Bellum Iugurthinum

Sallust

Sallust. Sallust, Florus, and Velleius Paterculus. Watson, J. S. (John Selby), translator. London: Harper and Brothers, 1899.

The Roman soldiers, perplexed with sudden alarm, and not knowing what was best for them to do, were in trepidation. At the citadel,[*](LXVII. Were in trepidation. At the citadel, etc.] I have translated this passage in conformity with the texts of Gerlach, Kritzius, Dietsch, Müller, and Allen, who put a point between trepidare and ad arcem. Cortius, Havercamp, and Bernouf have trepidare ad arcem, without any point. Which method gives the better sense, any reader can judge.) where their standards and shields were, was posted a guard of the enemy; and the city-gates, previously closed, prevented escape. Women and children, too, on the roofs of the houses,[*](On the roofs of the houses] Pro tectis œdificiorum. In front of the roofs of the houses; that is, at the parapets. "In primâ tectorum parte."Kritzius. The roofs were flat.) hurled down upon them, with great eagerness, stones and whatever else their position furnished. Thus neither could such twofold danger be guarded against, nor could the bravest resist the feeblest; the worthy and the worthless, the valiant and the cowardly, were alike put to death unavenged. In the midst of this slaughter, while the Numidians were exercising every cruelty, and the town was closed on all sides, Turpilius was the only one, of all the Italians, that escaped unhurt. Whether his flight was the consequence of compassion in his entertainer, of compact, or of chance, I have never discovered; but since, in such a general massacre, he preferred inglorious safety to an honorable name, he seems to have been a worthless and infamous character.[*](Worthless and infamous character] Improbus intestabilisque. These words are taken from the twelve tables of the Roman law: See Aul. Gell. vi. 7; xv. 3. Horace, in allusion to them, has intestabilis et sacer, Sat. ii. 3. 181. Intestabilis signified a person to be of so infamous a character that he was not allowed to give evidence in a court of justice.)

When Metellus heard of what had happened at Vacca, he retired for a time, overpowered with sorrow, from the public gaze; but at length, as indignation mingled with his

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grief, he hastened, with the utmost spirit, to take vengeance for the outrage. He led forth, at sunset, the legion that was in winter quarters with him, and as many Numidian horse as he could, and arrived, about the third hour on the following day, at a certain plain surrounded by rising grounds. Here he acquainted the soldiers, who were now exhausted with the length of their march, and averse to further exertion,[*](LXVIII. Averse to further exertion] Tum abnuentes omnia. Most of the translators have understood by these words that the troops refused to obey orders; but Sallust's meaning is only that they expressed, by looks and gestures, their unwillingness to proceed.) that the town of Vacca was not above a mile distant, and that it became them to bear patiently the toil that remained, with the hope of exacting revenge for their countrymen, the bravest and most unfortunate of men. He likewise generously promised them the whole of the plunder. Their courage being thus revived, he ordered them to resume their march, the cavalry maintaining an extended line in front, and the infantry, with their standards concealed, keeping the closest order behind.