Part 10 (1/2)

It is said that the division of the army, commanded by Marius, soon found itself enjoying a much easier time than before;[1058] the stern legate had become placable, if not forgetful--a circ.u.mstance which may be explained either by the view that a care greater than that of military discipline sat upon his mind, or by a belief that the new-born graciousness was meant to offer a pleasing contrast to the rigour of Metellus. But in this case the civilian element in the province was of more importance than the army. The merchant-princes of Utica, groaning over the vanished capital which they had invested in Numidian concerns, heard a criticism and a boast which appealed strongly to their impatient minds. Marius had said, or was believed to have said, that if but one half of the army were entrusted to him, he would have Jugurtha in chains in a few days;[1059] that the war was being purposely prolonged to satisfy the empty-headed pride which the commander felt in his position.

The merchants had long been reflecting on the causes of the prolongation of the war with all the ignorance and impatience that greed supplies; now these causes seemed to be revealed in a simple and convincing light.

The unfortunate house of Masinissa was also made to play its part in the movement. It was represented in the Roman camp by Gauda son of Mastanabal, a prince weak both in body and mind, but the legitimate heir to the Numidian crown, if it was taken from Jugurtha and Micipsa's last wishes were fulfilled. For the old king in framing his testament had named Gauda as heir in remainder to the kingdom, if his two sons and Jugurtha should die without issue.[1060] The nearness of the succession, now that the reigning king of Numidia was an enemy of the Roman people, had prompted the prince to ask Metellus for the distinctions that he deemed suited to his rank, a seat next that of the commander-in-chief, a guard of Roman knights[1061] for his person. Both requests had been refused--the place of honour because it belonged only to those whom the Roman people had addressed as kings, the guard, because it was derogatory to the knights of Rome to act as escort to a Numidian. The prince may have taken the refusal, not merely as an insult in itself, but as a hint that Metellus did not recognise him as a probable successor to Jugurtha. He was in an anxious and moody frame of mind when he was approached by Marius and urged to lean on him, if he would gain satisfaction for the commander's contumely. The glowing words of his new friend made hope appeal to his weak mind almost with the strength of certainty. He was the grandson of Masinissa, the immediate occupant of the Numidian throne, should Jugurtha be captured or slain; the crown might be his at no distant date, should Marius be made consul and sent to the war. He should make appeal to his friends in Rome to secure the means which would lead to the desired end. The s.h.i.+p that bore the prince's letter to Rome took many other missives from far more important men--all of them with a strange unanimity breathing the same purport, ”Metellus was mismanaging the war, Marius should be made commander”.

They were written by knights in the province--some of them officers in the army, others heads of commercial houses[1062]--to their friends and agents in Rome. All of these correspondents had not been directly solicited by Marius, but in some mysterious way the hope of peace in Africa had become indissolubly a.s.sociated with his name. The central bureau of the great mercantile system would soon be working in his favour. Who would withstand it? Certainly not the senate still shaken by the Mamilian law; still less the people who wanted but a new suggestion to change the character of their attack. All things seemed working for Marius.

It was soon shown that, whoever the future commander of Numidia was to be, he would have a real war on his hands; for the struggle had suddenly sprung into new and vigorous life, and one of the few permanent successes of Rome was annihilated in a moment by the craft of the reawakened Jugurtha. The preparations of the king must have been conjectured from their results; their first issue was a complete surprise; for few could have dreamed that the personal influence of the monarch, who had given away so much for an elusive hope of safety and had almost been a prisoner in the Roman lines, should a.s.sert itself in the very heart of the country believed to be pacified and now held by Roman garrisons. The town of Vaga, the intended basis of supplies for an army advancing to the south or west, the seat of an active commerce and the home of merchants from many lands who traded under the aegis of the Roman peace and a Roman garrison perched on the citadel, was suddenly thrilled by a message from the king, and answered to the appeal with a burst of heartfelt loyalty--a loyalty perhaps quickened by the native hatred of the ways of the foreign trader. The self-restraint of the patriotic plotters was as admirable as their devotion to a cause so nearly lost. Many hundreds must have been cognisant of the scheme, yet not a word reached the ears of those responsible for the security of the town. Even the poorest conspirator did not dream of the fortune that might be reaped from the sale of so vast a secret, and the Roman was as ignorant of the hidden significance of native demeanour as he was of the subtleties of the native tongue. In eye and gesture he could read nothing but feelings of friendliness to himself, and he readily accepted the invitation to the social gathering which was to place him at the mercy of his host.[1063] The third day from the date at which the plot was first conceived offered a golden opportunity for an attack which should be unsuspected and resistless. It was the day of a great national festival, on which leisured enjoyment took the place of work and every one strove to banish for the time the promptings of anxiety and fear.

