The Crisis of Rome

by Gareth Sampson

  What we have to ask ourselves is why Jugurtha walked into such a trap. He knew about Bocchus’ negotiations with the Senate and must have realized that Bocchus’ only way out would be to betray him. Given Bocchus’ patchy record of allegiance in the past few years, he could hardly have expected loyalty from the man. Sallust’s notion of taking Sulla ransom is possible, but Jugurtha would have realized that such a minor hostage was of limited use to him. Ultimately, we have to admit that we will never know what enticements Bocchus used to get Jugurtha to attend that meeting. In the end, it perhaps came down to the fact that Jugurtha had finally run out of options.

  Jugurtha was conveyed to Rome and paraded in Marius’ triumph on the 1 January 104 BC. According to Orosius, he was accompanied by his two sons, a detail omitted by Sallust. For his final fate, Plutarch has the following:

  But we are told that when he [Jugurtha] had been led in triumph he lost his reason; and that when, after the triumph, he was cast into prison, where some tore the tunic from his body, and others were so eager to snatch away his golden earring that they tore off with it the lobe of his ear, and when he had been thrust down naked into the dungeon pit, in utter bewilderment and with a grin on his lips he said ‘Hercules! How cold this Roman bath is!’ But the wretch, after struggling with hunger for six days and up to the last moment clinging to the desire for life, paid the penalty which his crimes deserved.311

  Orosius, meanwhile, states that he died a more prosaic death, executed in his cell by strangulation.312 In any event, it was an ignominious end for a man who had successfully challenged Roman might for so long.

  Africa after the War

  Following Jugurtha’s capture, Marius’ post-war settlement was a conservative one. Bocchus was confirmed as king of the Mauri and an ally of the Roman People. In addition, he received the western third of Numidia, which had been promised him by Jugurtha, and which reduced the power of Numidia. The rest of Numidia was kept as one kingdom and Gauda, Jugurtha’s half-brother, was confirmed as the new king. The Gaetulians were made independent from Numidia also.313

  Numidia soon turned back to a prosperous trading nation, but became entangled in Rome’s First and Second Civil Wars. As a result of backing the Pompeians against Caesar in 46 BC, Juba I, the king of Numidia, committed suicide and Numidia was partitioned, with the eastern part being added to the province of Africa and the western part remaining independent under a nonnative king. Juba’s son, Juba II, briefly ruled the reduced Numidian Kingdom between 29–27 BC as a client of Octavian, but was given the kingdom of the Mauri to rule and married off to Cleopatra Selene, daughter of M. Antonius and Cleopatra VII. Their son Ptolemy became king, but was murdered by the Emperor Caius (Caligula) in AD 40 and the kingdom annexed and divided into two new Roman provinces (of Mauretania).

  Considering he initially backed the wrong side, Bocchus came out of the war rather well. In 112 his kingdom was a minor one, dwarfed by the power and connections of Numidia, yet by 105 BC he was a staunch ally of Rome, with friends in high places and possessing an enlarged and more powerful kingdom. The Mauri continued to prosper as Roman allies, managing to avoid the entanglements that cost Numidia so dear during the Roman Civil Wars. Ironically, when Bocchus II died in the late 30s BC he willed his kingdom to Rome, but this merely saw a Numidian prince become king of the Mauri. As noted above, the kingdom of the Mauri was annexed by Rome in AD 44.

  The Gaetulians too became caught up in the Roman Civil Wars, but they initially benefited from backing Caesar against the Numidians and supporters of Pompey. However, the expansion of the Roman Empire into Numidia saw the Gaetulians go to war with the Rome in c.AD 3–6, which saw them defeated and added to the Mauri kingdom. When that too was annexed, they finally passed into formal Roman control.

  Conclusion – The Jugurthine War

  What are we to make of this war? The Romans initially became embroiled in a domestic dispute of one of her allies on her southern-most border and got themselves bogged down in an unnecessary and distracting seven-year war. In military terms, they suffered one humiliating defeat and tied up valuable manpower and resources at a time when it was most needed elsewhere, for little apparent return.

