ome
without having declared war, and the king went off again to the
siege of Cirta. Adherbal found himself reduced to extremities and
despaired of Roman support; the Italians in Cirta moreover, weary of
the siege and firmly relying for their own safety on the terror of the
Roman name, urged a surrender. So the town capitulated. Jugurtha
ordered his adopted brother to be executed amid cruel tortures, and
all the adult male population of the town, Africans as well as
Italians, to be put to the sword (642).

Roman Intervention
Treaty between Rome and Numidia

A cry of indignation rose throughout Italy. The minority in the
senate itself and every one out of the senate unanimously condemned
the government, with whom the honour and interest of the country
seemed mere commodities for sale; loudest of all was the outcry of
the mercantile class, which was most directly affected by the sacrifice
of the Roman and Italian merchants at Cirta. It is true that the
majority of the senate still even now struggled; they appealed to
the class-interests of the aristocracy, and set in motion all the
contrivances of collegiate procrastination, with a view to preserve
still longer the peace which they loved. But when Gaius Memmius,
designated as tribune of the people for next year, an active and
eloquent man, brought the matter publicly forward and threatened in
his capacity of tribune to call the worst offenders to judicial account,
the senate permitted war to be declared against Jugurtha (642-3).
The step seemed taken in earnest. The envoys of Jugurtha were dismissed
from Italy without being admitted to an audience; the new consul
Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, who was distinguished, among the members of
his order at least, by judgment and activity, prosecuted the warlike
preparations with energy; Marcus Scaurus himself took the post of a
commander in the African army. In a short time a Roman army was on
African ground, and marching upward along the Bagradas (Mejerdah)
advanced into the Numidian kingdom, where the towns most remote from
the seat of the royal power, such as Great Leptis, already voluntarily
sent in their submission, while Bocchus king of Mauretania, although
his daughter was married to Jugurtha, offered friendship and alliance
to the Romans. Jugurtha himself lost courage, and sent envoys to the
Roman headquarters to request an armistice. The end of the contest
seemed near, and came still more rapidly than was expecte