This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
After the loss of Thala, Jugurtha, thinking no place sufficiently secure against Metellus, fled with a few followers into the country of the Getulians, a people savage and uncivilized, and, at that period, unacquainted with even the name of Rome. Of these barbarians he collected a great multitude, and trained them by degrees to march in ranks, to follow standards, to obey the word of command, and to perform other military exercises. He also gained over to his interest, by large presents and larger promises, the intimate friends of king Bocchus, and working upon the king by their means, induced him to commence war against the Romans. This was the more practicable and easy, because Bocchus, at the commencement of hostilities with Jugurtha, had sent an embassy to Rome to solicit friendship and allliance; but a faction, blinded by avarice, and accustomed to sell their votes on every question honorable or dishonorable,1 had caused his advances to be rejected, though they were of the highest consequence to the war recently begun. A daughter of Bocchus, too, was married to Jugurtha,2 but such a connection, among the Numidians and
Moors, is but lightly regarded; for every man has as many wives as he pleases, in proportion to his ability to maintain them; some ten, others more, but the kings most of all. Thus the affection of the husband is divided among a multitude; no one of them becomes a companion to him,3 but all are equally neglected.
1 LXXX. Sell--honorable or dishonorable] “Omnia honesta atque inhonesta vendere.” See Cat. c. 30. They had been bribed by Jugurtha to use their influence against Bocchus.
2 A daughter of Bocchus, too, was married to Jugurtha] “Jugurthœ filia Bocchi nupserat.” Several manuscripts and old editions have Boccho, making Bocchus the son-in-law of Jugurtha. But Plutarch (Vit. Mar. c. 10, Sull. c. 3) and Florus (iii. 1) agree in speaking of him as Jugurtha's father-in-law. Bocchus was doubtless an older man than Jugurtha, having a grown up son, Volux, c. 105. Castilioneus and Cortius, therefore, saw the necessity of reading Bocchi, and other editors have followed them, except Gerlach, "who,"' says Kritzius, " has given Bocchi in his larger, and Boccho in his smaller and more recent edition, in order that readers using both may have an opportunity of making a choice."
3 No one of them becomes a companion to him] “Nulla pro sociâ obtinet.” The use of obtinet absolutely, or with the word dependent on it understood, prevails chiefly among the later Latin writers. Livy, however, has fama obtinuit, xxi. 46. " The tyro is to be reminded," says Dietsch, " that obtinet is not the same as habetur, but is always for locum obtinet."
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.