Sophonisba of Numidia

Numidian queen and Carthaginian patriot

• Born: Unknown
• Birthplace: Carthage, North Africa (now in Tunisia)
• Died: c. 203 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Near Campi Magni (now Souk el Kremis, Tunisia) or Cirta (now Constantine, Algeria)

Through her marriage to the Numidian king Syphax, Sophonisba secured an important alliance between Numidia and Carthage against the Romans in the years 205-203 b.c.e.

Early Life

The story of Sophonisba (saw-fon-IHZ-bah) is inextricably entwined with the story of the great conflict between Rome and Carthage known as the Second Punic War (218-202 b.c.e.). In tracing her life one must also trace a part of the history of this war as well as variations in the details of her life given in the primary sources, the works of Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Livy, Appian, and Dio Cassius. In 218 the Carthaginian general Hannibal led an invasion force from Spain into Italy, where he inflicted a series of devastating military defeats on the Romans. Meanwhile, Roman forces contested Carthaginian dominance in Spain. One of the Carthaginian commanders in Spain (214-206 b.c.e.) was Hasdrubal (d. 202), son of Gisco and the father of Sophonisba. The sources are unanimous in describing Sophonisba as young, beautiful, educated in literature and music, and exceptionally charming. Her desirability coupled with her deep devotion to Carthage made her an important foreign relations asset.

The Berber tribes who occupied the region of north Africa west of Carthage called Numidia (northeast Algeria) were of strategic importance in the deadly struggle between the two Imperial powers, able to offer a huge supply of manpower, especially cavalry, to whichever side could gain their alliance. The preeminent Numidian king at this time was Syphax (d. 201), who ruled a confederacy of tribes known as the Masaesylii. In 213 Syphax made war on the Carthaginians and entered into relations with the Roman commanders in Spain. The Carthaginians made an alliance with Gala, the leader of a second important confederacy of Numidian tribes. Gala’s son Masinissa (c. 238-148 b.c.e.) won a large-scale battle against Syphax in Africa and then went to Spain as an ally of Hasdrubal (212-206 b.c.e.). Masinissa was young, handsome, noble, educated in Carthage, and an outstanding military asset. Accordingly, Hasdrubal attempted to seal their alliance by offering him Sophonisba’s hand in marriage.

Life’s Work

In 206 when Scipio Africanus (d. 184) dealt a crushing blow to Hasdrubal’s forces, effectively ending the war in Spain, Masinissa secretly went over to the Romans and returned to Africa. Apparently, his betrothal to Sophonisba was not sufficient to secure his loyalty in the absence of military success. Now Gala died and Masinissa was defeated by Syphax and forced to go into hiding with a small guerrilla force. Thus, when Scipio’s advance force landed in Africa in 205, Syphax was the man the Carthaginians had to talk to in order to ensure that the resources of Numidia would be on their side in the coming war in Africa. To this end, Hasdrubal now offered Sophonisba to the elderly Syphax. Sophonisba must have been of marrying age by now, for she was immediately summoned from Carthage, and the ceremony was performed. Along with the marriage came a treaty with Carthage, and the king was even persuaded to send messengers to Scipio in Sicily warning him not to make the crossing to Africa. Thus, when the Romans crossed in force to Africa in 204 they were joined only by Masinissa and his small rebel force, while, thanks to Sophonisba, the Carthaginians enjoyed the support of Syphax and his large Numidian army.

Finding no success at first, Scipio spent the winter of 204-203 in negotiations with the opposing armies, which were all camped in the vicinity of Utica (Utique). Specifically, he hoped that Syphax’s love for Sophonisba would weaken over time and with it his loyalty to Carthage. However, the king remained as rigid in his commitment to Carthage as he was, reportedly, in his passion for his bride. Nevertheless, the prolonged peace negotiations gave the inventive Roman commander the opportunity to gather intelligence that he exploited in a successful scheme to set the enemy camps on fire and inflict massive casualties in the ensuing confusion. Following this costly defeat, the Carthaginian assembly considered suing for peace but, under the influence of Hasdrubal and the Hannibalic faction, decided to gather new forces and continue fighting. Syphax wavered but, according to a fragment of Polybius’s work, was persuaded to keep fighting by two things: the arrival of a force of Spanish mercenaries and the now-desperate imprecations of the “young girl,” Sophonisba.

Within a few days Hasdrubal and Syphax had joined forces but were again defeated by Scipio and forced to flee. Masinissa soon arrived in Numidia along with a Roman force under Gaius Laelius, where the Maesylians made Masinissa their king. Syphax, defiant to the end, gathered a huge army of inexperienced recruits that was routed by Masinissa and Laelius. Syphax himself was captured alive while recklessly riding out in front of his troops in an effort to shame them into fighting. Masinissa, with his cavalry, pressed on ahead to take Syphax’s capital, Cirta, while Laelius followed behind with the infantry. The people of Cirta refused to capitulate until they were presented with the spectacle of their king in chains.

When Masinissa entered the palace at Cirta he met Sophonisba. Most sources write of the meeting as a reunion, since they had met before, presumably when Masinissa was being educated in Carthage, and Sophonisba had originally been betrothed to him. Livy, however, records that the two had never met, a variation that allows him to emphasize Sophonisba’s almost supernatural powers of persuasion as well as the irrational and passionate nature of the Numidians. Masinissa barred the exits to the city to prevent anyone from escaping and was entering the forecourt of the palace when he was accosted by Sophonisba. She clutched his knees and begged that he punish her in any way he saw fit, so long as he not give her to the Romans as a prize of war. She preferred to suffer punishment at the hands of a fellow African rather than foreigners. Clutching his hand, her tone changed from pleading to alluring, and Masinissa, “a victor caught by love of his captive,” gave her his word that he would honor her wish. All accounts agree that he married her that very day. However, it would not prove so easy to deprive the Romans of their spoils.

