Nic Fields, The Jugurthine War 112-106 BC (Osprey, 2025)
Most students of ancient warfare will associate the Numidians with their role in the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. Indeed, this is the first we hear of Numidia, a north African state, consisting of a few agricultural communities and a vast interior populated by nomadic herdsmen. They had fought with the Carthaginians and then with Rome, becoming something of a vassal state. However, that casual relationship blew up in Rome’s face in 112 BCE when Numidian internal political divisions exploded into a civil war, forcing Rome to intercede against a usurper king, Jugurtha. Nic Fields takes us into the ensuing war that escalated into a level of brutality that even shocked many Romans.
The uncertainties of studying ancient history are immediately apparent in the Jugurthine War for which we have no certain chronology; our main historian, Sallust, having no interest in such matters. Nevertheless, Fields is able to answer most of the how and why questions. The Numidian Jugurtha was in illegitimate prince who had fought alongside Rome in Hispania, where he learned the Roman art of war, which he would use to his advantage against them when the time came for him to usurp the Numidian throne and take on the legions. He fought, or bribed (allegedly), a few Roman generals, but his nemesis would be the infamous Gaius Marius, a provincial aristocrat but also a seasoned general.
Fields examines the opposing forces. The core of the Numidian army was a body of lightly armed foot-soldiers supplemented by some heavier infantry, archers, and elephants. But it was their light cavalry that presented the greatest threat to the legions when operating in a combat environment more conducive to mobile warfare. The Roman manipular legion presented too much of a challenge to the Numidian army in pitched battles, as demonstrated by the Roman general Quintus Metellus at the Muthul river in 109 BCE. Jugurtha withdrew, however, into the mountains and plains where he could wage guerilla warfare, while the Romans ravaged towns and settlements. Metellus could not beat Jugurtha that way. Enter Gaius Marius with a larger Roman army and more brutal tactics, leading to the shocking destruction of the Capsa in 107 BCE. Still Jugurtha fought back, forcing Marius onto the defensive. It would be treachery rather than battlefield victory that brought Jugurtha down when Bocchus, the king of Mauretania, betrayed Jugurtha to the Romans. The war was over. Fields concludes by examining the historical consequences of the Jugurthine War, which was far-reaching militarily and politically.
The Jugurthine War is not one that automatically comes to mind when thinking of Rome’s great campaigns, yet as Fields demonstrates in this slim volume in Osprey’s excellent Campaign series, it highlights many of the problems facing the Romans as their Republic faltered in the late second century BCE. This was not a war that favoured the Roman style, and it required innovations that prompted military reforms and definitively altered Roman politics. Fields works his way through the causes and consequences while narrating the main events in his usual authoritative manner, supported by Osprey’s customary high quality graphics and illustrations. Fields’s The Jugurthine War fills an important gap in Osprey’s coverage of Rome’s wars, and it is an enjoyable and informative read.