  Although Rome appeared to gain little as a result of the war, we must look beyond the formal notions of empire. Throughout their history the Romans had no black-and-white concept of a formal division between Roman and non-Roman territory. Although on a modern map, the only Roman possession was the province of Africa itself, the war had seen a massive extension of Roman power in the African continent, north of the Sahara. By 105 BC, not only had Numidia been defeated and humbled, but so had the Mauri and the Gaetulians, who seven years earlier had been completely absent from Roman consideration. Thus Roman might and domination now covered the whole of North Africa, from Libya to the Atlantic coast. Over the late Republic and early Empire this domination slowly turned into formal empire, a situation that remained until the Vandal invasions of the fifth century AD.

  Although the Romans had once again emerged victorious and greatly strengthened their grip on North Africa, the domestic repercussions had been serious. Their failure to act decisively in the first place had seen the tribunes and assemblies intervene on the Senate’s prerogative of deciding Roman foreign policy, by forcing the declaration of war. The failure of the first two consular commanders had led to the Mamilian Commission being established and a witch-hunt being conducted by the assemblies against the Senatorial commanders. The perceived failure of Metellus had led to Marius, a relative outsider, not only being elected consul, but using the tribunate and the assemblies to trample over another Senatorial prerogative, that of choosing consular provinces. All the Senate could hope for would be that once the war was over, they could restore some measure of control over the domestic situation. However, events soon occurred that threw these hopes into disarray.

  Three key Romans came out of this war with their reputations enhanced. The first was L. Caecilius Metellus ‘Numidicus’, who despite being replaced, had defeated Jugurtha militarily and had effectively put Numidia out of the war, forcing Jugurtha to rely on ultimately-untrustworthy allies. As well as having his military reputation enhanced, he registered his claim to having won the war by taking the cognomen Numidicus. He remained a key member of the most powerful faction in the Senate, the Metelli, who continued their domestic pre-eminence, with both censors of 102–101 being Metelli, one of whom was Numidicus himself (see Appendix IV). Furthermore, his treatment at the hands of Marius and the assembly would have enhanced his standing within the Senate. This being the case, Metellus could look forward to settling the score with Marius when he returned to Rome after the war.

  The second man was L. Cornelius Sulla, who had acquired an excellent military reputation in battle and now could, and indeed did, claim to have ended the war by organizing the capture Jugurtha himself. Sulla famously had a ring made depicting the handover of Jugurtha to him (later depicted in coin by his son). In addition, during the 90s BC Bocchus paid for a group of statues depicting this scene on the Capitol.314 Both were later to be bones of contention between Sulla and Marius, though this was not immediately clear. He had clearly established himself as a man to watch and a good prospect for returning his obscure patrician family to the consulship.

  Finally, comes the figure of C. Marius himself. From being a loyal and aged deputy he had managed not only to become consul, but to overturn a key senatorial power, the right to decide consular commands. He had constructed an alliance of the people and the equestrian order to propel him to the pinnacle of the Roman political ladder and provide him with the power to alter the Roman system of recruitment. This gave him a prominent position to end the war in Africa and gain military glory for himself.

  It has often been argued as to which of the three men had the greater influence in winning the war.315 Of the three, the easiest to dismiss is Sulla, as, although he was the officer in charge at the handover of Jugurtha, the whole thing had been arranged by Bocchus
and was the inevitable price of his peace with Rome. Sallust makes a great attempt to enlarge Sulla’s role in this process, no doubt encouraged by Sulla’s own memoirs and the reputation of the man he was to become.

