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Confident in their safety they advised Adherbal to hand over the town to Jugurtha; the only condition which he needed to make was the preservation of his own life and that of the besieged; all else was of less importance, for their future fortunes rested not with Jugurtha but with the senate.
"Well, Malchus, what do you think of lion hunting?" Adherbal asked as they gathered again in the general's tent. "They are terrible beasts," Malchus said. "I had not thought that any beast could make so tremendous a roar. Of course I have heard those in captivity in Carthage, but it did not seem nearly so terrible as it sounded here in the stillness of the desert."
Jugurtha sent more presents to Rome, and, confident of his strength there, boldly invaded the dominions of Adherbal. A Roman commission threatened him with Rome's displeasure if he did not keep within his own dominions.
A rupture took place; Adherbal and Hiempsal were disposed to characterize their father's testament as surreptitious and altogether to dispute Jugurtha's right of joint inheritance, while on the other hand Jugurtha came forward as a pretender to the whole kingdom.
But a little later the gap betwixt the sea-mouse and the penteconter had so dwindled that even the master’s inborn thrift began to yield to prudence. “Hark you, Hib,” he cried from the helm. “Take Adherbal and Lars the Etruscan. It’s a good ten furlongs to that cursed galley still, but we must have those prisoners ready on deck. Over they go if the chase gets a bit closer.”
The very boisterousness of the championship induced a more rigorous attitude on the part of those who had not been approached by Jugurtha's envoys or had resisted their overtures. They maintained that Adherbal must be helped at all costs, and that strict punishment should be exacted for Hiempsal's murder.
When the first meeting of the joint rulers was held in the throne room, Hiempsal hurried to a seat at the right of Adherbal, that Jugurtha might not occupy the place of honour in the centre; it was with difficulty that he was induced by the entreaties of his brother to yield to the claims of age and to move to the seat on the other side. This struggle for precedence heralded the coming storm.
"Well, in your case, Thyra," Adherbal said, "it would make no difference, because you know you would have chosen me anyhow; but most girls would make a nice business of it. How are they to know what men really are? They might be gamesters, drunkards, brutal and cruel by nature, idle and spendthrift. What can maidens know of a man's disposition? Of course they only see him at his best.
The fall of Cirta and the death of Adherbal had forced him to find a refuge at Rome, where he continued to reside in peace until fate suddenly made him a pawn in the political game. At last there had arisen a definite section amongst the nobility which found it to its interest to offer an active opposition to Jugurtha's claims.
The most zealous champions of Adherbal's just title were with incredible rapidity convinced that Hiempsal had been put to death by his subjects on account of his cruelty, and that the originator of the war as to the succession was not Jugurtha, but Adherbal. Even the leading men in the senate were shocked at the scandal; Marcus Scaurus sought to check it, but in vain.
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