Chapter VI (4)

The senate had indeed learnt a lesson, and from this time onward the history of the Numidian war is simplified by the fact that its progress was determined by strategic, not by political, considerations. There is no thought of temporising with the enemy; the one idea is to reduce him to a condition of absolute submission--a submission which it was known could be secured only by the possession of his person. It is true that the conduct of the campaign became more than ever a party question; but the party struggle turned almost wholly on the military merit of the commander sent to the scene of action, and although there was a suspicion that the war was being needlessly prolonged for the purpose of gratifying personal ambition, there was no hint of the secret operation of influences that were wholly corrupt. Such a suspicion was rendered impossible by the personality of the man who now took over the conduct of the campaign. The tardily elected consuls for the year were Quintus Caecilius Metellus and Marcus Junius Silanus. Of these Metellus was to hold Numidia and Silanus Gaul.[993] It is possible that, in the counsels of the previous year, considerations of the Numidian campaign may to some extent have determined the election of Metellus; the senate may have welcomed the candidature of a man of approved probity, although not of approved military skill, for the purpose of obviating the chance of another scandal; and the people may in the same spirit have now ratified his election. But, when we remember the almost mechanical system of advancement to the higher offices which prevailed at this time, it is equally possible that Metellus's day had come, that the senate was fortunate rather than prescient in its choice of a servant, and that, although the people in their present temper would probably have rejected a suspicious character, they accepted rather than chose Metellus. The existing system did not even make it possible to elect a man who would certainly have the conduct of the African war; and if we suppose that in this particular case the division of the consular provinces did not depend on the unadulterated use of the lot, but was settled by agreement or by a mock sortition,[994] the probity rather than the genius of Metellus must have determined the choice, for Silanus was assigned a task of far more vital importance to the welfare of Rome and Italy.

The repute of Metellus was based on the fact that, although an aristocrat and a staunch upholder of the privileges of his order, he was honest in his motives and, so far at least as civic politics were concerned, straightforward in his methods. Rome was reaching a stage at which the dramatic probity of Hellenic annals, as exemplified by the names of an Aristeides or a Xenocrates, could be employed as a measure to exalt one member of a government among his fellows; the incorruptibility which had so lately been the common property of all,[995] had become the monopoly of a few, and Metellus was a witness to the folly of a caste which had not recognised the policy of honesty. The completeness with which the prize for character might be won, was shown by the attitude of a jury before which he had been impeached on a charge of extortion. Even the jealous _Equites_ did not deign to glance at the account-books which were handed in, but pronounced an immediate verdict of acquittal.[996] But the merely negative virtue of unassailability by grossly corrupting influences could not have been the only source of the equable repute which Metellus enjoyed amongst the masses. It was but one of the signs of the self-sufficient directness, repose and courtesy, which marked the better type of the new nobility, of a life that held so much that it needed not to grasp at more, of the protecting impulse and the generosity which, in the purer type of minds constricted by conservative prejudices, is an outcome of the conviction of the unbridgeable gulf that separates the classes. The nobility of Metellus was wholly in his favour; it justified the senate while it hypnotised the people. The man who was now consul and would probably within a short space of time attach the name of a conquered nationality to his own, was but fulfilling the accepted destiny of his family. Metellus could show a father, a brother, an uncle and four cousins, all of whom had held the consulship. Since the middle of the second century titles drawn from three conquered peoples had become appellatives of branches of his race. His uncle had derived a name from Macedon, a cousin from the Baliares, his own elder brother from the Dalmatians. It remained to see whether the best-loved member of this favoured race would be in a position to add to the family names the imposing designation of Numidicus.

Metellus was a man of intellect and energy as well as of character,[997] and he showed himself sufficiently exempt from the prejudices of his caste, and sufficiently conscious of the seriousness of the work in hand, to choose real soldiers, not diplomatists or ornamental warriors, as his lieutenants. If the restiveness of Marius had left a disturbing memory behind, it was judiciously forgotten by the consul, who drew the _protege_ of his family from the uncongenial atmosphere of the city to render services in the field, and to teach an ambitious and somewhat embittered man that each act of skill and gallantry was performed for the glory of his superior. Another of his legates was Publius Rutilius Rufus, who like Marius had held the praetorship, and was not only a man of known probity and firmness of character, but a scientific student of tactics with original ideas which were soon to be put to the test in the reorganisation of the army which followed the Numidian war. For the present it was necessary to create rather than reorganise an army, and Metellus in his haste had no time for the indulgence of original views. The reports of the forces at present quartered in the African province were not encouraging; and every means had to be taken to find new soldiers and fresh supplies. A vigorous levy was cheerfully tolerated by the enthusiasm of the community; the senate showed its earnestness by voting ample sums for the purchase of arms, horses, siege implements and stores. Renewed assistance was sought from, and voluntarily rendered by, the Latins and Italian allies, while subject kings proved their loyalty by sending auxiliary forces of their own free will.[998] When Metellus deemed his preparations complete, he sailed for his province amidst the highest hopes. They were hopes based on the probity of a single man; for the impression still prevailed that Roman arms were invincible and had been vanquished only by the new vices of the Roman character. Such hopes are not always the best omen for a commander to take with him; a joy in the present, they are likely to prove an embarrassment in the immediate future.