Jugurtha Quotes

I love him so very much. As Romeo did Jugurtha, as Pyramid did Thirsty, as-" "Oh, please, no need to elaborate further," interjected Alexia, wincing. "But what would my family SAY to such a union?" "They would say that yours hats had leaked into your head," muttered Alexia, unheard under her breath.

Sallust was particularly eloquent on the theme. In his other surviving essay, on a war against the North African king Jugurtha at the end of the second century BCE, he reflects on the dire consequences of the destruction of Carthage: from the greed of all sections of Roman society (‘every man for himself’), through the breakdown of consensus between rich and poor, to the concentration of power in the hands of a very few men. These all pointed to the end of the Republican system.

For several Roman observers, senatorial weakness for bribery was one major factor lying behind their failure: ‘Rome’s a city for sale and bound to fall as soon as it finds a buyer’, as Jugurtha was supposed to have quipped when he left the city. The general incompetence of the governing class was another.

Grandeur," said Pangloss, "is extremely dangerous according to the testimony of philosophers. For, in short, Eglon, King of Moab,[Pg 167] was assassinated by Ehud; Absalom was hung by his hair, and pierced with three darts; King Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, was killed by Baasa; King Ela by Zimri; Ahaziah by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the Kings Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity. You know how perished Crœsus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Cæsar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II. of England, Edward II., Henry VI., Richard III., Mary Stuart, Charles I., the three Henrys of France, the Emperor Henry IV.! You know——" "I know also," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden.

(Jugurtha:) Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit.

dangerous,” Aemilianus said, “to buy from a few what belonged to the many.” This was not a lesson Jugurtha would learn.

The king formally adopted Jugurtha as his son,

Had Jugurtha stopped with the execution of Adherbal,

and Rome’s fat nobility are gorging themselves on the blood of the Republic, and I’m not so sure this great state will survive many more attacks from the likes of Jugurtha

They are perhaps reminded of their readings in Roman history at school when they find the stage occupied permanently by the Romans, to whom enter in turn a number of outlandish characters called Pyrrhus, Mithridates or Jugurtha just in time to receive their coup de grace. What they were doing behind the scenes before responding to their cue is left obscure.

Gaius Marius was a pivotal figure in Roman history. When he first embarked on his public career he was merely a novus homo Italian. But through steady persistence, he had climbed his way up the cursus honorum. As he climbed, he helped unlock the populare forces that challenged senatorial supremacy. He was connected to publicani merchants, a friend of the Italians, and patron to legions of poor veteran soldiers. He had fought and won wars against Jugurtha and the Cimbri, and at the peak of his power was hailed as the Third Founder of Rome. His spectacular career set an example for ambitious men of future generations, though this example was not uniformly positive. At the end of his life Marius came to embody the dark side of relentless ambition: “It can therefore be said that as much as he saved the state as a soldier, so much he damaged it as a citizen, first by his tricks, later by his revolutionary actions.” Above

Honour is not bestowed upon merit.

(Jugurtha:) That it was a venal city, and would soon perish, if it could but find a purchaser!

This taunt served only to rouse the feelings of Marius, as well for the honor at which he aimed, as against Metellus. He suffered himself to be actuated, therefore, by ambition and resentment, the worst of counselors. He omitted nothing henceforward, either in deeds or words, that could increase his own popularity. He allowed the soldiers, of whom he had the command in the winter quarters, more relaxation of discipline than he had ever granted them before. He talked of the war among the merchants, of whom there was a great number at Utica, censoriously with respect to Metellus, and vauntingly with regard to himself; saying "that if but half of the army were granted him, he would in a few days have Jugurtha in chains; but that the war was purposely protracted by the consul, because, being a man of vanity and regal pride, he was too fond of the delights of power." All these assertions appeared the more credible to the merchants, as, by the long continuance of the war, they had suffered in their fortunes; and to impatient minds no haste is sufficient.

When Jugurtha, however, after being thus despoiled of arms, men and money, was summoned to appear in person at Tisidium, to await the consul's commands, he began again to change his mind, dreading, from a consciousness of guilt, the punishment due to his crimes. Having spent several days in hesitation, sometimes, from disgust at his ill success, believing any thing better than war, and sometimes considering with himself how grievous would be the fall from sovereignty to slavery, he at last determined, notwithstanding that he had lost so many and so valuable means of resistance, to commence hostilities anew.

Jugurtha inflamed the mind of Bocchus by observing "that the Romans were a lawless people, of insatiable covetousness, and the common enemies of mankind; that they had the same motive for making war on Bocchus as on himself and other nations, the lust of dominion; that all independent states were objects of hatred to them; at present, for instance, himself; a little before, the Carthaginians had been so, as well as king Perses; and that, in future, as any sovereign became conspicuous for his power, so would he assuredly be treated as an enemy by the Romans.