Gaius Marius, after winning election as consul,…
105 BCE
Gaius Marius, after winning election as consul, had returned to Numidia to take control of the war against Jugurtha, and found that it wasn't as easy to end the war as he had claimed.
He had arrived comparatively late in 107 BCE and in that year and the next he had forced Jugurtha to the south and west toward Mauretania.
Marius had continued Metellus's plan and won several victories, but, as with the earlier Fabian strategy, Jugurtha's tactics prevent a Roman victory.
It had soon become evident that Rome cannot defeat Jugurtha through war.
Marius' quaestor in 107 BCE had been Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, the son of a patrician family that had fallen on hard times.
Marius was supposedly unhappy at receiving the dissolute youth as his subordinate, but Sulla has proved a competent military leader.
By 105, the king of Mauretania, Bocchus, who is also Jugurtha's father-in-law and reluctant ally, is worried about the approaching Romans.
After receiving word that an accommodation with them was possible, Bocchus insists that Sulla make the hazardous journey to his capital.
It was a dangerous operation from the first, with Bocchus weighing up the advantages of handing Jugurtha over to Sulla or the lightly armed Sulla over to Jugurtha.
In the end, Sulla induces Bocchus to betray Jugurtha, who was duly handed over to Sulla, thus ending the war.
In return, Bocchus receives part of the Numidian Kingdom.
(The publicity attracted by this feat boosts Sulla's political career.
Much to the annoyance of Marius, a gilded equestrian statue of Sulla donated by King Bocchus is erected in the Forum to commemorate his accomplishment.)
Since Marius holds the imperium and Sulla is acting as his subordinate, the honor of capturing Jugurtha belongs strictly to Marius, but Sulla had clearly been immediately responsible and has a signet ring made for himself commemorating the event.
Sulla will later claim that the credit for ending the war was his.
Meanwhile, Marius is the hero of the hour, and his services will soon be needed in another emergency.