tion for the aristocracy, and Marius made them drink to the dregs
the bitter cup. While engaged in these attacks upon the Nobility, he at
the same time carried on a levy of troops with great activity, and
enrolled any persons who chose to offer for the service, however poor
and mean, instead of taking them from the five classes according to
ancient custom.[64]

Meantime Metellus had been carrying on the war in Africa as Proconsul
(B.C. 108). But the campaign was not productive of such decisive results
as might have been expected. Jugurtha avoided any general action, and
eluded the pursuit of Metellus by the rapidity of his movements. Even
when driven from Thala, a strong-hold which he had deemed inaccessible
from its position in the midst of arid deserts, he only retired among
the Gaetulians, and quickly succeeded in raising among those wild tribes
a fresh army, with which he once more penetrated into the heart of
Numidia. A still more important accession was that of Bocchus, king of
Mauritania, who had been prevailed upon to raise an army, and advance to
the support of Jugurtha. Metellus, however, having now relaxed his own
efforts, from disgust at hearing that C. Marius had been appointed to
succeed him in the command, remained on the defensive, while he sought
to amuse the Moorish king by negotiation. The arrival of Marius (B.C.
107) infused fresh vigor into the Roman arms. He quickly reduced in
succession almost all the strong-holds that still remained to Jugurtha,
in some of which the king had deposited his principal treasures; and
the latter, seeing himself thus deprived step by step of all his
dominions, at length determined on a desperate attempt to retrieve his
fortunes by one grand effort. He with difficulty prevailed on the
wavering Bocchus, by the most extensive promises in case of success, to
co-operate with him in this enterprise; and the two kings, with their
united forces, attacked Marius on his march, when he was about to retire
into winter quarters. Though the Roman general was taken by surprise for
a moment, his consummate skill and the discipline of his troops proved
again triumphant; the Numidians were repulsed, and their army, as usual
with them in case of a defeat, dispersed in all directions. Jugurtha
himself, after displaying the greatest courage in the action, cut his
way almost alone through a body of Roman cavalry, and escaped from the
field of battle. He quickly again gathered round him a bod