Full download ebook at ebookgate.

com

The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene

Royal Scholarship on Rome s African Frontier
Routledge Classical Monographs 1st Edition
Duane W Roller
https://ebookgate.com/product/the-world-of-juba-
ii-and-kleopatra-selene-royal-scholarship-on-rome-
s-african-frontier-routledge-classical-
monographs-1st-edition-duane-w-roller/

Download more ebook from https://ebookgate.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Royal Hungarian Army in World War II Nigel Thomas

https://ebookgate.com/product/the-royal-hungarian-army-in-world-
war-ii-nigel-thomas/

Trials from Classical Athens Routledge Sourcebooks for

the Ancient World Christopher Carey

https://ebookgate.com/product/trials-from-classical-athens-
routledge-sourcebooks-for-the-ancient-world-christopher-carey/

Rome and China Comparative Perspectives on Ancient

World Empires 1st Edition Scheidel

https://ebookgate.com/product/rome-and-china-comparative-
perspectives-on-ancient-world-empires-1st-edition-scheidel/

Making Space on the Western Frontier Mormons Miners and

Southern Paiutes 1st Edition W. Paul Reeve

https://ebookgate.com/product/making-space-on-the-western-
frontier-mormons-miners-and-southern-paiutes-1st-edition-w-paul-
reeve/
The Voice of the Old Frontier R. W. G. Vail

https://ebookgate.com/product/the-voice-of-the-old-frontier-r-w-
g-vail/

The Routledge Handbook of African Development Tony

Binns

https://ebookgate.com/product/the-routledge-handbook-of-african-
development-tony-binns/

Custer and the Front Royal Executions of 1864 2nd

Edition Jay W. Simson

https://ebookgate.com/product/custer-and-the-front-royal-
executions-of-1864-2nd-edition-jay-w-simson/

The War of Our Childhood Memories of World War II First

Edition. Edition Wolfgang W. E. Samuel

https://ebookgate.com/product/the-war-of-our-childhood-memories-
of-world-war-ii-first-edition-edition-wolfgang-w-e-samuel/

Rome the Greek World and the East Fergus Millar

https://ebookgate.com/product/rome-the-greek-world-and-the-east-
fergus-millar/
THE WORLD OF JUBA II AND
KLEOPATRA SELENE
 THE WORLD OF JUBA II
AND KLEOPATRA SELENE
Royal scholarship on Rome’s African frontier

Duane W. Roller
 First published 2003
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2003 Duane W. Roller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-203-32192-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-34195-3 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0–415–30596–9 (Print Edition)
 CONTENTS

List of illustrations vii

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xii

Introduction 1

1 Juba’s Numidian ancestry 11

2 Mauretania 39

3 Juba’s youth and education 59

4 Kleopatra Selene 76

5 The Mauretanian client kingdom: foundation,

military history, and economy 91

6 The artistic and cultural program of Juba and

Kleopatra Selene 119

7 Rex Literatissimus 163

8 Libyka 183

9 The eastern expedition with Gaius Caesar 212

10 On Arabia 227

11 The Mauretanian dynasty 244

v
 CONTENTS

Epilogue 257
Appendix 1: The published works of Juba II 261
Appendix 2: Stemmata 264
Appendix 3: Client kingship 267
Bibliography 276
List of passages cited 310
Index 319

vi
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
1 The Numidian marble quarries at Chemtou (Tunisia) 13
2 The site of Zama, looking southwest from Kbor Klib 37
3 Tarraco (modern Tarragona), where Juba II was named king 99
4 Caesarea: theater 122
5 Caesarea: site of forum 124
6 Caesarea: view of offshore island, with site of palace in
foreground 125
7 Caesarea: site of palace and view south across city 126
8 The Oued Bellah aqueduct bridge, east of Caesarea 128
9 The Mauretanian Royal Mausoleum 129
10 Volubilis: view of site from the east 131
11 Sala: view northeast across forum 134
12 Lixos: view south across center of site 134
13 Garum factory on the Atlantic coast of Mauretania, at the site
said to be Cotta 135
14 Tingis and the view northeast across to Spain 136
15 Portrait bust of Juba I, from Cherchel 140
16 Gilded silver dish from Boscoreale, perhaps representing
Kleopatra Selene 141
17 Petubastes IV, from Cherchel 143
18 Cuirass statue, probably of Augustus, from Cherchel 145
19 Portrait bust of Juba II, from Rome 147
20 Ptolemaios of Mauretania, from Cherchel 149
21 The “Purple Islands” at Mogador (Essaouira) 185
22 The Canary Islands: ancient Ninguaria (modern Tenerife) 186
23 The High Atlas 186
24 The canyon of the Ziz River, perhaps Juba’s “upper Nile” 195
25 Numidian and Mauretanian coins 245
a Bilingual bronze coin of Juba I with temple on the reverse
b Reverse of above

