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Hanno's faction had now gained the upper hand, and the friends of Hannibal were subjected to persecution of all kinds. The very life of Adherbal as a prominent member of the Barcine party had been menaced. And it was only by embarking secretly for Spain that he had succeeded in avoiding arrest. The property of many of Hannibal's friends had been confiscated.
The natural and easy mode of approach to the city was to be found in the south-west, where a neck of land of half a furlong's breadth led up to the principal gate. In spite of the formidable difficulties of the task Jugurtha attempted an assault, for it was of the utmost importance that he should possess the person of Adherbal before interference was felt from Rome.
It was afterward not doubted but that Rome might have seen its last day, and that Hannibal, within five days, might have feasted in the Capitol, if as they say that Adherbal, the Carthaginian, the son of Bomilcar, observed "he had known as well how to use his victory as how to gain it."
As it was, when member after member rose, lauded Jugurtha's merits to the skies and poured contempt on the statements of Adherbal, an unpleasant feeling was excited that this fervour was not wholly due to a patriotic interest in the security of the empire.
At Carthagena you will have all the luxuries of Carthage. I do not say that your villa shall be equal to this; but as you will have me it should be a thousand times dearer to you." "Your conceit is superb, Adherbal," Thyra laughed. "You get worse and worse. Had I ever dreamed of it I should never have consented so submissively when my father ordered me to regard you as my future husband."
Adherbal made his complaints to Rome, and a commission of aristocratic but inexperienced young men came to the camp of Jugurtha to arrange the difficulties. Jugurtha rejected their demands, and the young men returned home. Adherbal sent again messengers to Rome, being closely pressed, demanding intervention.
There he had begun to intrigue with influential Romans for the succession to the Numidian kingdom, and had been rebuked by Scipio, who told him he should cultivate the friendship, not of individual Romans, but of the State. But in Jugurtha's heart a noble sentiment found no echo. Adherbal was weak and pusillanimous, Hiempsal hot-tempered and rash.
With the ingenuity of despair Adherbal exaggerated the degree of Roman government, in order to emphasise the moral and political obligations of the rulers to their dependents.
It was not till, in the fifth month of the siege, a messenger of Adherbal stole through the entrenchments of the enemy and a letter of the king full of the most urgent entreaties reached the senate, that the latter roused itself and actually adopted a resolution not to declare war as the minority demanded but to send a new embassy an embassy, however, headed by Marcus Scaurus, the great conqueror of the Taurisci and the freedmen, the imposing hero of the aristocracy, whose mere appearance would suffice to bring the refractory king to a different mind.
This was an issue that might not have been manifest at first, although any one who knew Numidia must have been aware that the military spirit of the country which was embodied in Jugurtha, was not represented in the coast cities with their trading populations drawn from many towns, but in the remote agricultural districts and the deserts of the west and south; but it was an issue recognised by the commissioners when they assigned the more civilised portion of the kingdom to Adherbal, and the territories, whose strength was the natural wealth and the manhood which they yielded, to his energetic rival; and it was one that became painfully apparent when Jugurtha led his barbarous hordes against Cirta, and when these hordes in the hour of victory slew every merchant and money-lender whom they could find in the town.
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