Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jurgurthine WarSallust
History
Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jurgurthine War
Sallust
Jugurthine War, 111-105 B.C.; Rome -- History -- Conspiracy of Catiline, 65-62 B.C.
XXIX. But when Jugurtha began, through his emissaries, to tempt him
with bribes, and to show the difficulties of the war which he had
undertaken to conduct, his mind, corrupted with avarice, was easily
altered. His accomplice, however, and manager in all his schemes, was
Scaurus; who, though he had at first, when most of his party were
corrupted, displayed violent hostility to Jugurtha, yet was afterward
seduced, by a vast sum of money, from integrity and honor to injustice
and perfidy. Jugurtha, however, at first sought only to purchase a
suspension of hostilities, expecting to be able, during the interval,
to make some favorable impression, either by bribery or by interest,
at Rome; but when he heard that Scaurus was co-operating with
Calpurnius, he was elated with great hopes of regaining peace, and
resolved upon a conference with them in person respecting the terms of
it. In the mean time, for the sake of giving confidence [104] to
Jugurtha, Sextus the quaestor was dispatched by the consul to Vaga,
one of the prince's towns; the pretext for his journey being the
receiving of corn, which Calpurnius had openly demanded from Jugurtha's
emissaries, on the ground that a truce was observed through their delay
to make a surrender. Jugurtha then, as he had determined, paid a visit
to the consul's camp, where, having made a short address to the council,
respecting the odium cast upon his conduct, and his desire for a
capitulation, he arranged other matters with Bestia and Scaurus in
secret; and the next day, as if by an evident majority of voices[105],
he was formally allowed to surrender. But, as was demanded in the
hearing of the council, thirty elephants, a considerable number of
cattle and horses, and a small sum of money, were delivered into the
hands of the quaestor. Calpurnius then returned to Rome to preside at
the election of magistrates[106], and peace was observed throughout
Numidia and the Roman army.
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