t and powerful Scaurus; on
the contrary he was about this very time elected censor and also,
incredible as it may seem, chosen as one of the presidents of the
extraordinary commission of treason. Still less was any attempt even
made to interfere with the functions of the government, and it was
left solely to the senate to put an end to the Numidian scandal in a
manner as gentle as possible for the aristocracy; for that it was
time to do so, even the most aristocratic aristocrat probably began
to perceive.

Cancelling of the Second Treaty
Metellus Appointed to the Command
Renewal of the War

The senate in the first place cancelled the second treaty of peace--
to surrender to the enemy the commander who had concluded it, as was
done some thirty years before, seemed according to the new ideas of
the sanctity of treaties no longer necessary--and determined, this
time in all earnest, to renew the war. The supreme command in Africa
was entrusted, as was natural, to an aristocrat, but yet to one of
the few men of quality who in a military and moral point of view were
equal to the task. The choice fell on Quintus Metellus. He was,
like the whole powerful family to which he belonged, in principle a
rigid and unscrupulous aristocrat; as a magistrate, he, no doubt,
reckoned it honourable to hire assassins for the good of the state and
would presumably have ridiculed the act of Fabricius towards Pyrrhus
as unpractical knight errantry, but he was an inflexible administrator
accessible neither to fear nor to corruption, and a judicious and
experienced warrior. In this respect he was so far free from the
prejudices of his order that he selected as his lieutenants not men
of rank, but the excellent officer Publius Rutilius Rufus, who was
esteemed in military circles for his exemplary discipline and as the
author of an altered and improved system of drill, and the brave Latin
farmer's son Gaius Marius, who had risen from the pike. Attended by
these and other able officers, Metellus presented himself in the course
of 645 as consul and commander-in-chief to the African army, which he
found in such disorder that the generals had not hitherto ventured
to lead it into the enemy's territory and it was formidable to none
save the unhappy inhabitants of the Roman province. It was
sternly and speedily reorganized, and in the spring of 646.(12)

Metellus led it over the Numidian frontier. When Jugurtha
perceived the altered state of