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Updated: May 28, 2025
The lower officers in authority, centurions and commanders of squadrons of horse, stole from the camp to hold converse with Jugurtha's spies; some sold themselves to desert to the Numidian army, others to quit their posts at a given signal. The mesh was at last prepared.
Jugurtha's fear and anger were increased by the sudden discovery that his friends at Rome were almost powerless to help him.
This, of all Jugurtha's acts of perfidy perhaps the mildest and most excusable, in spite of the awkward predicament in which it left the fifty securities, was the last of the baffling incidents that had been crowded into his short sojourn at Rome. His presence must have been an annoyance to every one.
The friendly city would have proved a hornets' nest, had not Marius bent all his efforts to thrusting a passage through Jugurtha's men and getting clear of the dangerous walls. In the more open ground the fighting was sharp but short. A few Numidians fell, the rest vanished from the field, and Marius came in safety to Zama, where he found Metellus contemplating his attack.
Spurius Albinus fell a victim to his own caution and the blunder of his too-enterprising brother; the caution was supposed to have been purchased by Jugurtha's gold, and the absent pro-consul was perhaps held responsible for the rashness or cupidity of his incompetent legate, who does not seem to have been himself assailed.
The framing of Jugurtha's scheme necessarily depended on his knowledge of Metellus's line of march.
"The friendship of the Roman people should be sought from the Roman people itself; no good could come of securing the support of individuals by equivocal means; there was a danger in purchasing public interest from a handful of vendors who professed to have power to sell; Jugurtha's own qualities were his best asset; they would secure him glory and a crown; if he tried to hasten on the course of events, the material means on which he relied might themselves provoke his utter ruin."
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