Soon afterwards he caused his cousin Massiva, then resident at Rome and a claimant to the throne of Numidia, to be assassinated. The treaty was thereupon set aside, and Jugurtha was ordered to quit Rome. On this occasion he uttered the well-known words, "A city for sale, and doomed to perish as soon as it finds a purchaser!" (Livy, _Epit._ 64). The war was renewed, and the consul Spurius Albinus entrusted with the command. The Roman army in Africa was thoroughly demoralized. An unsuccessful attempt was made on a fortified town, Suthul, in which the royal treasures were deposited. The army was surprised by the enemy in a night attack, and the camp was taken and plundered. Every Roman was driven out of Numidia, and a disgraceful peace was concluded (109). By this time the feeling at Rome and in Italy against the corruption and incapacity of the nobles had become so strong that a number of senators were prosecuted and Bestia and Albinus sentenced to exile. The war was now entrusted to Quintus Metellus, an able soldier and stern disciplinarian, and from the year 109 to its close in 106 the contest was carried on with credit to the Roman arms. Jugurtha was defeated on the river Muthul, after an obstinate and skilful resistance. Once again, however, he succeeded in surprising the Roman camp and forcing Metellus into winter quarters. There were fresh negotiations, but Metellus insisted on the surrender of the king's person, and this Jugurtha refused. Numidia on the whole seemed disposed to assert its independence, and Rome had before her the prospect of a troublesome guerrilla war. Negotiations, reflecting little credit on the Romans, were set on foot with Bocchus (q.v.) who for a time played fast and loose with both parties. In 106, Marius was called on by the vote of the Roman people to supersede Metellus, but it was through the perfidy of Bocchus and the diplomacy of L. Cornelius Sulla, Marius's quaestor, that the war was ended. Jugurtha fell into an ambush, and was conveyed a prisoner to Rome. Two years afterwards, in 104, he figured with his two sons in Marius's triumph, and in the subterranean prison beneath the Capitol--"the bath of ice," as he called it--he was either strangled or starved to death. Though doubtless for a time regarded by his countrymen as their deliverer from the yoke of Rome, Jugurtha mainly owes his historical importance to the full and minute account of him which we have from the hand of Sallust, himself afterwards governor of Numidia. See A. H. J. Greenidge, _Hist. of Rome_ (1904); T. Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, book iv. ch. v.; the chief ancient authorities (besides Sallust) are Livy, _Epit._, lxii.-lxvii.; Plutarch, _Marius and Sulla_; Velleius Paterculus, ii.; Diod. Sic., _Excerpta_, xxxiv.; Florus, iii. 1. See also MARIUS, SULLA, NUMIDIA.