This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
But Jugurtha himself, believing that to Metellus, who, by his exertions, had triumphed over every obstacle, over arms, deserts, seasons, and finally over Nature herself that controls all, nothing was impossible, fled with his children, and a
great portion of his treasure, from the city during the night. Nor did he ever, after this time, continue1 more than one day or night in any place; pretending to be hurried away by business, but in reality dreading treachery, which he thought he might escape by change of residence, as schemes of such a kind are the result of leisure and opportunity.
Metellus, seeing that the people of Thala were determined on resistance, and that the town was defended both by art and situation, surrounded the walls with a rampart and a trench. He then directed his machines against the most eligible points, threw up a mound, and erected towers upon it to protect2 the works and the workmen. The townsmen, on the other hand, were exceedingly active and diligent; and nothing was neglected on either side. At last the Romans, though exhausted with much previous fatigue and fighting, got possession, forty days after their arrival, of the town, and the town only; for all the spoil had been destroyed by the deserters; who, when they saw the walls shaken by the battering-ram, and their own situation desperate, had conveyed the gold and silver, and whatever else is esteemed valuable, to the royal palace, where, after being sated with wine and luxuries, they destroyed the treasures, the building, and themselves, by fire, and thus voluntarily submitted to the sufferings which, in case of being conquered, they dreaded at the hands of the enemy.
1 LXXVI. Nor did he ever--continue, etc.] “Neque postea--moratus, simulabat,” etc.] Most editors take moratus for morans: Allen places a colon after it, as if it were for moratus est.
2 And erected towns upon it to protect, etc.] “Et super aggerem impositis turribus opus et administros tutari.” "And protected the work and the workmen with towers placed on the mound." Impositis turribus is not the ablative absolute, but the ablative of the instrument.
Sallust. The Jugurthine War. Rev. John Selby Watson, M.A. New York and London. Harper & Brothers. 1899.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.