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Now after the death of his two brothers Massinissa's eldest son, Micipsa, reigned alone, a feeble peaceful old man, who was fond of occupying himself more with the study of Greek philosophy than with affairs of state. As his sons were not yet grown up, the reins of government were practically held by an illegitimate nephew of the king, the prince Jugurtha.
In the year B.C. 118 Micipsa died, and a collision arose, as was to be expected, among his heirs. Hiempsal was assassinated, and the struggle for the Numidian crown lay between Adherbal and Jugurtha. The latter seized the whole territory, and Adherbal escaped to Rome, and laid his complaint before the Senate.
Even without this motive the kindly nature of Micipsa would probably have led him to look with favour on the orphan child of his brother; the young Jugurtha was reared in the palace and educated with the heirs presumptive, Adherbal and Hiempsal, the two sons of the reigning king.
It is not known why this scion of the royal house had been passed over in the regulation of the succession, although it is easily intelligible that Micipsa, with two sons of his own, might not have wished to increase the number of co-regents of Numidia by recognising his brother's heirs, and would not have done so had he not been forced by circumstances to adopt Jugurtha.
Micipsa, son of Masinissa, also sent corn to Orestes, but averred that it was out of respect to Gracchus. The Senate's fears and the esteem of foreigners were equally just. There was no gormandising with me, no handsome slaves in waiting, and at my table your sons saw more seemliness than at head-quarters.
He was succeeded by his son Micipsa, who in turn had two legitimate children, Hiempsal and Adherbal, and an illegitimate nephew Jugurtha, considerably older than his own boys, a young man of striking talent and promise. Micipsa, who was advanced in years, was afraid that if he died this brilliant youth might be a dangerous rival to his sons.
The testament came into force: but the two sons of Micipsa the vehement Hiempsal still more than his weak elder brother soon came into so violent collision with their cousin whom they looked on as an intruder into the legitimate line of succession, that the idea of a joint reign of the three kings had to be abandoned.
The decree of the senate enjoined the creation of a commission of ten, which should visit Numidia and divide the whole of the kingdom which had been possessed by Micipsa, between the rival chiefs.
Micipsa and his brothers retained in substance their former territory, including the districts recently wrested from the Carthaginians on the Bagradas and in Emporia; their long-cherished hope of obtaining Carthage as a capital was for ever frustrated; the senate presented them instead with the Carthaginian libraries. The Carthaginian territory as possessed by the city in its last days viz.
At last she struck one of the brass pateras which hung at the corners of the red mattress, crying: "To the rescue! to the rescue! Back, sacrilegious man! infamous and accursed! Help, Taanach, Kroum, Ewa, Micipsa, Schaoul!" And the scared face of Spendius, appearing in the wall between the clay flagons, cried out these words: "Fly! they are hastening hither!"
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