their kind throughout the Roman world, was then working. But in the
year 130 M. Perperna surprised him, and carried him to Rome. Blossius
committed suicide. The pretender was strangled in prison. Part of his
territory was given to the kings who had helped the consul, one of
whom was the father of the great Mithridates. Phrygia was the share
assigned to him; but the Senate took it back from his successor,
saying that the consul Aquillius had been bribed to give it. The
consul may have been base or the Senate mean, or, what is more
probable, the baseness of the one was used as a welcome plea by the
other's meanness. The European part was added to the province of
Macedonia. The Lycian confederacy received Telmissus. The rest was
formed into a province, which was called Asia--the name being at once
an incentive to and a nucleus for future annexation. Such a nucleus
they already possessed in the province of Africa, and there also war
was kindled by the ambition of a bastard.

[Sidenote: Jugurtha.] Jugurtha was the illegitimate son of Mastanabal,
Micipsa's brother. He had served at Numantia under Scipio, along with
his future conqueror Marius. There he had begun to intrigue with
influential Romans for the succession to the Numidian kingdom, and
had been rebuked by Scipio, who told him he should cultivate the
friendship, not of individual Romans, but of the State. But in
Jugurtha's heart a noble sentiment found no echo. Brave, treacherous,
restless, an able commander, a crafty politician, adroit in discerning
and profiting by other men's bad qualities, wading to the throne
through the blood of three kinsmen, he in some respects resembles
Shakspeare's Richard III.,--his 'prime of manhood daring, bold, and
venturous,' his 'age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody.'
[Sidenote: Micipsa's will.] Micipsa had shared the kingdom with his
two brothers, who died before him; and as this, which was Scipio's