vii
 ILLUSTRATIONS

c Bronze elephant coin of Juba II

d Reverse of above
e Bronze lion coin of Juba II
f Bronze coin of Juba II with the Caesarea Temple of
Augustus, dated to Year 32 (AD 7)
g Bronze coin of Juba II with cornucopia, dated to Year 44
(AD 19)
26 Mauretanian coins 246
a Bronze coin jointly of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene
b Reverse of above
c Bronze crocodile coin of Kleopatra Selene
d Reverse of above
e Bronze coin jointly of Juba II and Ptolemaios, dated to
Year 36 (AD 11)
f Reverse of above
g Gold coin of Ptolemaios, with altar
h Reverse of above

Maps
1 Northwest Africa, 146–46 BC 40
2 Northwest Africa, 25 BC–AD 41 101
3 Caesarea at the time of the client monarchy 120
4 The southern half of the known world in the Augustan period 184

viii
 PREFACE

Juba II (48 BC–AD 23/24) ruled Mauretania – northwestern Africa – as a

Roman client king for half a century, from 25 BC until his death. Moreover,
he was a notable scholar, a product of the intellectual flourishing of the
Augustan world. His extensive literary output exists today only in frag-
ments, but is the basis of modern understanding of the ancient comprehen-
sion of the southern half of the known world, the vast stretch from the
Atlantic coast of northwest Africa to India. Juba was not alone as a scholarly
king but was the exemplar of that unusual blend of talents, and was called
in antiquity “rex literatissimus.” His scholarship was found significant by
successors as diverse as Pliny, Plutarch, and Athenaios.
An essential, yet enigmatic, part of Juba’s environment is the personality
of his wife, Kleopatra Selene (40–ca. 5 BC), the daughter of Marcus Antonius
and Kleopatra VII. As queen of Mauretania (and also titular queen of the
Kyrenaika) she played a crucial role at the royal court; as heiress of the
Ptolemies she brought not only stature but a rich cultural inheritance that
was to be a major influence on Juba’s research. Yet because of the deficiency
of source material and her early death she is often hard to see, although her
presence was profound.
Juba was rescued by Julius Caesar from the ruins of his father’s kingdom
of Numidia and was raised in Rome in the Augustan household. He was
then sent with Kleopatra Selene to uphold Roman interests in Mauretania,
an outstanding example of the Augustan phenomenon of the client king,
more properly the “rex socius amicusque,” the friendly and allied king, the
sympathetic monarch at the fringes of the empire who could be relied upon
to uphold Roman interests, both culturally and politically. Less controver-
sial than his more famous colleague Herod the Great, Juba in his reign
brought a flourishing intellectual climate, and above all peace and prosper-
ity, to his territories.
Yet this learned monarch is often remembered today merely as the son-
in-law of Marcus Antonius and Kleopatra VII, and as such merely a footnote
to history. There has been no extensive study of Juba II, Kleopatra Selene,
and their world since French efforts at the time of the First World War.

