The state of feeling in Numidia was evinced by the revolt of Vaga,( 13) the most considerable of the cities occupied by the Romans, in the winter of 646-7; on which occasion the whole Roman garrison, officers and men, were put to death with the exception of the commandant Titus Turpilius Silanus, who was afterwards--whether rightly or wrongly, we cannot tell--condemned to death by a Roman court-martial and executed for having an understanding with the enemy.

The town was surprised by Metellus on the second day after its revolt, and given over to all the rigour of martial law; but if such was the temper of the easy to be reached and comparatively submissive dwellers on the banks of the Bagradas, what might be looked for farther inland and among the roving tribes of the desert?
Jugurtha was the idol of the Africans, who readily overlooked the double fratricide in the liberator and avenger of their nation.

Twenty years afterwards a Numidian corps which was fighting in Italy for the Romans had to be sent back in all haste to Africa, when the son of Jugurtha appeared in the enemy's ranks; we may infer from this, how great was the influence which he himself exercised over his people.
What prospect was there of a termination of the struggle in regions where the combined peculiarities of the population and of the soil allowed a leader, who had once secured the sympathies of the nation, to protract the war in endless guerilla conflicts, or even to let it sleep for a time in order to revive it at the right moment with renewed vigour?
War in the Desert Mauretanian Complications When Metellus again took the field in 647, Jugurtha nowhere held his ground against him; he appeared now at one point, now at another far distant; it seemed as if they would as easily get the better of the lions as of these horsemen of the desert.

A battle was fought, a victory was won; but it was difficult to say what had been gained by the victory.

The king had vanished out of sight in the distance.