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The curtain rose and there stood the inheritor of the warlike name of Jugurtha. He was rather sober and melancholy, and was dressed in a semi-military style that betrayed not in the least the fact to what flag he might possibly be attached. Sid was crouching down, hiding behind a barrel. "What am I?" Juggie now asked in low tones, "American or British?"
It was soon shown that, whoever the future commander of Numidia was to be, he would have a real war on his hands; for the struggle had suddenly sprung into new and vigorous life, and one of the few permanent successes of Rome was annihilated in a moment by the craft of the reawakened Jugurtha.
Above the tumults of the factions in the Capitol a cry rising into shrillness began to be heard from Italy. Caius Gracchus had wished to extend the Roman franchise to the Italian states, and the suggestion had cost him his popularity and his life. The Italian provinces had furnished their share of the armies which had beaten Jugurtha, and had destroyed the German invaders.
"At Rome," they told him, "all things could be had for money." They advised him to buy the support of Rome, and seize the crown of Numidia. Jugurtha took this base advice, instead of the wise counsel of Scipio. He was destined to pay dearly for his ambition and lack of faith and honor. One of the young princes showed a high spirit, and Jugurtha had him assassinated.
Officially Metellus gave evasive answers to the proposals of the king; secretly he instigated the envoys to deliver their master living or dead to the Romans. But, when the Roman general undertook to compete with the African in the field of assassination, he there met his master; Jugurtha saw through the plan, and, when he could not do otherwise, prepared for a desperate resistance.
Outside, it was only a green, prickly ball; inside, was a deep nest, filled with a cluster of pink blossoms. We looked into the beautiful Blue Cañon blue with mist. Hundreds of feet below us was the gliding silver line of a stream. At one of our stopping-places was a team of buffalo and oxen working together. To see this chief Manitou of the Indians so degraded, was like seeing a captive Jugurtha.
His circumstances no less than his temperament dictated methods of peace: and, if he could not keep his crown by diplomacy, he must have regarded it as lost. The Roman people was a better safeguard than his Numidian subjects, and it was necessary to temporise with Jugurtha until the senate could be moved by a strong appeal.
In truth, a formidable indictment might be brought against Jugurtha, nor was it the care of any one to discriminate which of the counts referred to acts of war, and which must be classed in the category of merely private crimes. It was the custom of Rome, and any derogation of the iron rule was an act of singular grace.
This induced Massiva, a grandson of Massinissa living in Rome, to assert before the senate his claims to the vacant Numidian kingdom; upon which Bomilcar, one of the confidants of king Jugurtha, doubtless under his instructions made away with the rival of his master by assassination, and, when he was prosecuted on account of it, escaped with Jugurtha's aid from Rome.
They did not deign to set foot in Numidia, but sent a message to Jugurtha informing him that they had a mandate from the senate and ordering him to come with all speed to the Roman province. Jugurtha was for the moment torn by conflicting resolutions. The very audacity of his acts had been tempered and in part directed by a secret fear of Rome.
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