The officers of the garrison had been invited by their acquaintances within the town to share in their domestic celebrations. They and their commandant, t.i.tus Turpilius Sila.n.u.s, were reclining at the feast in the houses of their several hosts when the signal was given. The tribunes and centurions were ma.s.sacred to a man; Turpilius alone was spared; then the conspirators turned on the rank and file of the Roman troops. The position of these was pitiable. Scattered in the streets, without weapons and without a leader, they saw the holiday throng around them suddenly transformed into a ferocious mob. Even such of the meaner cla.s.ses as had up to this time been innocent of the murderous plot, were soon baying at their heels; some of these were hounded on by the conspirators; others saw only that disturbance was on foot, and the welcome knowledge of this fact alone served to spur them to a senseless frenzy of a.s.sault. The Roman soldiers were merely victims; there was never a chance of a struggle which would make the sacrifice costly, or even difficult.[1064] The citadel, in which their s.h.i.+elds and standards hung, was in the occupation of the foe; when they sought the city gates, they found the portals closed; when they turned back upon the streets, the line of fury was deeper than before, for the women and the very children on the level housetops were hurling stones or any missiles that came to hand on the hated foreigners below. Strength and skill were of no avail; such qualities could not even prolong the agony; the veteran and the tyro, the brave and the shrinking, were struck or cut down with equal ease and swiftness. Only one man succeeded in slipping through the gates. This was the commandant Turpilius himself. Even the lenient view that a lucky chance or the pity of his host had given him his freedom, did not clear him of the stain which the tyrannical tradition of Roman arms stamped on every commander who elected to survive the ma.s.sacre of the division entrusted to his charge.[1065]

When the news was brought to Metellus, the heart-sick general buried himself in his tent.[1066] But his first grief was soon spent, and his thoughts turned to a scheme of vengeance on the treacherous town.

Rapidly and carefully the scheme was unfolded in his mind, and by the setting of the sun the first steps towards the recovery of Vaga had been taken. In the dusk he left his camp with the legion which had been stationed in his own quarters and as large a force of Numidian cavalry as he could collect. Both horse and foot were slenderly equipped, for he was bent on a surprise and a long and hard night's march lay before him.

He was still speeding on three hours after the sun had risen on the following day. The tired soldiers cried a halt, but Metellus spurred them on by pointing to the nearness of their goal (Vaga, he showed, was but a mile distant, just beyond the line of hills which shut out their view), the sanct.i.ty of the work of vengeance, the certainty of a rich reward in plunder. He paused but to reform his men. The cavalry were deployed in open order in the van; the infantry followed in a column so dense that nothing distinctive in their equipment or organisation could be discerned from afar, and the standards were carefully concealed.[1067] When the men of Vaga saw the force bearing down upon their town, their first and right impression led them to close the gates; but two facts soon served to convince them of their error. The supposed enemy was not attempting to ravage their land, and the hors.e.m.e.n who rode near the walls were clearly men of Numidian blood. It was the king himself, they cried, and with enthusiastic joy they poured from the gates to meet him. The Romans watched them come; then at a given signal the closed ranks opened, as each division rushed to its appointed task.

