When the siege of Numantia concluded, Jugurtha returned home not only alive, but bearing a glowing letter from Scipio Aemilianus, who wrote, “The valor of your Jugurtha in the Numantine war was most conspicuous, as I am sure you will be glad to learn. To us he is dear because of his services, and we shall use our best efforts to make him beloved also by the Senate and People of Rome.” Micipsa now had a real dilemma on his hands—he could not get rid of Jugurtha now that Jugurtha had the Roman stamp of approval. The only thing to do now was embrace him. The king formally adopted Jugurtha as his son, making him one of now three legitimate heirs to the throne.23
In 117, old Micipsa died and Numidia fell into the hands of three men: Jugurtha and his younger “brothers” Adherbal and Hiempsal. The three agreed to partition the kingdom and treasury equally, but Jugurtha was not interested in sharing. His agents bribed their way into Hiempsal’s house, found the king cowering in a closet, and chopped his head off. Alerted to the assassination, Adherbal raised an army but Jugurtha’s years of leadership in the Numidian military gave him the allegiance of all the best men. Adherbal could only raise fresh conscripts who were neither loyal nor well trained. In their one engagement, Jugurtha’s army swept Adherbal’s force aside. Unsafe anywhere in Numidia, King Adherbal fled to the only place of refuge he could think of: Rome.24
The Senate was vexed by the unrest in Numidia and agreed to let Adherbal and envoys from Jugurtha explain themselves. Each side predictably blamed the other. Adherbal called his brother “the wickedest of all men on the face of the earth,” who had murdered his brother and provoked a war. Jugurtha’s envoys claimed Adherbal and Hiempsal were the real problem, that Jugurtha had only acted in self-defense. The envoy said Adherbal was only “complaining because he had been prevented from inflicting injury.” The Senate debated the matter and agreed to send a ten-man commission to Numidia to investigate further and render an informed judgment.25
The head of the commission was none other than Lucius Opimius, who was now an elder statesman after a career spent crushing Fregellae and the Gracchi. Jugurtha greeted Opimius’s commission with all due honor and respect, and swore that he would abide by their judgment. After interviewing participants and surveying maps, the commission decided to oust neither king and instead return to the principle of joint rule. They divided Numidia in half—the fertile interior went to Jugurtha and the coastal plains to Adherbal. Then the senators packed up and left and hoped to hear no more from squabbling Numidian kings.26
In the course of the debates over Numidia, some senators were more supportive of Jugurtha than others, and it was well known Jugurtha’s agents had come to Rome with “a great amount of gold and silver, directing them first to load his old friends with presents, and then to win new ones—in short, to make haste to accomplish by largess whatever they could.” The defense of Jugurtha offered by these new friends was a touch embarrassing as the Numidian bribery was “notorious and brazen.” It got to the point where Scaurus castigated his colleagues for their conduct. Scaurus was afraid “such gross corruption would arouse popular resentment.”27
But this tale of shameless bribery does not tell the whole story. Many men in the Senate would not have needed money to support Jugurtha. Many had served alongside him at Numantia and believed him to be brave, educated, and a worthy ally of Rome. It is not unreasonable to think that those old friends needed very few presents to believe their one-time comrade-in-arm’s side of the story. They did not know Adherbal. But they knew Jugurtha and liked him very much. As for the rest, money and gifts from a foreign delegation would have been accepted as the respectful price of admission to the atrium of any senator’s villa. That said, some men are always prepared to let their wallets rule their politics; Jugurtha exploited as many of these men as he could.
WHILE THESE EVENTS unfolded, Gaius Marius was climbing back on the horse. Undeterred by his failure to secure an aedileship, Marius aimed higher and ran for praetor in the elections of 116. Though the Metelli opposed their erstwhile client’s attempt to attain a praetorship, the novus homo Marius won the last spot.28