ix
 PREFACE

What follows is not only the first examination of their lives and careers in
English but the first analytical critique of the king both as an implementer of
the Augustan program and as a notable scholar in his own right. Indeed,
within half a century of his death he was commemorated as one whose schol-
arship was more significant than his kingship. But his writings have largely
been ignored – beyond the collecting of the fragments of his works – and he
has been considered as little more than yet another ancient author whose
output has not survived. Likewise, his role as king, however inferior to his
impact as historian, explorer, and geographer, has tended to be analyzed in a
colonialist context, the defender of Roman civilization against the barbarians,
rather than as a crucial factor in the multiculturalism that was the Roman
Empire. Juba was a romanized Numidian married to a wife who was half
Greek and half Roman, and this background remains a significant part of his
outlook. This is especially apparent in the cultural richness of the court at
Mauretanian Caesarea, whose diversity exceeded that of the more restricted
ethnic milieus of the other client kingdoms. It is becoming increasingly
obvious today that ethnic interaction was one of the most powerful cultural
factors in ancient society: this has been dramatically demonstrated by Nikos
Kokkinos in his recent study of the Herodian family.1
It was Glen Bowersock who many years ago introduced the present author
to Juba and Kleopatra Selene. Interest further developed from study of Herod
the Great and awareness of the complexity of his world, leading to the com-
prehension that the Augustan era was one of rich and diverse cultural factors
running far beyond the traditional understanding of this period. Even the
fragmentary authors of Greco-Roman antiquity deserve analysis, and it
became clear that Juban studies needed to move beyond the colonialist per-
spectives of the first half of the twentieth century. Juba was both scholar and
king, and any study of his career must attend to both of these roles. Kleopatra
Selene was queen and her mother’s heir, and in many ways an implementer of
Juba’s kingship and scholarship. But what follows is not a biography: rather,
it is a cultural analysis of personalities and the world that produced them and
upon which they had impact. Individuals cannot be separated from their
environment, and truly to understand creativity one must attempt to absorb
what the creative individual was thinking, saw, and experienced, during both
the crucially formative years of adolescence and the time of productivity. The
friends of his youth, his teachers and colleagues, the books in his library, the
intellectual background of his spouse, and indeed the view from his study are
all components of Juba’s intellectual processes and collectively determined
the ideas he thought and the words he set down.
1 Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty. Even as early as the fifth century BC, questions were being raised as to
the meaning of ethnicity. Herodotos (1.146–7) was well aware that claims of ethnic purity or
superiority could be manipulated to create a false impression. See, further, for a good discussion of
modern scholarship and its attitude toward ethnicity, Jeremy McInerney, The Folds of Parnassos:
Land and Ethnicity in Ancient Phokis (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), pp. 8–39.

x
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank the Harvard College Library, the Stanford Uni-
versity Library, the Blegan Library of the University of Cincinnati, the Library
of the University of California at Berkeley, the Library of the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the Library of the Ohio State University, at which
much of the research for this project was completed. Special thanks are due to
the Trustees of the British Museum, especially the Department of Coins and
Medals. The project was supported by a Fellowship for University Teachers
from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Several research grants
from the Ohio State University were also of great assistance. Although not
originally intended for this purpose, a Fulbright Senior Lecturing Award to
India in 1995 helped the author in understanding the relationships between
that region and the Mediterranean, an essential part of Juba’s environment.
Extended visits to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, as well as the Levant, were
valuable in comprehending the physical world of the Mauretanian client
kingdom: particular appreciation is due to all those who assisted in the May
2001 trip to Mauretanian Caesarea and its environs, especially Nacèra Bensed-
dik. David C. Braund, Charles L. Babcock, John Eadie, David Potter, and
A. E. K. Vail graciously read the manuscript in its entirety and made many
valuable suggestions. For supplying photographs and the permission to use
them, the author would like to thank M. Chuzeville, P. Chuzeville, and Ch.
Larrieu (Musée du Louvre), Christa Landwehr, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek,
Yamouna Rebahi (Musée de Cherchel), E. Kleinefenn (Paris), the Agence
Nationale d’Archéologie (Algiers), the British Museum, and the late Duane
H. D. Roller. Among the many others who were of aid in bringing the project
to completion were Neil Adams, Andrew Meadows, Judith Swaddling, and
Susan Walker of the British Museum; Sally-Ann Ashton; Glen Bowersock;
Deborah Burks; Donna Distel; Lakhdar Drias, Director of the National
Museum of Antiquities, Algiers; Elizabeth Fentress; Sabah Ferdi; Klaus
Fittschen; Nikos Kokkinos; Philippe Leveau; Wolf-R. Megow; Krzysztof
Nawotka; Letitia K. Roller; Kathy Stedke; Richard Stoneman and many others
at Routledge; Kate Toll; Susan Treggiari; the late Jerry Vardaman; and Wendy
Watkins and the Ohio State University Center for Epigraphical Studies.

xi
 ABBREVIATIONS

AA: Archäologischer Anzeiger

AÉpigr: L’Année épigraphique
AF: Archäologische Forschungen
AfrIt: Africa Italiana
AfrRom: L’Africa Romana
AJA: American Journal of Archaeology
AJP: American Journal of Philology
AncHBull: Ancient History Bulletin
AncSoc: Ancient Society
AncW: The Ancient World
AnnPerugia: Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli Studi di
Perugia
AnnSiena: Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia (Siena)
ANRW: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt
ANSMN: American Numismatic Society Museum Notes
AntAfr: Antiquités africaines
AntCl: L’Antiquité Classique
AntK: Antike Kunst
AnzWien: Anzeiger. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien,
Philologisch-historische Klasse
ArchCl: Archeologia classica
ArchStorTL: Archivo storico di Terra di Lavoro
AttiVen: Atti dell’Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti
BAAlg: Bulletin d’archéologie algérienne
BAC: Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques
BAGRW: The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, ed. Richard J.
Talbert (Princeton, N.J., 2000)
BAMaroc: Bulletin d’archéologie marocaine
BAntFr: Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France
BAR: British Archaeological Reports
BAR-IS: British Archaeological Reports, International Series
BCH: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique

