1The Numidians carried out their orders within a few days. 1Adherbal's letter was read out in the senate, and its substance was this: 'It is through no fault of mine that I often send to you to make entreaty, conscript fathers, but the violence of Jugurtha compels me; such a lust to destroy me has seized him that he holds neither you nor the immortal gods in his mind, and would rather have my blood than anything else. 3And so for the fifth month now I, the ally and friend of the Roman people, am held besieged by arms; 3neither the kindnesses of my father Micipsa nor your decrees bring me any help; 3whether I am pressed harder by the sword or by hunger I do not know.
4My fortune dissuades me from writing more about Jugurtha, and I have already learned before that the wretched find little credit; 5except that I do understand that he is aiming at something higher than me, and does not hope to have both your friendship and my kingdom together. 5Which of the two he thinks weightier is hidden from no one. 6For first he killed my brother Hiempsal, then he drove me from my father's kingdom. 6Granted that these were wrongs done to us, they are nothing to you. 7But now he holds your kingdom by arms; 7me, whom you set as ruler over the Numidians, he keeps shut in and besieged; 7how much he has cared for the words of your envoys my dangers make plain.
8What is left but your might to move him? 9For I for my part would wish that both what I am writing now and what I complained of before in the senate were groundless, rather than that my misery should make my words believed. 10But since I was born for this, to be a showpiece of Jugurtha's crimes, I no longer beg to be spared death or suffering, only the rule of my enemy and the torture of my body. 10Decide as you please about the kingdom of Numidia, which is yours; 10but snatch me from impious hands, by the majesty of your empire, by the good faith of friendship, if any memory of my grandfather Masinissa still remains among you.'