Masinissa

Numidian king (r. c. 201-148 b.c.e.)

• Born: c. 238 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Numidia, northern Africa (now in Algeria)
• Died: 148 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Numidia, northern Africa (now in Algeria)

Through his alliance with the Roman Republic, Masinissa helped to destroy the realm of Carthage, opening the way to Roman suzerainty over the Mediterranean region.

Early Life

Masinissa (MAHS-uh-NIHS-uh) was not born a king. He was the son of a minor tribal chieftain of the Massylians, a tribe of the North African group known to the Greeks and Carthaginians as the Numidians. Numidia was roughly equivalent to modern eastern Algeria (as far as present-day Constantine) and western Tunisia. The Numidians are generally considered the ancestors of the people later known as the Berbers (the very word “nomad,” according to one etymology, derives from “Numidian”). For at least three hundred years, the Numidians had been subjugated by the Carthaginians, colonizers from Phoenicia. The various Numidian tribes were used by Carthage as a source of manpower, as they were usually more warlike in nature than the commerce-minded Carthaginians.

Like many sons of Numidian nobility, young Masinissa was sent to Carthage to be educated, presumably more in warfare and in science than in high culture. It is at this point that a famous story begins, given credence by ancient historians such as Livy and Appian but suspect to more skeptical modern viewpoints. Masinissa, it is said, met and fell in love with Sophonisba, an aristocratic Carthaginian girl of the family of Gisgo. Though Numidians were subject peoples of Carthage, there were no particular racial or class differences between the two peoples, and Sophonisba’s father happily encouraged Masinissa’s interest in his daughter. The couple was betrothed around 216 b.c.e.

However, there was another suitor for Sophonisba, a man named Syphax. Syphax was the leader of a larger faction of Numidians, the Massaesylians, who coexisted in an uneasy rivalry with Masinissa’s group. While Masinissa was away in Spain serving in Carthage’s war against Rome under the command of Sophonisba’s father, Syphax exerted pressure on the Carthaginian leadership to proffer Sophonisba to him. Because Syphax was on hand and had a large military presence just outside Carthage, the Carthaginian leadership consented to Syphax’s marriage to Sophonisba.

Masinissa was, understandably, infuriated; he also felt personally endangered, as there were rumors that Sophonisba’s father was under orders from Carthage to put him to death. Though he and his family had been nothing but loyal to Carthage for several generations, he felt so betrayed by the Carthaginians that he immediately switched sides and offered his allegiance to Rome, which was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Carthage for control of the Western Mediterranean region. Masinissa would continue as a Roman ally for the rest of his long and productive life.

Life’s Work

Masinissa joined the Roman side at about the time that the tide was beginning to turn in the Second Punic War. After Rome had been driven nearly to its knees after its defeat at Cannae in 216 b.c.e., a new, young general, Scipio, had taken command of Roman forces in Spain and was reinvigorating the Roman war effort. In 204 b.c.e., Masinissa began an organized offensive against Carthage in Africa. By now, Masinissa was in his early thirties, and he impressed and motivated his men by his physical energy, commanding appearance, and genius in warfare.

The ascetic regimen that he mandated for his men proved perfect for the desert locale of his attacks on the Carthaginians. Lacking the heavy supply trains that encumbered the Carthaginian troops, Masinissa’s mobile and maneuverable army held off the Carthaginians before Roman troops commanded by Scipio arrived in force. Eventually, Masinissa’s army engaged in direct battle with that of Syphax, and the two rivals for Sophonisba’s hand met each other in single combat. (It must be stressed again that the entire Sophonisba story contains many legendary elements.) Masinissa prevailed over Syphax at the Battle of the Great Plains, but there was concern in the Roman camp that Sophonisba was potentially a Carthaginian agent who would turn Masinissa against Rome. The Romans thus forced Masinissa to give up the woman he loved.

Masinissa’s most important service to Rome came in 202 b.c.e., when Hannibal, the great Carthaginian commander who had dealt Rome stunning blows earlier in the war, returned to Africa to defend his homeland against Scipio’s invasion. Scipio linked up with Masinissa at Zama, where the climactic battle occurred. Masinissa and his cavalry were stationed on Scipio’s right flank. Masinissa’s horsemen managed to circumvent Hannibal’s front lines and, by wreaking havoc in the rear of his opponent’s formation, contributed to Hannibal’s defeat and that of Carthage overall.

As a reward for his participation in the victory, Rome made Masinissa king of Numidia, a position that had never before existed. Masinissa, of a formerly minor tribe, now exerted supreme authority over all the Numidians. His people’s overall position in the region was also strengthened, as the peace Carthage was forced to conclude with Rome after the Battle of Zama left Carthage in a very weak position. Carthage was forced to cede to the Numidian kingdom any land that had ever belonged to Masinissa’s ancestors in the past, a clause the Numidian leader was often to use as a pretext to harass Carthage over the next fifty years.

Even after Scipio’s victory, Masinissa continued as an inveterate opponent of Carthage. This opposition was not ethnically or culturally motivated, as Masinissa, educated in Carthage, was an advocate of Punic (Carthaginian) culture and was far more part of the North African cultural world than the Roman. Masinissa’s seemingly endless need for vengeance on Carthage perhaps caused ancient historians to attribute so much importance to the Sophonisba legend. More plausibly, Masinissa early on diagnosed the rising power of Rome and wanted to be on the winning side. Certainly, his kingdom benefited from Roman patronage over his career. Masinissa also made material improvements in his own realm, especially in the area of agriculture, as he convinced many Numidian herdsmen to settle down as farmers. He also established a new capital at Cirta that served as an appropriate focal point for his newly unified kingdom.

