ntented himself with lodging complaints at Rome,
Jugurtha, impatient of these ceremonies, began the war even without
pretext. Adherbal was totally defeated in the region of the modern
Philippeville, and threw himself into his capital of Cirta in the
immediate vicinity. While the siege was in progress, and Jugurtha's
troops were daily skirmishing with the numerous Italians who were
settled in Cirta and who took a more vigorous part in the defence of
the city than the Africans themselves, the commission despatched by
the Roman senate on Adherbal's first complaint made its appearance;
composed, of course, of young inexperienced men, such as the
government of those times regularly employed in the ordinary missions
of the state. The envoys demanded that Jugurtha should allow them
as deputed by the protecting power to Adherbal to enter the city,
and generally that he should suspend hostilities and accept their
mediation. Jugurtha summarily rejected both demands, and the envoys
hastily returned home--like boys, as they were--to report to the
fathers of the city. The fathers listened to the report, and
allowed their countrymen in Cirta just to fight on as long as they
pleased. It was not till, in the fifth month of the siege, a
messenger of Adherbal stole through the entrenchments of the enemy
and a letter of the king full of the most urgent entreaties reached
the senate, that the latter roused itself and actually adopted a
resolution--not to declare war as the minority demanded but to send a
new embassy--an embassy, however, headed by Marcus Scaurus, the great
conqueror of the Taurisci and the freedmen, the imposing hero of
the aristocracy, whose mere appearance would suffice to bring the
refractory king to a different mind. In fact Jugurtha appeared, as
he was bidden, at Utica to discuss the matter with Scaurus; endless
debates were held; when at length the conference was concluded, not
the slightest result had been obtained. The embassy returned to Rome
without having declared war, and the king went off again to the
siege of Cirta. Adherbal found himself reduced to extremities and
despaired of Roman support; the Italians in Cirta moreover, weary of
the siege and firmly relying for their own safety on the terror of the
Roman name, urged a surrender. So the town capitulated. Jugurtha
ordered his adopted brother to be executed amid cruel tortures, and
all the adult male population of the town, Africans as well as
Ita