  This leaves us with Metellus and Marius. Metellus clearly did much to restore the Roman position in Numidia after the disasters of 110 BC. His competent generalship and use of the superior Roman military might at his disposal effectively led to the defeat of Numidia, but not of Jugurtha, thus deserving him the title of Numidicus. However, it was under his command that Jugurtha was able to escalate the war into a pan-African one, which so nearly cost Rome during the Battles of Cirta. Furthermore, it is apparent that when faced with the Mauri/Gaetulian invasion of Numidia in 106 BC, combined with the news of Marius’ usurpation of his command, he slackened the pace of the Roman military effort to a considerable extent. Nevertheless, he did give Marius a base on which to build.

  Then we come to Marius’ own contribution. He arrived in 107 with the largest Roman army yet in the war and with the Numidians defeated. For the next year he conducted an uninspiring but competent campaign of reducing Jugurtha’s remaining powerbase and ultimately his options. However, he too could not prevent the reformation of Jugurtha’s ‘grand alliance’ with Bocchus, which so nearly led to disaster at the Battles of Cirta. Furthermore, despite his apparent calm leadership in battle, Sallust’s account at least leaves him facing a charge of incompetence for getting his army ambushed in such a manner. It is highly possible that neither of the accounts of the battles was intended to flatter Marius and the true picture, now lost, may have been far less fraught than depicted. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note how close Rome came to being defeated in the war, even as late as 106 BC. Had the Roman army been destroyed at Cirta, given the war in the north, it was unlikely that they could have mounted any serious opposition for several years, leaving North Africa in the hands of Jugurtha and Bocchus.

  This brings us to the final figure to consider, that of Jugurtha himself. Here is a man of contradictions, clearly a superb general, albeit one encumbered with an inferior army for the majority of the war. Furthermore, his recklessness in the political field led to a war against Rome and one that neither side wanted, nor one that in normal circumstances he would have ever been able to win, given the disparity of resources. This recklessness, however, was tempered by the creation of the grand alliance of North African races, which was always a bold and risky move, albeit one that nearly paid off. In the end, he paid for this recklessness with his life, but forever earned himself a position as a tenacious enemy of Rome and one that brought about significant changes within the Roman political and military systems. These changes may have happened anyway, but Jugurtha proved to be a catalyst for them.

  For Marius, the end of the war should have been his crowning glory, a return to Rome followed by a triumph, which would be the apex of his career, at the age of around 52. Once his command expired he would become a private citizen again and would have to face the domestic consequences of his actions in 107 BC. From the people this would be short lived-adulation, from the equestrian order, long-term support, and in the Senate, hostility from the established Roman families and especially the Metelli. However, events transpired elsewhere to make the Jugurthine War merely the launching pad to an even greater and unprecedented role in the Roman Republic. For Rome, 105 BC saw the ending of one crisis but the worsening of another.

  Chapter 8

  The Northern Wars: Disaster at Arausio (106–105 BC)

  With the Jugurthine War ended we can now turn our sole focus to the Northern Wars. Although the conflicts on Rome’s northern borders had been simmering since 113 BC, from 105 BC onwards they escalated to a far more intense level. In many ways, these conflicts reflect the Jugurthine War. Both began as relatively minor issues, a domestic dispute in Africa and a migrating tribe in Gaul, but both escalated into full-blown conflicts that threatened Rome’s empire.

  As we saw earlier, repeated defeats at the hands of the Cimbri (113 & 109 BC) had apparently led to a collapse of Roman authority in the region. Even with our few meagre surviving sources, we hear of the revolt of the Volcae against Rome and the invasion of the Tigurini and Toygeni from Helvetia (Switzerland).

  The Gallic War (106 BC)

  Again, with the focus of our surviving sources on the actions of Marius in Africa, we have few details for the campaigns of 106 BC. What we do know is that once again Rome suffered no obvious effects from the defeat at the hands of the Tigurini. In many ways, this is hardly a surprise. The Romans still had the Alps as a barrier and the Tigurini were more intent on plundering the tribes of southern Gaul, in the absence of Roman authority than challenging Rome directly by invading her own territory.

