Numidians

Statue of Syphax, a numidian king
Numidia of Syphax and Gaïa before the unification

The Numidians were the Berber[1] population of Numidia (present-day Algeria).[2] The Numidians were originally a semi-nomadic people, they migrated frequently as nomads usually do but during certain seasons of the year, they would return to the same camp.[3] The Numidians soon became more than pastoralists and started to engage in more urban professions. The Numidians were one of the earliest Berber tribes to trade with Carthaginian settlers. As Carthage grew, the relationship with the Numidians blossomed. Carthage's military used the Numidian cavalry as mercenaries. Numidia provided some of the highest quality cavalry of the Second Punic War, and the Numidian cavalry played a key role in several battles, both early on in support of Hannibal and later in the war after switching allegiance to the Roman Republic. Numidian culture flourished between the end of the Second Punic War and around the Roman conquest, with Masinissa as the first king of a unified Numidia.

  1. ^ Simon Hornblower; Antony Spawforth; Esther Eidinow (29 March 2012). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. OUP Oxford. p. 1026. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.
  2. ^ "Numidia". Livius. 23 Sep 2020. Retrieved 20 Sep 2023.
  3. ^ Broekaert, Wim; Vanacker, Wouter (2016), Slootjes, Daniëlle; Peachin, Michael (eds.), "Raiders to Traders?: Economics of Integration among Nomadic Communities in North Africa", Rome and the Worlds beyond its Frontiers, Brill, pp. 96–122, p.97, ISBN 978-90-04-32561-6, JSTOR 10.1163/j.ctv2gjwvw1.10, retrieved 2023-04-24