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Updated: June 22, 2025
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?
The envoys demanded that Jugurtha should allow them as deputed by the protecting power to Adherbal to enter the city, and generally that he should suspend hostilities and accept their mediation. Jugurtha summarily rejected both demands, and the envoys hastily returned home like boys, as they were to report to the fathers of the city.
It was true that Adherbal could claim little in his own right; he was a suppliant before he could be a benefactor, stripped of all power of benefiting his great protector before his devotion could be put to the test. Yet he could claim a debt; for he was the sole relic of a dynasty that had given their all to Rome.
Nay, it might be argued that Adherbal had by his weakness proved his unfitness to be an efficient agent of Rome. It might be asked whether such a man was likely to be an adequate representative of Roman interests in Africa, an adequate protector of the frontiers of the province.
It was not till, in the fifth month of the siege, a messenger of Adherbal stole through the entrenchments of the enemy and a letter of the king full of the most urgent entreaties reached the senate, that the latter roused itself and actually adopted a resolution not to declare war as the minority demanded but to send a new embassy an embassy, however, headed by Marcus Scaurus, the great conqueror of the Taurisci and the freedmen, the imposing hero of the aristocracy, whose mere appearance would suffice to bring the refractory king to a different mind.
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.
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.
"That's all very well," the girl said, pouting; "but how do you know that I shall be willing to give up all the delights of Carthage to go among the savage Iberians, where they say the ground is all white in winter and even the rivers stop in their courses?" Adherbal laughed lightly. "Then it is not for you to talk about indifference, Thyra; but it won't be so bad as you fear.
Adherbal was forced by panic to arm in his own defence, and most of those who remained loyal to the memory of Micipsa gathered to the standard of the legitimate heir. But Jugurtha's fame amongst the fighting men of the kingdom stood him in good stead. His adherents were the fewer in number, but they were the more effective warriors.
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.
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