Jugurthin War
The Jugurthin War is a war between the Roman Republic and King Jugurtha of Numidia from 111 to 105 BC. Chr. Designated.
Numidia was a Roman vassal kingdom. When its king Micipsa in 118 BC Died, his two biological sons Adherbal and Hiempsal I began to fight over the succession. His illegitimate son Jugurtha, who was actually excluded from the inheritance, tried to use the situation for himself by trying to achieve a division of the empire , supported by the bribed Roman Senate . He murdered Hiempsal during the negotiations. The empire became 116 BC. Divided between the remaining brothers, with Adherbal assigned the eastern half of the empire, including the capital Cirta to the west of Carthage .
112 BC Jugurtha attacked his co-regent. After the conquest of Cirta, he carried out a massacre there, killing the entire male population of the city, including Roman and Italian citizens , in addition to his brother . Thereupon Rome declared war on Jugurtha. 111 BC BC the consul Lucius Calpurnius Bestia started the war against Jugurtha, but was soon bribed by Jugurtha to a mild peace agreement. The following year the consul Spurius Postumius Albinus resumed the war; however, his army, led by his brother and legate Aulus, suffered a crushing defeat and Rome had to make another peace favorable to Jugurtha. As a result, the Postumius brothers and other bribed officers and magistrates who were involved in the so-called coniuratio Iugurthina (Jugurthin conspiracy) were tried and convicted in Rome .
109 BC BC the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus continued the war against Jugurtha. Metellus first reorganized the Roman troops in Africa, then conquered Vaga and Thala, won on the Muthul and besieged Zama ; however, he could not bring about a final decision, as the Numidian cavalry could repeatedly avoid a direct confrontation with the Roman infantry. Nevertheless, he received the honorary title Numidicus .
107 BC . Took over BC Gaius Marius , who had previously acting as legate of Metellus in Numidia, in his consulship the command of the Roman troops in Africa. By converting the Roman army to professional soldiers instead of peasants who were obliged to serve, and by using a more effective cavalry, he achieved a better position compared to the Jugurtha, who was familiar with the country and its people. In the years up to 105 BC He succeeded in conquering Capsa and defeating Jugurtha at Cirta. Jugurtha fled to his father-in-law, King Bocchus of Mauritania . After lengthy negotiations, Marius' quaestor Sulla finally reached 105 BC. BC from Bocchus the extradition of Jugurthas. On January 1, 104 BC Chr. Performed Marius Jugurtha in his triumph; a few days later Jugurtha was strangled.
Sulla, who saw himself as the victor over Jugurtha, had coins minted with his success, which not insignificantly led to his falling out with Marius, who, as a general, regarded himself as the sole triumphant .
A description of the war was provided by Sallust in his De bello Iugurthino (The Jugurthinian War). In doing so, Sallust directed his interest not only to the events of the war itself and the prehistory of the war, but also to the political situation in Rome, to the arrogance of the nobility, their rivalry among themselves and their corruption, which was evident in this war. In these states the internal decline of the republic manifested itself for Sallust.
swell
- Sallust : Bellum Iugurthinum / The war with Jugurtha . Latin / German. Edited, translated and commented by Josef Lindauer, Düsseldorf 2003, ISBN 3-7608-1374-7 .
literature
- Heinrich Chantraine : Studies on Roman history at the end of the 2nd century BC Chr . Kallmünz 1959.
- Josef Löffl: Negotiatores in Cirta. Sallust's Iugurtha and the way to the Jugurthian war . Berlin 2014.
- Victor L. Parker: Romae omnia venalia esse. Sallust's development of a thesis and the prehistory of the Iugurthine . In: Historia 53 (2004), pp. 408-423.
- Hans-Werner Ritter: Rome and Numidia. Investigations into the legal position of dependent kings . Lueneburg 1987.
- Gareth C. Sampson: The crisis of Rome. The Jugurthine and Northern Wars and the rise of Marius . Barnsley 2010.
- Maria Radnoti-Alföldi: The history of the Numidian kingdom and its successors . In: Heinz Günter Horn and Christoph Bernhard Rüger (eds.): Die Numider. Horsemen and kings north of the Sahara . Bonn 1979, pp. 43-74.