1But the consul, as he had decided, approached the fortified towns and strongholds and detached them from the enemy, partly by force, others by fear or by holding out rewards. 2And at first he undertook only modest operations, thinking that Jugurtha would come to close quarters to protect his subjects. 3But when he learned that he was far away and intent on other business, it seemed time to undertake greater and harsher tasks. 4There was, amid vast wastes, a large and strong town named Capsa, whose founder was said to be the Libyan Hercules. 4Its citizens were exempt from taxes under Jugurtha, governed with a light hand, and for these reasons regarded as most loyal, protected against enemies not only by walls, arms and men, but far more by the harshness of the country.
5For apart from the land near the town, everything else was desolate, uncultivated, lacking water and infested with snakes, whose ferocity, like that of all wild beasts, is the fiercer for want of food. 5Besides, the nature of snakes, deadly in itself, is inflamed by thirst more than by anything else. 6A very great desire to take it had seized Marius, both for its usefulness in the war and because the task seemed hard, and because Metellus had taken the town of Thala with great glory, a town not unlike it in position and fortification, except that at Thala there were several springs not far from the walls, whereas the people of Capsa had only one source of running water, and that within the town, and used rainwater for the rest.
7This, both there and in all of Africa which lived in a rougher way far from the sea, was the more easily endured because the Numidians mostly lived on milk and the flesh of wild animals, and sought neither salt nor other stimulants of the palate: food for them served against hunger and thirst, not for desire or luxury.