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Adherbal Hiempsal I Micipsa Massiva Gauda Jugurtha
d. 642 d. c. 637 (Diod. d. 643 d.bef. 666 d. 650
(112) (117) p. 607) (111) (88) (104)
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Hiempsal II Oxyntas
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Juba I
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Juba II

12. In the exciting and clever description of this war by Sallust
the chronology has been unduly neglected. The war terminated in the
summer of 649 (c. 114); if therefore Marius began his management
of the war as consul in 647, he held the command there in three
campaigns. But the narrative describes only two, and rightly so.
For, just as Metellus to all appearance went to Africa as early as 645,
but, since he arrived late (c. 37, 44), and the reorganization of the
army cost time (c. 44), only began his operations in the following
year, in like manner Marius, who was likewise detained for a
considerable time in Italy by his military preparations (c. 84),
entered on the chief command either as consul in 647 late in the
season and after the close of the campaign, or only as proconsul in
648; so that the two campaigns of Metellus thus fall in 646, 647, and
those of Marius in 648, 649. It is in keeping with this that Metellus
did not triumph till the year 648 (Eph. epigr. iv. p. 277). With this
view the circumstance also very well accords, that the battle on the
Muthul and the siege of Zama must, from the relation in which they
stand to Marius' candidature for the consulship, be necessarily
placed in 646. In no case can the author be pronounced free from
inaccuracies; Marius, for instance, is even spoken of by him
as consul in 649.

The prolongation of the command of Metellus, which Sallust reports
(lxii. 10), can in accordance with the place at which it stands only
refer to the year 647; when in the summer of 646 on the footing of the
Sempronian law the provinces of the consuls to be elected for 647 were
to be fixed, the senate destined two other provinces and thus left
Numidia to Metellus. This resolve of the senate was overturned by
the plebiscitum mentioned at lxxii. 7. The following words which are
transmitted to us defectively in the best manuscripts of both famil