The Jugurthine War (Bellum Iugurthinum)

Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus, 86 to about 35 BC) was a Caesarian politician who withdrew from public life after Caesar's murder and turned to history. The Jugurthine War, written in the early 30s BC after his Catiline, is a single-volume monograph on Rome's war of 112 to 105 BC against Jugurtha, king of Numidia in North Africa, and on the corruption it exposed at home.

After a prologue arguing that the mind, not fortune, governs human life, Sallust tells how Jugurtha, a grandson of Masinissa, won fame serving under Scipio Aemilianus at Numantia and was adopted by King Micipsa. On Micipsa's death he murdered his cousin Hiempsal, besieged the other heir, Adherbal, at Cirta and put him to death, buying support in the Roman senate at every stage. A digression describes Africa and its peoples. Corrupt commanders make a shameful peace; the tribune Memmius rouses the people; Jugurtha, summoned to Rome, has a rival killed there and leaves calling it a city for sale. Aulus Albinus is defeated and sent under the yoke, and after a reflection on party strife since the Gracchi the honest Metellus restores discipline and wins at the Muthul, Zama and Thala, while his officer Marius intrigues for the consulship and Jugurtha seeks the help of King Bocchus.

Sallust's Latin is terse, archaic and deliberately uneven, modelled on Thucydides and quite unlike Cicero's. Sentences are short and packed, so the reading is demanding but rewarding. The speeches of Memmius and Adherbal, the portrait of Jugurtha and the moralising prefaces are the passages most often read.