While his kingdom was developing internally, Masinissa continued to press against Carthage. In 174 b.c.e., he accused Carthage, which as part of its peace pact with Rome had to act as a Roman ally, of receiving ambassadors from Macedonia, with which Rome was fighting a fierce war. In fact, Carthage refused Macedonian overtures; Masinissa nevertheless continued to encroach on Carthaginian territory, plundering several Carthaginian coastal outposts.

Ironically, the Carthaginians came to despise Masinissa so much for these raids that even Rome, the city’s true rival, had a far larger set of sympathizers among the Carthaginian people. For Carthage to surrender to Rome, a city of equivalent stature, was one thing, but for it potentially to surrender to Masinissa, king of a people who had once been Carthaginian subjects, was unthinkable. Carthage continually appealed to Rome to rein in their client king, but their pleas went unheeded until 151 b.c.e., when Rome suddenly restrained Masinissa from pursuing further gains. Some historians think that Rome had finally gotten suspicious of Masinissa and feared that the Numidian king was plotting to establish an empire that would encompass all of North Africa from Mauretania to Egypt, an aspiration that would eventually conflict with Rome’s plans for expansion. Rome’s restraint of Masinissa was probably a delaying tactic employed so that Rome’s armies could be strong when the final push against Carthage came.

By now, Masinissa was in his late eighties. His sons, particularly Gulussa and Micipsa, began to take more of a role in commanding the Numidian armies. It was a Carthaginian attack on Gulussa that enabled Masinissa not only to besiege the city of Oroscopa but also to provoke Carthage into a full-scale battle that would enable Rome, which had been looking for an excuse to destroy Carthage, to intervene. Through a brilliant set of military tactics, Masinissa appeared to pull back from Oroscopa, only to engage the Carthaginians in the open. He was victorious through a combination of combat and attrition, and a massacre led by Gulussa wiped out the Carthaginian army.

The Carthaginians now switched strategies and tried to make peace with Masinissa by appointing a grandson of his, Hasdrubal, to high command. This strategy did not seem to work, though Roman callousness in not consulting Masinissa as to strategy upset the old king and made him more distant toward Rome. He never, though, showed any sign of a break with Rome and an alliance with Carthage, and he thus left no obstacle to Carthage’s final destruction. He did not, however, live to see the end of his old adversary, as he died in 148 b.c.e. at the age of ninety. He had forty-four children, of whom ten survived him. His sons Gulussa, Micipsa, and Mastanabal all served Rome loyally in the final assault on Carthage, which was destroyed in 146 b.c.e.

Significance

Masinissa saw himself as a great Numidian leader. Rome saw him as a client king who could help the Romans gain control of Africa. Though they may have had different objectives, Rome and Masinissa worked hand in hand to subdue Carthage. Masinissa, indeed, was one of the most important and useful allies in all Roman history, and he gave major assistance to the process of Roman expansion. Although it might have seemed inevitable that the talented Masinissa would someday run afoul of his Roman patrons, there is no solid evidence of any important difference between Masinissa and Rome during the fifty years of their alliance.

Masinissa’s long life, inveterate hatred of Carthage, and military skill make him a notable figure in ancient history. His enormous military achievements were complemented by his accomplishments in solidifying Numidia as a political and economic unity. By his death, Numidia was widely recognized as the preeminent realm in Mediterranean Africa. Masinissa can be seen as the first in a series of Berber leaders to offer resistance to colonizers seeking to occupy North Africa. He is also one of the most renowned indigenous Africans to make an impact on the Greco-Roman world.

Bibliography

Armstrong, Donald. The Reluctant Warriors. New York: Crowell, 1966. Probably the liveliest, most informative source on Masinissa, though the author’s Cold War perspective skews the general argument somewhat.

Bagnall, Nigel. The Punic Wars. London: Hutchinson, 1990. A traditional military history that takes advantage of recent archaeological research. Useful for understanding the state of military practice in Masinissa’s time.

Brett, Michael, and Elizabeth Fentress. The Berbers. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. An anthropological and historical look at the people whom Masinissa helped launch onto the historical stage.

Fentress, Elizabeth. Numidia and the Roman Army: Social, Military, and Economic Aspects of the Frontier Zone. Oxford, England: British Archaeological Review, 1979. This look at Numidia after the Roman conquest is also relevant to Masinissa’s era and takes account of his achievement in agriculture.

Lancel, Serge. Carthage: A History. Translated by Antonio Nevill. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995. This state-of-the-art history of the ancient region takes advantage of late twentieth century archaeological discoveries; also includes information on Punic culture.

Warmington, B. A. Carthage. New York: Praeger, 1969. A general history of Carthage that offers ten pages of detailed discussion of Masinissa’s life and career. This book, frequently cited in subsequent scholarship, displays Masinissa in a North African context.

Wheeler, Sir Mortimer. Roman Africa in Color. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. This collection of photographs, with commentary by a famed archaeologist, gives a startlingly vivid picture of the physical and social environment in which Masinissa lived.