In his search for experienced soldiers, Metellus also made a point of enrolling the best officers he could find. The paucity of available talent goes a long way toward explaining what may otherwise be an inexplicable decision. Metellus asked Gaius Marius to serve as a legate. Though Marius had run afoul of the Metelli politically, there was no question that he was among the most capable officers in Rome. Marius did not hesitate to join the campaign. With the conflict in Numidia going so poorly and with the Senate clearly to blame, there would be plenty of opportunities for a mere novus homo to make a name for himself.14
Back in Numidia, Jugurtha was well informed of these developments and he did not like what he heard. Not only were the Romans preparing to come back, but his informants were clear that Metellus was not a man who could be bribed. So when Metellus and his army arrived in Africa in the spring of 109, Jugurtha abruptly changed tactics. He sent envoys offering to surrender to Metellus with only one string: that he and his children be spared. But Metellus was not going to be taken in by the wily king. Turning Jugurtha’s tricks against him, Metellus bribed the envoys over to the Roman side. They were told to deliver a message of peace, but then to work secretly to arrest the king and deposit him at Metellus’s feet. But Jugurtha was cautious to the point of paranoia and evaded the subsequent plots. Recognizing that there would be no negotiation, Jugurtha resolved to defeat the Romans in battle. Again.15
Jugurtha used his superior knowledge of the terrain to stay one step ahead of Metellus until he was able to lay an ambush in the late summer of 109. At the Muthul River, Jugurtha cut the Romans off from their source of water. But rather than forcing a quick surrender, Jugurtha found himself locked in a battle with Metellus that lasted all day. The legions managed to hold out until nightfall, at which point Jugurtha withdrew and the Romans built a network of fortified camps.16
The Romans spent the next few days in camp, where Metellus got troubling news. Jugurtha was riding around the countryside raising thousands more men from the surrounding communities to replace the men he had just lost. Despite the casualties the Romans had just inflicted, the Numidians would soon be back stronger than ever. With Jugurtha fielding an almost unlimited number of men, Metellus determined this was not a war that could be won by a series of battles. It would instead require a steady envelopment of the entire country to eliminate Jugurtha’s access to men. The next phase of the war would offer few opportunities for glorious heroics, but Metellus was here to win the war.17
BACK IN ROME, the ex-tribune Gaius Memmius used the debacles in Numidia to widen his crusade against senatorial misconduct. Just as Metellus left for Africa in 109, an allied tribune named Gaius Mamilius created a special tribunal later dubbed the Mamilian Commission to investigate corruption and treason. Memmius served as the principal prosecutor. Staffed by Equestrian jurors and run by populare leaders looking to settle old scores, the prosecution moved seamlessly from specific charges of bribery to a general attack on the Senate. Memmius and his fellow prosecutors “conducted the investigation with harshness and violence, on hearsay evidence and at the caprice of the commons.”18
The first man hauled before the commission was Lucius Opimius, who had long been a bête noire of the populare—guilty of the uncompromising sack of Fregellae in 125 and the slaughter of the Gracchans in 121. Having avoided punishment for a decade, the time had come for Opimius to feel the wrath of the people. Opimius was charged with treason for his conduct leading the first embassy to Numidia. He was found guilty of accepting bribes from Jugurtha and exiled. Opimius departed Rome and “spent his old age in infamy, hated and abused by the people.”19
Next up was the former consul Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, who had sailed off to Numidia in 111 to bring Jugurtha to heel and instead pocketed some cash and gave Jugurtha a slap on the wrist. The princeps senatus Scaurus personally defended Bestia before the commission, but Bestia too was convicted and exiled. Two men of consular rank had now been banished by the wrath of the populare.20
The commission then continued its general attack on the optimates who had failed Rome. Gaius Porcius Cato was prosecuted on trumped up charges—his real crime being his defeats in the north back in 114. And of course the officers who had led the campaign in Numidia that ended with the legions passing under the yoke were accused of treason and exiled. In the end, the Mamilian Commission convicted four men of consular rank in an unprecedented strike at the alleged authority of the Senate.21