The sources agree that Syphax was dragged in chains before Scipio and required to account for his violation of the treaty. The fallen monarch gave an answer that both ameliorated his own guilt and struck a blow against his rival in love and politics. He claimed that it was Sophonisba’s irresistible ability to beguile men, combined with her diehard patriotism, that had caused him to break faith with the Romans and had brought about his downfall. His only consolation, he claimed, was that she would likewise bring destruction on his enemy Masinissa, because she would never be loyal to Rome. This made a profound impression on Scipio, and when Laelius and Masinissa returned from Numidia he demanded that the king give up the woman on the grounds that she belonged to the Romans by right of conquest. From this point the ancient accounts again diverge.

Appian has it that Sophonisba was still in Cirta. Riding on ahead of the Roman party sent with him to fetch her, Masinissa brought the girl poison, giving her the option to drink or be taken captive. After he had ridden away, Sophonisba chose a glorious death by drinking the poison. Dio, Livy, and Diodorus presume that Sophonisba was present in Scipio’s camp. Dio has Masinissa take the poison to his wife, who drinks willingly and dies content in her freedom from Rome. Livy’s account is the most vivid version: In it, Masinissa retreats to his tent, from which groans and sighs emanate as he deliberates. Finally, he sends a slave to his new bride’s tent bearing the poison and a message claiming that this is the only way he can keep his promise to her. Sophonisba accepts the poison as a wedding gift and sends a message back to her husband: “I would have died better, if my wedding had not been at my funeral.”

It has been noticed that in all of these narratives, Sophonisba’s death appears to have been influenced by accounts of the death of Cleopatra VII, who also chose a noble death over capture by the Romans in 30 b.c.e. Both figures used their charms to undermine the loyalty of those whose duty was to serve Rome, both committed suicide to avoid the humiliation of being paraded in a Roman triumph, and both revealed their strength by accepting death willingly. Diodorus alone preserves a separate and certainly earlier tradition: Masinissa himself went to Sophonisba’s tent and forced her to drink the poison. This account, which is to be preferred, reveals Sophonisba’s deep loyalty to Carthage. Masinissa knew that the intractable Sophonisba’s death was necessary if he was to remain secure and prosperous in his position as sole monarch of Numidia under Rome’s Imperial patronage. In the end, the historical Sophonisba emerges as a noble, beautiful, and persuasive young woman whose loyalty to her people was stronger than her love of life.

Significance

As politically important as Sophonisba may have been in the final years of the Second Punic War, her lasting significance has been as a literary character. In book 5 of Petrarch’s unfinished Latin epic Africa (1396; English translation, 1977), she appears as a dangerous seductress who suffers defeat but robs Rome of joy in victory.

Later Giovanni Boccaccio emphasized the greatness of her death in his Latin De mulieribus claris (c. 1361-1375; Concerning Famous Women, 1943). Petrarch’s depiction also influenced the first neoclassical tragedy, G. G. Trissino’s Sofonisba (1515, performed in 1556), which in turn influenced sixteenth and seventeenth century tragedies in French, German, and English. Among these is the Sophonisba of Nathaniel Lee (first performed in 1675 and incorporating theater music by Henry Purcell in 1695), which presents Sophonisba and Masinissa as lovers doomed by the tyrannical oppression of Rome. John Marston’s The Wonder of Women: Or, The Tragedie of Sophonisba (1606) diverged from this tradition, Sophonisba appearing as a model of stoic virtues in a world of chaotic passion and self-interest.

In the eighteenth century, the story was used to elucidate political ideas in works by James Thomson and parodied by Henry Fielding in his Tom Thumb: A Tragedy (1730). Voltaire’s Sophonisbe was published in 1770. The theme also provided material for numerous operas, including works by C. W. Gluck (1744), B. Galuppi (1753), and T. Traetta (1762). In the nineteenth century Sophonisba took off in Germany, with no less than eleven tragedies bearing the heroine’s name in the period 1808-1868.

From at least the sixteenth century Sophonisba has also been a popular subject in the pictorial arts, inspiring, for instance, major frescoes by the Veronese school painters G. A. Fasolo and G. B. Zelotti and the Venetian master G. B. Tiepolo, as well as important paintings by G. F. Caroto, M. Preti, and G. Pittoni.

Bibliography

Dorey, T. A. “Masinissa, Syphax, and Sophoniba.” Proceedings of the African Classical Associations 4, nos. 1/2 (1961). Brief but pithy historical comparison of the evidence on Sophonisba and the conflict between Syphax and Masinissa.

Haley, S. P. “Livy’s Sophonisba.” Classica et Mediaevalia 40 (1989): 171-181. A useful article highlighting the story’s literary function in Livy as part of the moralizing agenda of his work. Also demonstrates the influence of accounts of Cleopatra’s death on the accounts of Livy, Appian, and Cassius Dio.

Trissino, Giovanni G., and Pietro Aretino. Trissino’s “Sophonisba” and Aretino’s “Horatia.” Edited by Michael Lettieri and Michael Ukas. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. Translations of the two Italian Renaissance tragedies.