Juba himself came to Rome
on the occasion, bringing with him the means of influencing the judges
which Jugurtha had found so effective. Caesar in his indignation seized
Juba by the beard in the court; and when Masintha was sentenced to some
unjust penalty Caesar carried him off, concealed him in his house, and
took him to Spain in his carriage. When he rose into the Senate, his
powers as a speaker became strikingly remarkable. Cicero, who often heard
him, and was not a favorable judge, said that there was a pregnancy in his
sentences and a dignity in his manner which no orator in Rome could
approach. But he never spoke to court popularity; his aim from first to
last was better government, the prevention of bribery and extortion, and
the distribution among deserving citizens of some portion of the public
land which the rich were stealing. The Julian laws, which excited the
indignation of the aristocracy, had no other objects than these; and had
they been observed they would have saved the Constitution. The obstinacy
of faction and the civil war which grew out of it obliged him to extend
his horizon, to contemplate more radical reforms--a large extension of the
privileges of citizenship, with the introduction of the provincial
nobility into the Senate, and the transfer of the administration from the
Senate and annually elected magistrates to the permanent chief of the
army.
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