Some charged and cut in pieces the helpless mult.i.tude that had poured upon the plain; others seized the gates, others again the now undefended towers on the walls. All sense of weariness had suddenly vanished from limbs now stimulated by the l.u.s.t of vengeance and of plunder. The slaughter was pitiless, the search for plunder as thorough as the slaughter. The war had not yet given such a prize as this great trading town. Its ruin was the general's loss as it was the soldiers' gain; but the need for rapid vengeance vanquished every other sentiment in Metellus's mind. Roman punishment was as swift as it was sure, if but two days could elapse between the sin and the suffering of the men of Vaga. A gloomy task still remained. Inquiry must be made as to the mode in which Turpilius the commandant had escaped unharmed from the ma.s.sacre. The investigation was a bitter trial to Metellus; for the accused was bound to him by close ties of hereditary friends.h.i.+p, and had been accredited by him with the command of the corps of engineers.[1068]

The command at Vaga had been a further mark of favour, and it was believed by some that Turpilius had justified his commander's hopes only too well, and that it was his very humanity and consideration for the townsfolk under his command which had offered him means of escape such as only the most resolute would have refused.[1069] But the scandal was too grave to admit of a private inquiry, in which the honour of the army might seem to be sacrificed to the caprice of the friendly judgment of Metellus. His very familiarity with the accused entailed the duty of a cold impartiality, and Turpilius found little credence or excuse for the tale that he unfolded before the members of the court which adjudicated on his case. The harsh view of Marius was particularly recalled in the light of subsequent events. The fact or fancy that it was Marius who had himself condemned and had urged his brother judges to deliver an adverse vote, was seized by the gatherers of gossip, ever ready to discover a sinister motive in the actions of the man who never forgot, was embedded in that prose epic of the ”Wrath of Marius” which subsequently adorned the memoirs of the great, and became a story of how the relentless lieutenant had, in malignant disregard of his own convictions, caused Metellus to commit the inexpiable wrong of dooming a guest-friend to an unworthy death.[1070] The death was inflicted with all the barbarity of Roman military law; Turpilius was scourged and beheaded,[1071] and through this final expiation the episode of Vaga remained to many minds a still darker horror than before.

But much had been gained by the recovery of the revolted town. It is true that in its present condition it was almost useless to its possessors; but its fate must have stayed the progress of revolt in other cities, and the rapidity of Metellus's movements had hampered Jugurtha's immediate plans. The king had probably intended that Vaga should be a second Zama, and that the Romans should be kept at bay by its strong walls while he himself hara.s.sed their rear or attacked their camp. Now the scene of a successful guerilla warfare must be sought elsewhere. Its choice depended on the movements of the Roman army; but the time for the commencement of the new struggle was postponed longer than it might have been by a domestic danger which, while it confirmed the king in his resolution to struggle to the bitter end, absorbed his attention for the moment and hampered his operations in the field.

Bomilcar's negotiations with Rome were bearing their deadly fruit.[1072]

The minister was a victim of that expectant anguish, which springs from the failure of a treacherous scheme, when the cause of that failure is unknown. Why had the king broken off the negotiations? Was he himself suspected? Would the danger be lessened, if he remained quiescent? It might be increased, for the peril from Rome still existed, and there was the new terror from the vengeance of a master, whose suspicion seemed to his affrighted soul to be revealing itself in a cold neglect. Bomilcar determined that he would face but a single peril, and plunged into a course of intrigue far more dangerous than any which he had yet essayed.

He no longer worked through underlings or appealed to the emissaries of Rome. He aimed at internal revolution, at the fall of the king by the hands of his servants--a stroke which he might exhibit to the suzerain power as his own meritorious work--and he adopted as a confidant a man of his own rank and at the moment of greater influence than himself.

Nabdalsa was the new favourite of Jugurtha. He was a man of high birth, of vast wealth, of great and good repute in the district of Numidia which he ruled. His fame and power had been increased by his appointment to the command of such forces as the king could not lead in person, and he was now operating with an army in the territory between the head-quarters of Jugurtha and the Roman winter camp, his mission being to prevent the country being overrun with complete impunity by the invaders. His reason for listening to the overtures of Bomilcar is unknown; perhaps he knew too much of the military situation to believe in his master's ultimate success, and aimed at securing his own territorial power by an appeal to the grat.i.tude of Rome. But he had not his a.s.sociate's motive for hasty execution; and when Bomilcar warned him that the time had come, his mind was appalled by the magnitude of a deed that had only been prefigured in an ambiguous and uncertain shape. The time for meeting came and pa.s.sed. Bomilcar was in an agony of impatient fear. The doubtful att.i.tude of his a.s.sociate opened new possibilities of danger; a new terror had been added to the old, and the motive for despatch was doubled. His alarm found vent in a brief but frantic letter which mingled gloomy predictions of the consequences of delay with fierce protestations and appeals. Jugurtha, he urged, was doomed, the promises of Metellus might at any moment work the ruin of them both, and Nabdalsa's choice lay between reward and torture.[1073]

