconsul, as Albinus had now become in default of the appointment of a successor, did not have the effect of checking the enterprise of the army. It was now under the authority of Aulus Albinus, to whom his brother had delegated the command of the province and the forces during his stay at Rome. The stimulus which moved Aulus to action is not known. The unexpected duration of his temporary command may have familiarised him with power, stimulated his undoubted confidence in himself, and suggested the hope that by one of those unexpected blows, with which the annals of strategic genius were filled, he might redeem his brother's reputation and win lasting glory for himself. Others believed that the perpetually suspected motive of cupidity was the basis of his enterprise, that he had no definitely conceived plan of conquest, but intended by the terror of a military demonstration to exact money from Jugurtha.[976] If the latter view was correct, it is possible that Aulus imagined himself to be acting in the interest of his army as well as of himself. The long winter quarters may have betrayed a deficiency in pay and provisions, and if Jugurtha purchased the security of a district, its immunity would be too public an event to make it possible for the commander of the attacking forces to pocket the whole of the ransom.

It was in the month of January, in the very heart of a severe winter, that Aulus summoned his troops from the security of their quarters to a long and fatiguing march. His aim was Suthul, a strongly fortified post on the river Ubus, nearly forty miles south of Hippo Regius and the sea, and so short a distance from the larger and better-known town of Calama, the modern Gelma, that the latter name was sometimes used to describe the scene of the incidents that followed.[977] We are not told the site of the winter quarters from which the march began; but the ineffectiveness of the former campaign and the caution of Albinus, who did not mean his legions to fight during his absence, might lead us to suppose that the troops had been quartered in or near the Roman province; and in this case Aulus might have marched along the valley of the Bagradas to reach his destined goal, which would finally have been approached from the south through a narrow space between two ranges of hills, the westernmost of which was crowned at its northern end by the fortifications of Suthul. This was reported to be the chief treasure-city of Jugurtha; could Aulus capture it, or even bargain for its security with the king, he might cripple the resources of the Numidian monarch and win great wealth for himself and his army. By long and fatiguing marches he reached the object of his attack, only to discover at the first glance that it was impregnable—nay even, as a soldier's eye would have seen, that an investment of the place was utterly impossible.[978] The rigour of the season had aggravated the difficulties presented by the site. Above towered the city walls perched on their precipitous rock; below was the alluvial plain which the deluging rains of a Numidian winter had turned into a swamp of liquid mud. Yet Aulus, either dazzled by the vision of the gold concealed within the fortress which it had caused him such labour to reach, or with some vague idea that a pretence at an investment might alarm the king into coming to terms for the protection of his hoard, began to make formal preparations for a siege, to bring up mantlets, to mark out his lines of circumvallation,[979] to deceive his enemy, if he could not deceive himself, into a belief that the conditions rendered an attack on Suthul possible.