Marius.
It was then, in the third year of the renewed war, that Metellus was recalled, and Marius, chosen consul, was left with the supreme command. But even he did not find it easy, with a conquering army, to seize Jugurtha, and he was restricted to a desultory war. At last Bocchus, king of Mauritania, slighted by the Romans, but in alliance with Jugurtha, effected by treachery what could [pg 502] not be gained by arms. He entered into negotiations with Marius to deliver up the king of Numidia, who had married his daughter, and had sought his protection. Marius sent Sulla to consummate the treachery. Jugurtha, the traitor, was thus in turn sacrificed, and became a Roman prisoner.
Close of the war.
This miserable war lasted seven years, and its successful termination secured to Marius a splendid triumph, at which the conquered king, with his two sons, appeared in chains before the triumphal car, and was then executed in the subterranean prison on the Capitoline Hill.
Results of the war.
Numidia was not converted into a Roman province, but into a client State, because the country could not be held without an army on the frontiers. The Jugurthan war was important in its consequences, since it brought to light the venality of the governing lords, and made it evident that Rome must be governed by a degenerate and selfish oligarchy, or by a tyrant, whether in the form of a demagogue, like Gracchus, or a military chieftain, like Marius.
The Cimbri.
But a more difficult war than that waged against the barbarians of the African deserts was now to be conducted against the barbarians of European forests. The war with the Cimbri was also more important in its political results. There had been several encounters with the northern nations of Spain, Gaul, and Italy, under different names, with different successes, which it would be tedious to describe. But the contest with the Cimbri has a great and historic interest, since they were the first of the Germanic tribes with which the Romans contended. Mommsen thinks these barbarians were Teutonic, although, among older historians, they were supposed to be Celts. The Cimbri were a migratory people, who left their northern homes with their wives and children, goods and chattels, to seek more congenial settlements than they had found in the Scandinavian forests. The wagon was their house. They were tall, fair-haired, with bright blue eyes. They were well armed with sword, spear, shield, and helmet. [pg 503] They were brave warriors, careless of danger, and willing to die. They were accompanied by priestesses, whose warnings were regarded as voices from heaven.
War with the Cimbri.
This homeless people of the Cimbri, prevented from advancing south on the Danube by the barrier raised by the Celts, advanced to the passes of the Carnian Alps, B.C. 113, protected by Gnæus Papirius Carbo, not far from Aquileia. An engagement took place not far from the modern Corinthia, where Carbo was defeated. Some years after, they proceeded westward to the left bank of the Rhine, and over the Jura, and again threatened the Roman territory. Again was a Roman army defeated under Silanus in Southern Gaul, and the Cimbri sent envoys to Rome, with the request that they might be allowed peaceful settlements. The Helvetii, stimulated by the successes of the Cimbri, also sought more fertile settlements in Western Gaul, and formed an alliance with the Cimbri. They crossed the Jura, the western barrier of Switzerland, succeeded in decoying the Roman army under Longinus into an ambush, and gained a victory.