When this missive was delivered by a faithful hand, the general, tired in mind and body, had stretched himself upon a couch. The fiery words did not stimulate his ardour; they plunged him still deeper in a train of anxious thought, until utter weariness gave way to sleep. The letter rested on his pillow. Suddenly the covering of the tent door was noiselessly raised. His faithful secretary, who believed that he knew all his master's secrets, had heard of the arrival of a courier. His help and skill would be needed, and he had antic.i.p.ated Nabdalsa's demand for his presence. The letter caught his eye; he lightly picked it up and read it, as in duty bound--for did he not deal with all letters, and could there be aught of secrecy in a paper so carelessly laid down? The plot now flashed across his eyes for the first time, and he slipped from the tent to hasten with the precious missive to the king. When Nabdalsa awoke, his thoughts turned to the letter which had hara.s.sed his last waking moments. It was gone, and he soon found that his secretary had disappeared as well. A fruitless attempt to pursue the fugitive convinced him that his only hope lay in the clemency, prudence or credulity of Jugurtha. Hastening to his master, he a.s.sured him that the service which he had been on the eve of rendering had been antic.i.p.ated by the treachery of his dependent; let not the king forget their close friends.h.i.+p, his proved fidelity; these should exempt him from suspicion of partic.i.p.ation in such a horrid crime.

Jugurtha replied in a conciliatory tone.[1074] Neither then nor afterwards did he betray any trace of violent emotion. Bomilcar and many of his accomplices were put to death swiftly and secretly; but it was not well that rumours of a widely spread treason should be noised abroad. The pretence of security was a means of ensuring safety, and he had to ask too much of his Numidians to indulge even the severity that he held to be his due. Yet it was believed that the tenor of Jugurtha's life was altered from that moment. It was whispered that the bold soldier and intrepid ruler searched dark corners with his eyes and started at sudden sounds, that he would exchange his sleeping chamber for some strange and often humble resting place at night, and that sometimes in the darkness he would start from sleep, seize his sword and cry aloud, as though maddened by the terror of his dreams.

