Cataclysm 90 BC: The Forgotten War that Almost Destroyed Rome

by Philip Matyszak

vicinity were terrified and surrendered to him’.10 In quick order Stabiae and Herculaneum on the coast, the nearby Roman colony of Salernum and several other towns fell to the Italian leader, who forcibly recruited the available manpower into his army, thus gaining about two legions and a thousand cavalry. Next Mutilus headed for Acerrae, a town situated inland some thirteen miles from Naples. The consul Lucius Caesar now entered the fray. Thanks to the energetic recruiting of an up-and-coming officer in Cisalpine Gaul, Caesar had acquired reinforcements of ten thousand Gallic warriors. Recruitment elsewhere in the empire had added a formidable force of Numidian horse, cavalry generally reckoned the best light horse in the world. But Mutilus had also foreseen the arrival of the Numidians and had taken steps to neutralize them. It will be remembered that the Latin colony of Venusia in Apulia had defected early to the Italian side. In Venusia the Romans had been holding hostage one of the sons of Jugurtha, and this man had fallen into Mutilus’ hands along with the city. Now this scion of the Numidian royal line was displayed to his father’s former subjects. The Numidians were invited to desert Rome and fight for a member of their own royal family.