xii
 ABBREVIATIONS

BÉFAR: Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome

BIALond: Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London
BJb: Bonner Jahrbücher des Rheinischen Landesmuseums in Bonn und des Vereins
von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande
BMC: British Museum Catalogue of Coins
Braund, Friendly King: David C. Braund, Rome and the Friendly King: The
Character of the Client Kingship (London 1984)
Broughton: T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Philo-
logical Monographs of the American Philological Association 15 (New
York 1951–2, 1986)
CAH: The Cambridge Ancient History
CÉFR: Collection de l’École française de Rome
CHJ: Cambridge Historical Journal
CHL: Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum
CIL: Corpus inscriptionum latinarum
CJ: Classical Journal
ClBul: The Classical Bulletin
Cleopatra: Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth, ed. Susan Walker and
Peter Higgs (London 2001)
Coltelloni-Trannoy: Michèle Coltelloni-Trannoy, Le Royaume de Maurétanie
sous Juba II et Ptolémée (Paris 1997)
CP: Classical Philology
CQ: Classical Quarterly
CRAI: Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
(Paris)
CSCA: University of California Studies in Classical Antiquity
CW: The Classical World
CWHF: The Cambridge World History of Food, ed. Kenneth F. Kiple and
Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (Cambridge 2000)
DenkschrWien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien,
Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denkschriften
EAA: Enciclopedia dell’arte antica, classica e orientale
EB: Encyclopédie berbere (Aix-en-Provence 1984–)
EchCl: Echoes du monde classique
EntrHardt: Entretiens Hardt
EpSt: Epigraphische Studien
FGrHist: Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Leiden
1923–)
FHG: K. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (Paris 1841–1938)
FolOr: Folia Orientalia
GGM: Geographi graeci minores, ed. C. Müller (1855)
GLM: Geographi latini minores, ed. Alexander Riese (1878)
GRBS: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
Gsell: Stéphane Gsell, Histoire ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord (Paris 1914–28)

xiii
 ABBREVIATIONS

HA: Historia Augusta

HRR: Hermann Peter, Historicorum romanorum reliquae (Stuttgart 1967)
HSCP: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
IDélos: Inscriptions de Délos
IG: Inscriptiones graecae
IGRR: Inscriptiones graecae ad res romanas pertinentes
ILS: Inscriptiones latinae selectae, ed. H. Dessau (1892–1916)
IrAnt: Iranica Antiqua
IstForsch: Istanbuler Forschungen
Jacoby, Commentary: Felix Jacoby, Commentary to FGrHist #275 (3a,
pp. 317–57)
Jacoby, RE: Felix Jacoby, “Iuba II” (#2), RE 9, 1916, 2384–95
JAOS: Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBerlMus: Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen
JdI: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts
JEA: Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
Jodin, Volubilis: André Jodin, Volubilis, Regia Iubae: contribution à l’étude des
civilisations du Maroc antique préclaudien (Paris 1987)
JRA: Journal of Roman Archaeology
JRS: Journal of Roman Studies
JSav: Journal des Savants
Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty: Nikos Kokkinos, The Herodian Dynasty: Origins,
Role in Society, and Eclipse, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha
Supplement Series 30 (Sheffield 1998)
LCM: Liverpool Classical Monthly
Leveau, Caesarea: Philippe Leveau, Caesarea de Maurétanie: une ville romaine et
ses campagnes, CÉFR 70 (1984)
LibAE: Libyca Archéologie-Épigraphie
LIMC: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae
Lixus: Lixus, CÉFR 166, 1992
LSJ: H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. Stuart Jones, Greek–English Lexicon,
ninth edition (Oxford 1940)
MAAR: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome
Mazard: Jean Mazard, Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque (Paris
1955)
MÉFR: Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’École française de Rome
MÉFRA: Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Antiquité
MM: Madrider Mitteilungen
MusHelv: Museum Helveticum
ND: Numismatic Digest
NH: Pliny, Natural History
NP: Der neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike
NTDAR: L. Richardson, Jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome
(Baltimore 1992)

