Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 28, 2025
When Marius returned to Cirta after the successful completion of his brief campaign, and heard of the arrival of the envoys, he asked Sulla to bring them to his quarters, and made preparations for assembling as formal a council as the resources of the province permitted. A praetor happened to be within its limits and several men of senatorial rank.
"They are not easy to get," rejoined the other, "but I was mightily lucky in my find. I was at Cirta in Numidia at a time when the dusky chief there one named Hazim Rhan had made a haul of six malcontents who I understood had conspired against his authority. It seems that these rebels had a leader who had succeeded in escaping to his desert fastness, and whom Hazim Rhan greatly desired to capture.
Jugurtha also sent envoys with plenty of money, to be given first to his old comrades, and then to men likely to be useful. So Adherbal received the eastern half which, though it contained the capital Cirta and better harbours and towns, consisted mostly of barren sand, while the more fertile portion was assigned to his rival.
He waited in his fortified camp near Cirta to watch events, when news was brought from Rome which proved to his mind that cautious inaction was now not merely the wiser but the only policy. The news that came by letter was of stunning force. Metellus had already learnt of Marius's election to the consulship.
How numerous they were in Delos, is evident from the tombstones still extant on the island and from the statement that 20,000 foreigners, mostly Italian merchants, were put to death there by command of Mithradates. In Africa the Italians were so many, that even the Numidian town of Cirta could be defended mainly by them against Jugurtha.
In the west Bocchus king of Mauretania, whose friendship the Romans had in earlier times despised, seemed now not indisposed to make common cause with his son-in-law against them; he not only received him in his court, but, uniting to Jugurtha's followers his own numberless swarms of horsemen, he marched into the region of Cirta, where Metellus was in winter quarters.
The slight successes of this war, such as the taking of Thala and of Capsa and the victories near Cirta, were attained by judicious adaptations to the new conditions, by the employment of light infantry and the increased use of cavalry; but even these improvements were of little avail, for effective pursuit was still impossible, and without pursuit the conflict could not be brought to a close.
In the Numidian territory newly annexed to the empire the important Cirta and the other communities assigned to the Roman condottiere Publius Sittius for himself and his troops obtained the legal position of Roman military colonies.
The pursuit gradually shifted to the west, and a series of sharp conflicts on the road ended finally in the rout of the king in the neighbourhood of Cirta.
Again, as in the discussion which had followed the fall of Cirta, the debates in the senate dragged on and there was a prospect of the question being indefinitely shelved a result which, when the popular agitation had cooled, would have meant the acceptance of the existing state of things. Again the stimulus to greater rapidity of decision was supplied by Memmius.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking