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Jugurtha's representative was Aspar, a Numidian subject who had been sent by his master as soon as the news had been brought of Bocchus's demand for the presence of Sulla. He had been sent to watch the negotiations and, if possible, to plead his monarch's cause. The advocate of Rome was Dabar, also a Numidian but of the royal line and therefore hostile to Jugurtha.
Sulla knew that his life depended on the caprice, or the momentary sense of self-interest, of a barbarian who was believed to have shrunk from no crime and on whose head Rome had put a price. Yet he did not hesitate. He passed with Volux through the lines of Jugurtha's camp, and the desperate Numidian never stirred.
It was necessary for the enemy of the Roman people to pass through a preliminary stage of humiliation before he could be recognised as a friend; it was all the more imperative in this case since a number of angry people in Rome were clamouring for Jugurtha's punishment. It was also necessary to arrange a plan by which the humiliation might be effected with the least inconvenience to both parties.
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.
That Gauda became Jugurtha's successor is indicated by Sallust, c. 65 and Dio. As Mauretania was twice enlarged by the Romans, first in 649 after the surrender of Jugurtha, and then in 708 after the breaking up of the Numidian kingdom, it is probable that the region of Caesarea was added on the first, and that of Sitifis on the second augmentation.
Had Bomilcar still been free to bar the passage to the river and to join Jugurtha's forces during the night, the position of the Romans would still have been exceedingly dangerous. But the mission of Rutilius had successfully diverted that general's attention from what had been the main purpose of the original plan.
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 consul approached Massiva and urged him to make a case out of the odium excited and the fears inspired by Jugurtha's crimes, and to approach the senate with a request for the kingdom of Numidia. The prince caught at the suggestion, the petition was prepared, and this new and unexpected movement began to make itself felt.
That Gauda became Jugurtha's successor is indicated by Sallust, c. 65 and Dio. As Mauretania was twice enlarged by the Romans, first in 649 after the surrender of Jugurtha, and then in 708 after the breaking up of the Numidian kingdom, it is probable that the region of Caesarea was added on the first, and that of Sitifis on the second augmentation.
It was to the effect that the praetor Lucius Cassius Longinus should be sent to Jugurtha and bring him to Rome on the faith of a safe conduct granted by the State; Jugurtha's revelations were to be the key by which the secret chamber of the recent negotiations was to be unlocked, with the desired hope of convicting Scaurus and all others whose contact with the Numidian king, whether in the late or in past transactions, had suggested their corruption.
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