III. The War with Jugurtha and the Rise of Marius
Foreign wars of the Gracchan Age. While the Senate and the Gracchi were struggling for the mastery in Rome, the Roman state engaged in continual frontier struggles, particularly on the northern borders of Italy and Macedonia. Most of these wars were of slight importance, but one resulted in the occupation of the Balearic Islands, [pg 132]in 123–122, which gave Rome full command of the sea route to Spain. Another, still more important, was that waged between 125 and 123 in answer to an appeal from Massalia against the Ligurian Salyes to the north of that city. Their subjugation gave the Romans the command of the route across the Maritime Alps from Italy to Gaul. The fortress of Aquae Sextiae was established to guard this passage.
The Roman advance in Transalpine Gaul. It now became the object of the Romans to secure the land route to Spain. But beyond the territory of their ally Massalia the way was blocked by powerful coalitions of Gallic tribes. Chief among these were the Allobroges to the east of the Rhone, the Arverni the greatest of all, whose territory lay west of that river, from the Loire to the Pyrenees, and the Aedui, to the north of the Arverni. The Romans made an alliance with the latter people who were at enmity with the other two, and attacked the Allobroges because they had received fugitives from the Salyes. The Arverni were drawn into the conflict on the side of the Allobroges.
The province of Narbonese Gaul. In 121 B. C. both these peoples were decisively beaten in a great battle near the junction of the Isère and the Rhone by the consul Fabius Maximus and the proconsul Domitius. The Romans were now masters of all southern Gaul, except Massalia, and organized it as a province. In 118 B. C. a Roman colony was established at Narbo, which was with the exception of the abandoned settlement of Junonia, the first colony of Roman citizens sent beyond the Italian peninsula, although colonies with Latin rights had been founded in Spain long before. To link Italy with Spain there was constructed the via Domitia, a military road traversing the new province.
The Jugurthine War. It was not long before Rome became involved in a much more serious conflict that was destined to reveal to the world the rottenness and incapacity of its ruling class, and to reawaken internal political strife. In 118 B. C. occurred the death of Micipsa, who had succeeded Masinissa as king of Numidia. Micipsa left his kingdom to be ruled jointly by his two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal, and a nephew, Jugurtha. The latter was an able, energetic, but ambitious and unscrupulous prince, who had gained a good knowledge of Roman society through serving in the Roman army before Numantia. However, the three soon quarreled and divided the [pg 133]kingdom. It was not long before Jugurtha caused Hiempsal to be assassinated and drove Adherbal from the country. The latter fled to Rome to appeal for aid, on the basis of the alliance with Rome which he had inherited from his ancestors. Thereupon Jugurtha sent his agents, with well filled purses, to plead his case before the Senate. So successful was he that a Roman commission appointed to divide Numidia between himself and Adherbal gave him the western or richest part of the kingdom. But Jugurtha’s aim was to rule over the whole of Numidia, and so he provoked Adherbal to war. In 113 B. C. he succeeded in besieging him in his capital, Cirta, which was defended chiefly by Italians who had settled there for commercial reasons. Two Roman commissions sent to investigate the situation succumbed to Jugurtha’s diplomacy, and Cirta was forced to surrender. Adherbal and all its defenders were put to death.
Rome declares war. The slaughter of so many Italians raised a storm in Rome, where the business elements and populace forced the Senate, which was inclined to wink at Jugurtha’s disregard of its African settlement, to declare war. In 111 a Roman army under the consul Bestia invaded Numidia. Again Jugurtha resorted to bribes and secured terms of peace from the consul after a sham submission. However, the opponents of the Senate saw through the trick and forced an investigation. Jugurtha was summoned to come to Rome under safe conduct to give evidence as to his relations with the Roman officials in Numidia. He came and contrived to buy the intervention of two tribunes who prevented his testimony from being taken. But, relying too much upon his ability to buy immunity for any action, he ventured to procure the assassination in Rome itself of a rival claimant to the Numidian throne (110 B. C.). His friends in the Senate dared protect him no longer and he had to leave Italy.
A Roman defeat, 109 B. C. The war reopened but the first operations ended in the early part of 109 B. C. with the defeat and capitulation of a Roman army, which was forced to pass under the yoke, to be released when its commander consented to a recognition of Jugurtha’s position and an alliance between him and Rome. In this shameful episode bribery and treachery had played their part. The terms were rejected at Rome, and a tribunician proposal to try those guilty of misconduct with Jugurtha was ratified by the Assem[pg 134]bly. In the same year the consul Metellus took command in Africa. One of his officers was Caius Marius. Marius was born of an equestrian family at Arpinum; he served in the cavalry under Scipio Aemilianus in the Numantine War; engaged with success in the handling of state contracts; became tribune in 119, praetor in 116, and propraetor in Spain in 115 B. C. He was able and ambitious and chafed under the disdain with which he as a “new man” was treated by the senatorial aristocrats.
Marius, consul: 107 B. C. Metellus, in contrast to the former commanders against Jugurtha, was both energetic and honorable. He began a methodical devastation of Numidia, and forced Jugurtha to abandon the field and resort to guerilla warfare. He also tried to stir up disloyalty among the king’s followers. But he failed to kill or capture the latter, which alone would terminate the war. Hence when he scornfully refused the request of Marius to be allowed to return and stand for the consulship in 108, Marius intrigued to get the command transferred to himself, alleging that Metellus was purposely prolonging the campaign. Finally, Metellus saw fit to let him go and he was elected consul for the following year. However, the Senate, wishing to keep Metellus in command, had not designated Numidia as a consular province. And so the popular party passed a law in the Assembly of the Tribes which conferred the command against Jugurtha upon Marius. The Senate yielded to this encroachment upon its prerogatives and Marius superseded Metellus in 107. His quaestor was Lucius Cornelius Sulla, scion of a decayed patrician family, who was destined to become the bitter rival of his chief.
The end of the war: 107–105 B. C. Marius continued the methodical subjugation of Numidia, but Jugurtha was strengthened by an alliance with his father-in-law Bocchus, king of Mauretania. However, Marius won several hard fought battles over the forces of both kings, and finally, through the agency of Sulla, detached Bocchus from the cause of Jugurtha. Bocchus treacherously seized his son-in-law and handed him over to the Romans. This brought the war to an end. Numidia was divided among princes friendly to Rome, and Marius returned to triumph in Rome, and to find himself elected consul for the year 104 in defiance of precedent, owing to the fear of a barbarian invasion of Italy from the north and the popular confidence in him engendered by his African successes. Jugurtha, after gracing his victor’s triumph, perished in a Roman dungeon.