Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus - Jugurthine War and Aristocratic Politics

Jugurthine War and Aristocratic Politics

As consul (with Marcus Junius Silanus), he led the war in Numidia against Jugurtha. The war dragged out into a long and seemingly endless campaign as the Romans tried to inflict a decisive defeat on Jugurtha. Frustrated at the apparent lack of action, Metellus' lieutenant Marius returned to Rome to seek election as Consul. Marius won the election, and returned to Numidia and to take control of the war. Metellus gained an important victory over Jugurtha at the Battle of the Muthul. Metellus stayed in Numidia for another year, laying siege to Jugurthine holdouts, following which he returned to Rome. His second-in-command Marius, designing to displace Metellus as commander in Numidia, spreading rumours that Metellus was dragging out the Jugurthine War so as not to have to give up his command; Marius himself also obtained election to the consulship for 107 BC, taking Numidia as his province. On his return to Rome, Metellus was surprised by the demonstrations of enthusiasm and recognition which he received from a faction of Senators and the people who did not support Marius. The Senate minted coins in Metellus' honour and he celebrated a triumph, acquiring the cognomen Numidicus, to Marius' irritation.

Metellus Numidicus became the main leader of the aristocratic faction, opposing the rapid political ascent of the populist Marius, who was favoured by the final success of the imprisonment and killing of Jugurtha thanks to a stratagem of Sulla. Marius became consul for 107 BC. Marius' reforms of the Roman Army where he recruited Romans without property and loyal to their general was a turning point in Roman history, and the reforms were bitterly opposed by Numidicus' conservative faction.

Metellus Numidicus was elected censor in 102 BC in partnership with his cousin Gaius Caecilius Metellus Caprarius. During the censorship, he tried to expel Marius' ally Lucius Appuleius Saturninus from the Senate, but without success. Afterwards, Saturninus had his revenge when, having been elected tribune of the plebs, he and Marius proposed an agrarian law awarding land to Roman veterans, with an additional clause that obliged every Senator to swear allegiance to the agrarian law, under penalty of explusion from the Senate and a heavy fine. In the Senate, Marius first declared that he would never take the oath, in which Metellus seconded him; in the event, however, Marius and all other senators but Metellus took the oath. Rather than swear obedience to a law to which he opposed, Metellus Numidicus resigned his Senate seat and paid the corresponding fine. After leaving the Forum, he said to his friends: "To do harm is proper of the evil spirits; to do good without taking risks is proper of the ordinary spirits; the man of heart never ever deflects from what is fair and honest, never looking to rewards or to threats."