The news of the fall of Bomilcar swept from Metellus's mind the last faint hope that the war might be brought to a speedy close by the immediate surrender of Jugurtha,[1075] and he began to make earnest preparations for a fresh campaign. In the new struggle he was to be deprived of the services of his ablest officer, for Marius had at length gained his end and had won from his commander a tardy permit to speed to Rome and seek the prize, which was doubtless still believed in the uninformed circles of the camp to be utterly beyond his grasp. The consent, though tardy, was finally given with a good will, for Metellus had begun to doubt the wisdom of keeping by his side a lieutenant whose restless discontent and growing resentment to his superior were beyond all concealment. Marius must have wished that his general's choler had been stirred at an earlier date, for the leave had been deferred to a season which would have deterred a less strenuous mind, from all thoughts of a political campaign during the current year. Delay, however, might be fatal; the war might be brought to a dazzling close before the consular elections again came round; the political balance at Rome might alter; it was necessary to reap at once the harvest of mercantile greed and popular distrust that had been so carefully prepared. It is possible that the usual date for the elections had already been pa.s.sed and that It was only the postponement of the Comitia that gave Marius a chance of success.[1076] Even then it was a slender one, for it was believed in later times that his leave had been won only twelve days before the day fixed for the declaration of the consuls.[1077] In two days and a night he had covered the ground that lay between the camp and Utica. Here he paused to sacrifice before taking s.h.i.+p to Italy. The cheering words of the priest who read the omens[1078] seemed to be approved by the good fortune of his voyage. A favourable wind bore him in four days across the sea, and he reached Rome to find men craving for his presence as the crowning factor in a popular movement, delightful in its novelty and entered into with a genuine enthusiasm by the ma.s.ses, who were fully conscious that there was a wrong of some undefined kind to be set right, and were as a whole perhaps blissfully ignorant of the intrigues by which they were being moved. Yet the thinking portion of the community had some grounds for resentment and alarm. The Numidian was not merely injuring those interested in African finance, but was engaging an army that was sadly needed elsewhere. The struggle in the North was going badly for Rome, and despatches had lately brought the news of the defeat of the consul Sila.n.u.s by a vast and wandering horde known as the Cimbri,[1079] who hovered like a threatening cloud on the farther side of the Alps and might at no distant date sweep past the barrier of Italy. The senatorial government, although its position had not been formally a.s.sailed, had been sufficiently shaken by the Mamilian commission to distrust its power of stemming an adverse tide; and Scaurus, its chief bulwark, had lately been so ill-advised as to force a conflict with const.i.tutional procedure in a way which could not be approved by a cla.s.s of men to which the smallest precedent of political life that had once been stereotyped, appealed as a vital element in administration. He had spoilt a magnificent display of energy during his tenure of the censors.h.i.+p--an energy that issued in the rebuilding of the Mulvian bridge[1080] and in the continuance of the great coast road[1081] from Etruria past Genua to Dertona in the basin of the Po--by an unconst.i.tutional attempt to continue in his office after the death of his colleague. His resignation had been enforced by some of the tribunes;[1082] and the great man seems still to have been under the pa.s.sing cloud engendered by his own obstinate ambition, when the intrigues of the ever-dreaded coalition of the mercantile cla.s.ses and the popular leaders were completed by the arrival of Marius.

