In the summer of 111, Bestia’s legions sailed for the province of Africa and from there advanced across the Numidian border. Hearing the legions had entered his territory, Jugurtha sent agents to the Bestia. Jugurtha’s envoys told the consul that conquering Numidia would be a long and expensive affair and that it would be much better for everyone if an agreement could be reached. Then Jugurtha presented himself personally to Bestia and Scaurus and the three sat down for a private conference. During this conference it was agreed that in exchange for an indemnity payment of “thirty elephants, many cattle and horses, and a small amount of silver,” Rome would recognize Jugurtha as the sole king of Numidia and everyone would go home.42
The perfunctory campaign and easy terms raised hell back in Rome, but Scaurus hoped the charade would end the crisis. With Jugurtha now sole king of Numidia, he would cease to be a threat and the Senate could focus on Rome’s far more porous and dangerous northern border.
BUT THE CHARADE was not enough. The plebs urbana expected Bestia to return with Jugurtha’s complete capitulation; instead messengers brought the shocking news that Bestia was withdrawing after securing a paltry indemnity. One young leader in particular grabbed onto the scandals surrounding Jugurtha as his ticket to power: Gaius Memmius. Memmius had been one of the vocal proponents of sending Bestia to Numidia in the first place, and after being elected tribune for 111, he denounced the Senate’s foot dragging and claimed that they were complicit in Jugurtha’s crimes. The facts were plain: Roman honor had once again been “nullified by avarice.”43
When word of the settlement reached Rome, Memmius launched a full broadside on the vicious cupidity of the Senate: “Men stained with crime, with gory hands, of monstrous greed, guilty, yet at the same time full of pride, who have made honor, reputation, loyalty, in short everything honorable and dishonorable, a source of gain.” But he also scolded the people for allowing it to go on: “You were silently indignant that the treasury was pillaged, that kings and free peoples paid tribute to a few nobles, that those nobles possessed supreme glory and vast wealth.” He then addressed all of Rome: “the Senate’s dignity has been prostituted to a ruthless enemy, your sovereignty has been betrayed, your country offered for sale at home and abroad.” 44
But Memmius took pains to not let things get out of hand. Specifically invoking the martyred Gracchi, he said: “After the murder of Tiberius Gracchus… prosecutions were instituted against the Roman commons. Again, after Gaius Gracchus and Marcus Fulvius were slain, many men of your order suffered death in the dungeon. In both cases bloodshed was ended, not by law, but by the caprice of the victors.” Illegal violence was the tactic of reactionary nobles. Taking the high road, Memmius said: “Let those who have betrayed their country to the enemy be punished, not by arms or by violence, which it is less becoming for you to inflict than for them to suffer, but by the courts.” And Memmius had a very specific thing in mind: he wanted Jugurtha himself to testify against the corrupt Senate.45
Memmius induced the Assembly to order a praetor to go to Numidia, fetch Jugurtha, and bring him back to Rome to identify the senators he had bribed. The king was to remain under the full protection of the tribunes’ authority and could expect full immunity for his testimony. Whatever the true scope of their individual guilt, the Senate cannot have liked the sound of this. Jugurtha did not like the sound of it, either, but he didn’t really have much choice in the matter. If he did not come, it would prove he was a traitor to Rome. So when the praetor arrived to fetch him, Jugurtha got on the boat and they departed Numidia.46
After years of scandal, Jugurtha’s arrival in Rome was a sensation. Ever the savvy operator, Jugurtha made sure to dress in humble clothes without any of the finery he usually wore. If he hoped to make it out of this in one piece, he couldn’t come parading into Rome like King Moneybags. But even in humble dress, he couldn’t resist throwing around some cash. With his testimony scheduled for the Assembly, he set out to find an agreeable tribune and retain his services. Jugurtha found such a man in Gaius Bebius, who, after pocketing Jugurtha’s cash, promised to act on the king’s behalf.47
