The apparent geographical inaccuracies in Sallust's account of the war with Jugurtha have attracted the attention of many scholars. Several years ago Etienne Tiffou devoted a study to the fact that Sallust's three historical works show a progressively greater interest in geography, but many topographical difficulties in The War with Jugurtha remain unexplained. Others see the geographical excursuses in The War with Jugurtha as simply traditional devices or perhaps structural fillers whose content is purely derivative and whose contribution to the themes of the work is minimal or nil: Sallust does not contribute much more than ‘Greek erudition and fancies’. Yet many of the supposed inaccuracies and thematically empty excursuses can be better understood and appreciated as part of a consistent Sallustian technique of internal allusion. A careful reading of Sallust's references to places in The War with Jugurtha reveals the author's sophisticated use of a ‘textual geography’, i.e. the deliberate selection and arrangement of places in the text to allude to and support his central ideas. Most significantly he compares Rome to Carthage in their origins, growth and decline, he describes the reactions of the Roman people to the course of the war, and he characterizes Roman leaders in their conduct of the war against Jugurtha by using this device.