When they were agreed or seemed to be so, the king requested that, for the purpose of concluding the treaty and receiving the royal captive, Marius would send to him Lucius Sulla, who was known and acceptable to the king partly from his having formerly appeared as envoy of the senate at the Mauretanian court, partly from the commendations of the Mauretanian envoys destined for Rome to whom Sulla had rendered services on their way.

Marius was in an awkward position.
His declining the suggestion would probably lead to a breach; his accepting it would throw his most aristocratic and bravest officer into the hands of a man more than untrustworthy, who, as every one knew, played a double game with the Romans and with Jugurtha, and who seemed almost to have contrived the scheme for the purpose of obtaining for himself provisional hostages from both sides in the persons of Jugurtha and Sulla.

But the wish to terminate the war outweighed every other consideration, and Sulla agreed to undertake the perilous task which Marius suggested to him.

He boldly departed under the guidance of Volux the son of king Bocchus, nor did his resolution waver even when his guide led him through the midst of Jugurtha's camp.

He rejected the pusillanimous proposals of flight that came from his attendants, and marched, with the king's son at his side, uninjured through the enemy.