Sallust’s other surviving book is a war in North Africa — Numidia, roughly Algeria — and a picture of a Rome that can be bought. Jugurtha, a Numidian prince, murders his way to the throne and finds that at Rome almost anything has a price. Senators take the gold. A Roman army is humiliated. The Republic is still a city run by a senate and elected officials, not a king, and Sallust thinks those officials have a price too.

Then new men take over the war. Metellus puts a rotten army back in order. Marius, a soldier from outside the old noble houses, enrolls the landless poor and seizes the command. Sulla, hungry for glory, rides into a North African court. A neighboring king sells Jugurtha in chains. Marius parades the captive through Rome — and the nobles have a new rival to fear.