This new figurehead of the democracy had a comparatively easy part a.s.signed him. Had it been necessary for him to persuade, he would probably have failed, for he lacked the gifts of the orator and the suppleness of the intriguer; but he was expected only to confirm, and better confirmation was to be gained from his martial bearing and his rugged manner than from his halting words. The speaking might be done by others more practised in the art; a few words of harsh verification from this living exemplar of the virtues of the people were all that was demanded. His censure of Metellus was followed by a promise that he would take Jugurtha alive or dead.[1083] The censure and the promise gave the text for a fiery stream of opposition oratory. Threats of prosecuting Metellus on a capital charge were mingled with pa.s.sionate a.s.sertions of confidence in the true soldier who could vindicate the honour of Rome. The excitement spread even beyond the lazier rabble of the city. Honest artisans, who were usually untouched by the delirious forms of politics, and even thrifty country farmers,[1084] to whom time meant money at this busy season of the year, were drawn into the throng that gazed at Marius and listened to the burning words of his supporters. Against such a concourse the n.o.bility and its dependents could make no head. The people who had come to listen stayed to vote, and the suffrage of the centuries gave the ”new man” as a colleague to Lucius Ca.s.sius Longinus. But this triumph was but the prelude to another. The people, now a.s.sembled in the plebeian gathering of the tribes, were asked by the tribune t.i.tus Manlius Mancinus whom they willed to conduct the war against Jugurtha. The answer ”Marius” was given by overwhelming numbers, and the decision already reached by the senate was brushed aside. That body had, in the exercise of its legal authority, determined the provinces which should be administered by the consuls of the coming year.[1085] Numidia had not been one of these, for it had unquestionably been destined for Metellus. Gaul, on the other hand, called for the presence of a consul and a soldier; and the senate, although it had no power to make a definite appointment to this province, had perhaps intended that Marius, if elected, should be entrusted with its defence. Had this resolution been adopted, the paths of Marius and Metellus would have ceased to cross; the Numidian war, which demanded patience and diplomacy but not genius, might have dwindled gradually away; and the barbarians of the North might have yielded to their future victor before they had established their gloomy record of triumphs over the arms of Rome. But this was not to be. The party triumph would be incomplete if the senate's nominee was not ousted from his command. We cannot say whether Marius shared in the blindness which saw a more glorious field for military energy in Numidia than in Gaul; personal rivalry and political pa.s.sion may have already blunted the instincts of the soldier. But, whatever his thoughts may have been, his actions were determined by a superior force. He was but a p.a.w.n in the hands of tribunes and capitalists; he had made promises which had raised hopes, definitely commercial and vaguely political. These hopes it must be his mission to fulfil. Before quitting Rome he found words[1086] which vented all the spleen of the cla.s.ses screened out of office by the close-drawn ring of the n.o.bility. The plat.i.tudes of merit, tested by honest service and approved by distinctions won in war, were advanced against the claims of birth; the luxurious life of the n.o.bility was gibbeted on the ground that sensuality was a bar to energy and efficiency; even the elegant and conscientious taste of the cultured commander, who supplied the defects of experience by the perusal of Greek works on military tactics during his journey to the scene of war, was held up to criticism as a sign that the vain and ignorant amateur was usurping the tasks that belonged to the tried and hardy expert.[1087] Fortunately the energy of Marius was better expended on deeds than words. Whether the African war really required a more vigorous army than that serving under Metellus, might be an open question. Marius pretended that the need was patent, and exhibited the greatest energy in beating up veteran legionaries and attracting to his standard such of the Latin allies as had already approved their skill in service.[1088] The senate lent a ready hand. Nothing was more unpopular than a drastic levy, and the favourite might fail when he called for a fulfilment of the brave language that had been heard on every side. But the confidence in the new commander baffled its hopes; the conscripts were marching to glory not to danger, and the supplementary army, that was to avert a phantom peril and save an imaginary situation, was soon enrolled. Such a demonstration had often been seen before in Rome; the energy of an ambitious commander had with lamentable frequency rebuked the indolence or confidence of his predecessor, and Marius was but following in the footsteps of Bestia and Albinus. The real merits of his labours were due to his freedom from a strange superst.i.tion which had hitherto clung to the minds even of the best commanders that the later Republic had produced. They had continued to hold the theory that the effective soldier must be a man of means--a belief inherited from the simple days of border warfare, when each conscript supplied his panoply and the landless man could serve only as a half-armed skirmisher. For ages past the principle had been breaking down. The vast forces required for foreign wars demanded a wider area for the conscription; but this area, as defined by the old conditions of service, so far from increasing, was ever becoming less. In the age of Polybius the minimum qualification requisite for service in the legions had sunk from eleven thousand to four thousand a.s.ses;[1089] later it had been reduced to a yet lower level;[1090] but, in spite of these concessions to necessity, the senate had refused to accept the lesson, taught by the military needs of the State and the social condition of Italy, that an empire cannot be garrisoned by an army of conscripts. The legal power to effect a radical alteration had long been in their hands; for the poorer proletariate of Rome whom the law described as the men a.s.sessed ”on their heads,” not on their holdings, had probably been liable to military service of any kind in time of need.[1091] Perhaps it was mere conservatism, perhaps it was a faint perception of the truth that an armed rabble is fonder of men than inst.i.tutions, and an appreciation of the fact that the hold of the n.o.bility over the capital would be weakened if their clients were allowed to don the armour which made them men, that had kept the senate within the strait limits of the antiquated rules. Fortunately, however, the methods of raising an army depended almost entirely on the discretion of the general engaged on the task.

