Jugurthine War (112-105 BC): Rome Against the King of Numidia

The Jugurthine War (112-105 BC) was fought between the Roman Republic and Jugurtha, king of Numidia in North Africa. It began as a dynastic quarrel in an allied kingdom but turned into a scandal in Rome, where senators and commanders were accused of taking Jugurtha’s bribes. The war made the reputations of Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and the historian Sallust made it a famous study of Roman corruption.

Background: a divided kingdom

Numidia, covering much of modern Algeria and part of Tunisia, had been Rome’s ally since King Masinissa helped Scipio defeat Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. Masinissa’s son Micipsa ruled from 148 BC.

Micipsa adopted his talented nephew Jugurtha, who had served with distinction under Scipio Aemilianus at the siege of Numantia in Spain in 134-133 BC and made friends among young Roman nobles. When Micipsa died in 118 BC, he left the kingdom jointly to his sons Adherbal and Hiempsal and to Jugurtha.

Jugurtha soon had Hiempsal murdered. A Roman commission divided Numidia in 116 BC, giving Jugurtha the larger and richer western part, a decision Sallust attributes to bribery.

The road to war

In 112 BC Jugurtha besieged Adherbal in his capital, Cirta (modern Constantine in Algeria). When the city surrendered, Adherbal was killed, along with Italian and Roman traders who had helped defend it. The killing of Italians caused outrage, and Rome declared war in 111 BC.

The consul Lucius Calpurnius Bestia invaded but quickly agreed a lenient peace. In Rome the tribune Gaius Memmius accused the nobility of selling out the state. Jugurtha was brought to Rome under safe conduct to testify, but another tribune vetoed his evidence. While in the city he arranged the murder of his cousin Massiva, another claimant, and was ordered to leave. Sallust reports that he called Rome a city for sale that would soon perish if it found a buyer.

Roman defeats and reform

Fighting resumed in 110 BC. Aulus Postumius Albinus, left in command by his brother the consul, attacked Jugurtha’s treasury at Suthul, was surprised and surrounded, and his army was made to pass under the yoke, a deep humiliation. In 109 BC a special court set up by the tribune Gaius Mamilius condemned several leading men, including Lucius Opimius, the consul who had crushed Gaius Gracchus, for dealing with Jugurtha.

The consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus, a capable and honest commander, took charge in 109 BC. He restored discipline, won a hard-fought battle at the Muthul River and captured towns such as Thala, but Jugurtha avoided a decisive defeat by fighting a guerrilla war.

Marius and Sulla

Metellus’s legate Gaius Marius, a “new man” without consular ancestors, returned to Rome and won the consulship for 107 BC by promising to end the war quickly. The people’s assembly then gave him the African command, overriding the Senate. To fill his army he enlisted volunteers from the poorest citizens, a step later counted among the Marian Reforms.

Marius captured the desert town of Capsa and other strongholds. Jugurtha allied with his father-in-law, King Bocchus I of Mauretania, and in 106 BC their forces attacked the Romans twice near Cirta but were beaten.

Bocchus then changed sides. Marius’s quaestor, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, carried out dangerous negotiations at Bocchus’s court, and in 105 BC Bocchus lured Jugurtha to a meeting and handed him over in chains to Sulla.

Aftermath

Jugurtha walked in Marius’s triumph on 1 January 104 BC and then died in the Tullianum, Rome’s prison. Western Numidia went to Bocchus, and the rest to Jugurtha’s half-brother Gauda, a Roman client.

Sulla commemorated the capture on his signet ring, showing Bocchus handing over Jugurtha. Marius resented this claim to a share of the glory, and the rivalry between the two men later led to civil war.

Sallust’s account

Almost everything known about the war comes from Gaius Sallustius Crispus, known as Sallust, who wrote The Jugurthine War around 41-40 BC, some 65 years later. He had been a supporter of Julius Caesar and governor of the province of Africa, so he knew the terrain.

Sallust chose the war, he says, because it was the first time anyone had challenged the arrogance of the nobility. His portraits of greedy senators, the honest but proud Metellus and the ambitious Marius are vivid but shaped by his own politics. Historians use his work with care, especially his speeches, which are his own compositions, and his geography, which is often vague.

Timeline

• 118 BC: King Micipsa dies, leaving Numidia to Adherbal, Hiempsal and Jugurtha.
• 116 BC: A Roman commission divides Numidia between Jugurtha and Adherbal.
• 112 BC: Jugurtha takes Cirta and kills Adherbal and Italian traders.
• 111 BC: Rome declares war; Calpurnius Bestia makes a quick peace.
• 110 BC: Jugurtha’s visit to Rome; Aulus Albinus’s army is humiliated at Suthul.
• 109 BC: Metellus takes command and wins at the Muthul River.
• 107 BC: Marius, now consul, takes over the war.
• 105 BC: Bocchus betrays Jugurtha to Sulla.
• 104 BC, 1 January: Marius celebrates his triumph; Jugurtha dies in prison.

Why it matters

The Jugurthine War showed that a foreign king could exploit divisions and greed in the Roman elite. It turned popular anger against the Senate, brought Marius to power in time for the Cimbrian War, and launched the career of Sulla, the first general to march on Rome.