But this is only half the story. Caepio ordered the sacred treasure boxed up and carried down south to the Massilia, where it could be shipped by sea to Rome, displayed in Caepio’s inevitable triumph, and then deposited in the Temple of Saturn. But that’s not what happened. While the treasure was being delivered, the convoy was set upon by a group of bandits and the gold was stolen. Few believed this was random chance—the common assumption was that Caepio had hired the bandits himself to steal the gold for him. If true, Caepio’s double crime of plundering cursed gold from a sacred temple, and then conspiring to steal it all for himself, goes a long way toward explaining his unhappy fate. The historian Justin agreed that “this sacrilegious act subsequently proved a cause of ruin to Caepio and his army. The rising of the Cimbrian war, too, seemed to pursue the Romans as if to avenge the removal of that devoted treasure.” But it could just have easily been that Caepio was a fool who provoked his own misfortunes without help from the gods.19
DOWN IN NORTH Africa, it did not take long after the battles at Cirta for King Bocchus to reverse course again and beg Marius for peace. Just five days after the dust had cleared, envoys from the Mauretanian king arrived in Cirta requesting Marius send trusted ambassadors to meet in person with Bocchus. Marius selected Lucius Cornelius Sulla to lead the embassy. Though he had only recently arrived, Sulla had already proven himself both eloquent and cool under pressure.20
Sulla made it clear to Bocchus the Romans were open to friendship with the Mauretanians. Though the king had joined Jugurtha’s war, the Romans were a practical people. The last thing they needed was for the war in Numidia to keep expanding until it covered all of North Africa. Sulla told Bocchus that “we already have more than enough subjects, while neither we nor anyone else ever had friends enough.” But he also reminded the king that while the Romans have “never been outdone in kindness; their prowess in war you know by experience.” Bocchus took the hint. He asked permission to send an embassy directly to Marius to work out the preliminaries of a permanent peace. Sulla agreed and returned to Cirta to make his report.21
On their way to meet Marius, however, the small party of Mauretanian ambassadors was jumped by a gang of brigands. Taking a hasty flight and leaving all their baggage and papers behind, the envoys arrived at Cirta looking like refugee peasants rather than royal agents of a great king. But Sulla secured further a diplomatic trust between the two powers by graciously welcoming them into the city and refusing to doubt for a minute their pitiful story. The ambassadors were apparently surprised to discover that the corrupt and treacherous Romans were in fact quite civilized and generous.22
After hearing the ambassadors out, Marius called a war council in early 105 that voted to send the Mauretanian ambassadors on to Rome with a recommendation that the Senate conclude a peace. The Senate concurred and decreed: “The Senate and People of Rome are wont to remember both a benefit and an injury. But since Bocchus repents, they forgive his offence; he shall have a treaty of friendship when he has earned it.” The king was delighted to find the Romans so amenable to a peace. He sent a message back to Marius requesting that Sulla—who had displayed generous wisdom thus far—serve as Roman representative. With Sulla’s help the king could begin the practical process of aligning Mauretanian and Roman interests. Marius agreed.23
Escorted by Bocchus’s son to ensure safe passage, Sulla and his bodyguards were not sure whether they were being led into a trap. Their fears peaked when scouts suddenly arrived and alerted the party that Jugurtha himself was camped just two miles ahead. Sulla and his companions braced for treachery, but Bocchus’s son swore his father’s good intentions. The prince promised to march side by side with Sulla the whole way. Jugurtha could not risk the prince’s life, as it would permanently sever any chance he had at reforming the alliance with Bocchus. So in dramatic fashion the party continued riding past Jugurtha’s camp. Though the tension in the air must have been impossibly thick, the Numidian king simply watched them pass.24
The final act of the Jugurthine War played out as a game of high stakes negotiations between Sulla and Bocchus on the one hand, and Bocchus and Jugurtha on the other. Bocchus and Sulla met openly in the Mauretanian court, where the king told Sulla that he had not made up his mind how to proceed. He requested Sulla give him ten days to compose a final answer. But this was merely a trick played on Jugurtha’s spies, who dutifully raced to the Numidian camp and reported that Jugurtha had ten days to change Bocchus’s mind.25