Did he employ the conscription in a manner not justified by convention, he might be met by resistance and appeals; but, if he chose to invite to service, there was no power which could prescribe the particular modes in which he should employ the units that flocked to his standard. It was this latter method that was adopted by Marius. He did not strain his popularity, and invite a conflict with senatorial tribunes, by forcing foreign service on the ragged freemen who had hailed him as the saviour of the State; but he invited their a.s.sistance in the glorious work and asked them to be his comrades in the triumphal progress that lay before him.[1092] The spirit of adventure, if not of patriotism, was touched: the call was readily answered, and the stalwart limbs that had lounged idly on the streets or striven vainly to secure the subsistence of the favoured slave, became the instruments by which the State was to be first protected and finally controlled. The conscription still remained as the resort of necessity; but the creation of the first mercenary army of Rome pointed to the mode in which any future commander could avoid the friction and unpopularity which often attended the enforcement of liability to service. The innovation of Marius was sufficiently startling to attract comment and invite conjecture. Some held that the army had been democratised to suit the consuls.h.i.+p, and that the ma.s.ses who had seen in Marius's elevation the realisation of the vague and detached ambitions of the poor, would continue to furnish a sure support to the power which they had created.[1093] It is not unlikely that Marius, with his knowledge of the tone of the army of Metellus, may have wished to create for himself an environment that would mould the temper of his future officers; but those more friendly critics who held that efficiency was his immediate aim, and that ”the bad” were chosen only because ”the good” were scarce,[1094] suggested the reason that was probably dominant as a motive and was certainly adequate as a defence.

No thought of the ultimate triumph of the individual over the State by the help of a devoted soldiery could have crossed the mind either of the consul or of his critics. The Republic was as yet sacred, however unhealthy its chief organs might be deemed; and although Marius was to live to see the sinister fruit of his own reform, the harvest was to be reaped by a rival, and the first fruits enjoyed by the senate whom that rival served.

While the election of Marius, his appointment to Numidia, and his preparations for the campaign were in progress, the war had been pa.s.sing through its usual phases of skirmishes and sieges. For a time no certain news could be had of the king; he was reported at one moment to be near the Roman lines, at another to be buried in the solitude of the desert;[1095] the annoyance caused by his baffling changes of plan was avenged by the interpretation that they were symptoms of a disordered mind; his old counsellors were said to have been dispersed, his new ones to be distrusted; it was believed that he changed his route and his officers from day to day, and that he retreated or retraced his steps as the terrors of suspicion and despair alternated with the faintly surviving hope that a stand might yet be made. Only once did he come into conflict with Metellus.[1096] The site of the skirmish is unknown, and its result was indecisive. The Numidian army is said to have been surprised and to have formed hastily for battle. The division led by the king offered a brief resistance; the rest of the line yielded at once to the Roman onset. A few standards and arms, a handful of prisoners, were all that the victors had to show for their triumph. The nimble enemy had disappeared beyond all hope of capture or pursuit.

After a time news was brought that the king had made for the southern desert with a fraction of his mounted troops and the Roman deserters, whose despair ensured their loyalty. He had shut himself up in Thala,[1097] a large and wealthy town to which his treasures and his children had already been transferred. This city lay some thirteen miles east of the oasis of Capsa, and a dismal and waterless desert stretched between the Romans and the refuge of the king. No Roman army had at any part of the campaign attempted to penetrate such trackless regions, and the court at Thala may have believed even this foretaste of the desert to be an adequate protection against an enemy which clung to towns and cultivated lands and relied, in the c.u.mbrous manner of civilised warfare, on organised lines of communication. But the news that Jugurtha had at last occupied a position, the strength of which, together with the presence of his family and treasures within its walls, might supply a motive for a lengthy residence within the town and even suggest the resolution of holding it against every hazard, fired Metellus with a hope which the awkward political situation at Rome must have made more real than it deserved to be. The end of the war might be in sight, if he could only cross that belt of burning land. His plan was rapidly formed.

The burden of the baggage animals was reduced to ten days' supply of corn; skins of water were laid upon their backs; the domestic cattle from the fields were driven in, and they were laden with every kind of vessel that could be gathered from the Numidian homesteads. The villagers in the neighbourhood of the recent victory, whom the flight of the king had made for the moment the humble servants of Rome, were bidden to bring water to a certain spot, and the day was named on which this mission was to be fulfilled. Metellus's own vessels were filled from the river, and the rapid march to Thala was begun. The resting place was reached and the camp was entrenched; water was there in greater abundance than had been asked or hoped, for a sharp downpour of rain made the plethoric skins presented by the punctual Numidians almost a superfluous luxury and, as a happy omen, cheered the souls of the soldiers as much as it refreshed their bodies.[1098] The devoted villagers had also brought an unexpectedly large supply of corn, so eager were they to give emphatic proof of their newly acquired loyalty.