Numidia

Numidia was an ancient kingdom of the Berbers of North Africa, centred on what is now northern Algeria and western Tunisia. It was united around 203 to 202 BCE by Masinissa, king of the eastern Numidians, who backed Rome in the Second Punic War, and it remained a powerful ally, and later a troubled client, of Rome until Julius Caesar annexed its eastern part in 46 BCE. It is often described as the first united Berber state in North Africa.

Greek writers called the peoples west of Carthage "nomads", which became Numidae in Latin, though the historian Gabriel Camps argued for a local African origin of the name. Larger Libyan kingdoms seem to have formed through a mix of local change, such as population growth, iron tools and the move from chariots to cavalry, and pressure from Carthage. By the late third century BCE the Numidians had formed two rival groups: the Massylii in the east, with their capital at Cirta, and the Masaesyli in the west under King Syphax, with their capital at Siga.

During the Second Punic War the two sides shifted alliances. Masinissa, raised in Carthage, first fought for the Carthaginians, but after losing his family's lands he went over to Rome. In 204 BCE he joined Scipio Africanus in Africa, defeated and captured Syphax in 203 BCE, and fought on Rome's side at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE. Scipio proclaimed him king of all Numidia.

Masinissa reigned until his death in 148 BCE. He steadily took land from Carthage, and by 158 BCE had reached Lepcis Magna and the Tripolitanian coast, so that his kingdom surrounded Carthage on the landward side. His seizure of more territory in 152 BCE, and Carthage's armed response, gave Rome its pretext for the war that destroyed Carthage in 146 BCE. Under Masinissa and his son Micipsa, farming spread alongside herding, towns grew, and Numidian grain was shipped in large quantities to Roman armies and to Greek cities such as Delos. The kings wore the Hellenistic diadem on their coins and were honoured as divine or semi-divine.

After Micipsa died in 118 BCE, his nephew Jugurtha had one co-heir, Hiempsal, killed and drove out the other, Adherbal, whom he later executed after a siege of Cirta. The Roman Republic went to war against him, and its armies were humiliated near Suthul in 109 BCE. Roman commanders struggled against his mobile forces until Marius took over; in 106 BCE Jugurtha's father-in-law, Bocchus of Mauretania, betrayed him to the Romans, and he died in a Roman prison after Marius's triumph in 104 BCE. Western Numidia then passed to Bocchus, while the rest was ruled by loyal princes under Roman supervision.

Numidian kings were drawn into Rome's civil wars. Juba I, who came to the throne in 50 BCE, sided with Pompey's supporters against Julius Caesar and helped defeat the army of Caesar's lieutenant Curio in 49 BCE. After Caesar's victory at Thapsus in 46 BCE, Juba fled and was killed soon afterwards, and Caesar annexed eastern Numidia as the province of Africa Nova, with the historian Sallust as governor. Juba's son, Juba II, briefly ruled as a client king from 30 to 25 BCE before the lands were absorbed into the province of Africa Proconsularis.

Numidian society was built on kin groups and clans, and the monarchy rested on tribute, alliances and hostages rather than a strong administration. Its cavalry, riding without saddles or bridles and fighting with javelins, was famous across the Mediterranean and served both Carthage and Rome. Religion mixed local gods, ancestor cults and royal worship with Punic and Greek deities such as Baal Hammon, Tanit and Ceres. Great royal tombs, such as the Medracen and the Kbor Roumia, survive in Algeria.

Our 100 BCE map draws Numidia across northern Algeria, between Mauretania to the west and the Roman province of Africa, on the former lands of Carthage, to the east.