  The absence of a direct threat to Italy from either the Tigurini or the Cimbri allowed the Romans time to recover their position in southern Gaul. Of the two consuls that year, Q. Servilius Caepio and C. Atilius Serranus, Caepio received Gaul as a province and began the process and bringing Rome’s rebellious allies back under Roman authority. The only clear details we have of this process are the capture of the town of Tolossa (Toulouse), which is widely commented on, though not for purely military reasons. When the town was sacked, the Romans came to control a vast hoard of treasure. Orosius says that it came from a Temple to Apollo, Strabo (quoting Poseidonius and Timagenes) argued that the treasure found at Tolossa ultimately came from the Temple of Delphi, supposedly sacked by the Gauls in 279.316 In any event, it was a vast sum, which then mysteriously vanished, whilst under guard and en-route to Massilia.317

  The best account of the campaign is by Dio:

  Tolossa, which had formerly been in alliance with the Romans, but had revolted, as a result of the hopes placed in the Cimbri, even to the point of keeping the garrison in chains, was suddenly occupied at night by the Romans, after they had been admitted by their friends. They plundered the temples and obtained much money besides; for the place was wealthy from old, containing among other things the offerings which the Gauls under the leadership of Brennus has once plundered from Delphi. However, no treasure of importance reached Rome, but the soldiers themselves stole most of it, and for this a number were called to account.318

  In addition to Dio, the majority of sources name Caepio himself as being complicit in the theft, but at the time his command was extended to a proconsulship for 105 BC.

  However, such a focus on treasure comes at the expense of any other details of the year’s campaigning. We have no details of any activities by or against the Tigurini in this year. They barely feature in the rest of the war, aside from a supporting role in the Cimbric invasion of Italy in 101 BC.

  The Cimbric War (105 BC)

  Once again, after having defeated a Roman army, it appears that the Cimbri moved away from southern Gaul, and made no move towards Italy, having been rebuffed in their apparent request to settle there. Once again, we are faced with their disappearance from our surviving accounts. Given that Roman armies were continuing to operate in southern Gaul during this period, they did not encounter the Cimbri for another four years. It has been speculated that they moved northeastwards again towards the River Main and founded settlements, but there is little evidence to support this. Once again, we have to admit to our ignorance of their movements. Clearly, whatever settlement plans they had in this period failed once more, as by 106 the Cimbri, possibly joined by their allies, moved southwards towards Roman territory for the third time.

  Here we must analyse the pattern of continued battles with Rome interspersed by periods of absence. In 113, when the Cimbri first encountered Rome, this happened in the east of the Alps and apparently by chance. In 109 the Cimbri approached Roman territory from the west and this time sought permission to settle in Italy. By 106 BC, the Cimbri would have been fully acquainted with the Roman hegemony over southern Gaul, and deliberately moved towards their territory, clearly knowing the response they would receive. Rather than taking a Romano-centric view that t
hey were only ‘barbarians’, who only obeyed natural instinct and had no grater desire other than conquest, we have to ask ourselves why they approached Rome this third time and whether their tactics had changed.

  One aspect that is apparent is that seven years after initially fighting Rome they had still not found a region to settle in peacefully. Given the attrition rates of battle, and disease and the need to find enough food for several hundred thousand people, clearly some element of frustration and desperation must have set in. As events showed, the Cimbri were clearly not intent on invading Italy at this point, nor is there any clear evidence of an alliance with any other tribes, such as the Teutones and Ambrones. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a formal pact between the Cimbri and Tigurini in this period either, despite the fact that both had a common enemy. What must have been clear to the Cimbri is that they would not be able to settle in southern Gaul or Spain until Roman influence had been removed from north of the Alps. In the period that followed 109 BC, this looked as though it may have been accomplished, with the Tigurini invading the region and defeating a Roman army and revolts amongst the native cities and tribes under Roman suzerainty.