4. Jugur'tha, sensible how much avarice and
injustice had crept into the senate, sent his ambassadors to Rome with
large presents, which so successfully prevailed, that the senate
decreed him half the kingdom thus acquired by murder and usurpation,
and sent ten commissioners to divide it between him and Adher'bal. 5.
The commissioners, of whom Opim'ius, the enemy of Gracchus, was one,
willing to follow the example which the senate had set them, were also
bribed to bestow the richest and most populous parts of that kingdom
upon the usurper. 6. But Jugur'tha resolved to possess himself of the
whole: and willing to give a colour to his ambition, he only made, in
the beginning, incursions in order to provoke reprisals, which he knew
how to convert into seeming aggression. 7. This scheme failing, he
resolved to throw off the mask, and besieging Adher'bal in Cirta, his
capital, he at length got him into his power, and murdered him. 8. The
Roman people, who had still some generosity remaining, unanimously
complained of this treachery, and procured a decree that Jugur'tha
should be summoned in person before them, to give an account of all
such as had accepted bribes.
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