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Updated: June 22, 2025
He advanced into his rival's territory ravaging its fields, harrying its cities and gathering booty as he went. At every step the confidence of his own forces, the dismay of the enemy increased. Adherbal was at last convinced that he must appeal to the sword for the security of his crown.
Within a few days they were in the presence of the senate, and the despairing cry of Adherbal was being read to an assembly, to whom it could convey no new knowledge and on whom it could lay no added burden of perplexity. But emotion, although it cannot teach, may focus thought and clarify the promptings of interest.
Adherbal, who had made it the basis of his attack and must have foreseen the probability of his defeat, should have seen that it was well provisioned; and the vast cisterns and granaries cut in the solid rock, that were in later times to be found within the city, should have supplied water and food sufficient to prolong the siege to a degree that might have tried the senate's patience as sorely as Jugurtha's.
The most zealous champions of Adherbal's just title were with incredible rapidity convinced that Hiempsal had been put to death by his subjects on account of his cruelty, and that the originator of the war as to the succession was not Jugurtha, but Adherbal. Even the leading men in the senate were shocked at the scandal; Marcus Scaurus sought to check it, but in vain.
Then his men, getting into Thirmida one night, cut off Hiempsal's head and took it to their master. He then proceeded to seize town after town; all the best warriors rallied to his standard, and in a pitched battle he defeated Adherbal, who fled to Rome, whither he had previously sent ambassadors imploring aid.
Adherbal was totally defeated in the region of the modern Philippeville, and threw himself into his capital of Cirta in the immediate vicinity.
He had been obliged to release the captives from the stocks, but Hib had taken the precaution to place on the formidable athlete a pair of leg irons joined by a shackle. Not merely were Glaucon’s arms pinioned by a stout cord, but the great Libyan was gripping them tightly. Lars and Adherbal conducted the other prisoners, whose feet, however, were not bound.
The decision, which closed the unreal debate, recognised Jugurtha and Adherbal as joint rulers of Numidia.
It is questionable whether the Italians were really inspired with this blind confidence in the senate's power to restore as well as to save; even their ability to save was more than doubtful to Adherbal; still more worthless was a promise made by his enemy.
The hope was never present to the mind of Adherbal; he knew his enemy too well. Nor could it have been entertained in a very lively form by the king's Numidian councillors and subjects. But the Numidian was not the strongest element in Cirta. There the merchant class held sway.
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