in the world. They
were bidden to insist simply on the war ceasing, and the two kings
settling their disputes by law. And yet the news of the battle and the
siege of Cirta had reached Rome. Jugurtha came to them, and said that
his merits had won Scipio's approval, and that, conscious of right,
he could not submit to wrong; he then gravely charged Adherbal with
plotting against his life, and promised to send ambassadors to Rome.
Then the ten young men without even seeing Adherbal, left Africa, not
we may conjecture so lightly laden as they came there.

The town of Cirta stood on the promontory of a peninsula formed by a
loop of the river Ampsaga, and was almost impregnable. Modern writers
represent it as a square spur, thrust out into a gorge which runs
between two mountain-ranges, this gorge being spanned by a bridge at
one corner of the square. The town, now known as Constantina, and
distant 48 miles from the sea and 200 from Algiers, has been described
as occupying a bold and commanding situation on a steep, rocky hill,
with the river Rummel flowing on three sides of its base, the country
around being a high terrace between the chains of the maritime and
central Atlas. [Sidenote: Adherbal blockaded in Cirta.] Such being
the strength of the place, Jugurtha could only hope to reduce it by
blockade, and it was only after four months that two of Adherbal's men
got out and carried a piteous appeal from their master to the Senate,
adjuring them, not indeed to give him back his kingdom, but to save
his life. [Sidenote: A third commission.] Some of the Senate were for
sending an army to Africa at once, but in those days honest men
were always in the minority, and three commissioners were sent
instead--Scaurus, the man who had so lively an appreciation of his
own value, at their head. [Sidenote: Jugurtha is admonished by it.]
Jugurtha, after a desperate attempt to storm Cirta before they
arrived, came to them at Utica, where he was admonished at great
length. Then this precious trio left Africa, as the ten young men had
done; and the surrender of Cirta followed, either because despair led
its defenders to hope that submission, as it would save the enemy
trouble, might conciliate him, or perhaps because water or food
ran short. [Sidenote: Cirta taken and Adherbal murdered.] Jugurtha
immediately tortured Adherbal to death, and put every Numidian and
Italian in the place to the sword.

[Sidenote: Genuine indignation at Rome.] T