xiv
 ABBREVIATIONS

Numider: Die Numider: Reiter und Könige nördlich der Sahara, ed. Heinz Günter
Horn and Christoph B. Rüger (Cologne 1979)
OCD: Oxford Classical Dictionary, third edition (Oxford 1997)
OGIS: Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae
OJA: Oxford Journal of Archaeology
OLD: Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford 1982)
OxyPap: The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, ed. Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt
(London 1898–)
PACA: Proceedings of the African Classical Associations
PBSR: Papers of the British School at Rome
PCG: Poetae Comici Graeci, ed. R. Kassel and C. Austin (Berlin 1983–)
PCPS: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society
PECS: The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites
PEQ: Palestine Exploration Quarterly
PIR: Prosopographia imperii romani
PP: La parola del passato
QS: Quaderni di Storia (Bari)
RA: Revue archéologique
RAfr: Revue africaine
RAssyr: Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale
RE: Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft
RÉA: Revue des études anciennes
RÉG: Revue des études grecques
RÉL: Revue des études latines
RGM: Revue de géographie du Maroc
RHCM: Revue d’histoire et de civilisation du Maghreb
RHist: Revue historique
RIDA: Revue international des droits de l’antiquité
Ritter, Rom: Hans Werner Ritter, Rom und Numidien: Untersuchungen zur
rechtlichen Stellung abhängiger Könige (Lüneburg 1987)
RM: Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung
RN: Revue numismatique
Roller, Herod: Duane W. Roller, The Building Program of Herod the Great
(Berkeley, Calif., 1998)
Romanelli, Storia: Pietro Romanelli, Storia delle province romane dell’Africa,
Studi pubblicati dall’Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica 14 (Rome
1959)
SchwMbll: Schweizer Münzblätter
SEG: Supplementum epigraphicum graecum
SIG: Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum (Leipzig 1883–)
StMagr: Studi Magrebini
Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty: Richard D. Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty and
Rome, 100–30 BC, Phoenix Supplementary Volume 24 (Toronto 1990)
SymbOslo: Symbolae Osloenses

xv
 ABBREVIATIONS

TAPA: Transactions of the American Philological Society

Thomson: J. Oliver Thomson, History of Ancient Geography (Cambridge
1948)
TI: Terrae Incognitae
WA: World Archaeology
Wrack: Das Wrack: Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia, ed. Gisela Hellenkem-
per Salies et al. (Cologne 1994)
ZfN: Zeitschrift für Numismatik
ZPE: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

xvi
 INTRODUCTION

Juba II1 was born about 48 BC, the son of King Juba I of Numidia, the terri-
tory south and west of Carthage. Within two years he was an orphan and
had been removed to Rome as a captive, displayed in the African triumph of
Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Why this happened is connected with the convoluted
and lengthy history of the Roman relationship with Africa and the impact of
the Roman civil wars. The royalty of Numidia had been involved in Roman
affairs for over 150 years. Juba’s great-great-great-grandfather, the erudite
warrior king Massinissa, was a follower of Scipio Africanus and lived to the
age of 90, surviving both the Second and the Third Punic Wars and presid-
ing over a notable and cultured court. Massinissa’s grandson – Juba’s great-
great-uncle – was the famous Jugurtha, who had his own complex
relationship with Rome. Juba’s grandfather Hiempsal was a historian, and
his father, Juba I, had come to Rome on a Numidian embassy in the 80s BC,
only to be insulted and assaulted by the young Julius Caesar, which meant
that when Juba I became king he naturally gravitated toward the faction of
Gaius Pompeius.

1 PIR2 I65. The name is inevitably “Iuba” in Latin, whether in literature or on inscriptions or coins. In
Greek, 'IÒbaj is the usual form (occasionally 'IÒba), but Strabo and Dio used 'IoÚbaj. Inscriptions
are not consistent: IG 31.555, 936 and 2–32.3436 have 'IoÚbaj but OGIS 198 has 'IÒbaj; yet all are
from Athens and roughly contemporary with the king himself. Despite the general prevalence of
'IÒbaj in Greek, two sources in personal contact with Juba, Strabo and the commissioners of IG
2–32.3436, used 'IoÚbaj. This is more in conformity with the Latin and may have been the form
actually preferred by the king. His father’s Punic coin legends have the equivalent of “Iobai” (Figure
25b, p. 245; Mazard #84–93), perhaps closer to the common Greek 'IÒbaj, and all Greek sources
have this form for Juba I. The spelling 'IoÚbaj used by Strabo, Dio, and the Athenians for Juba II
may have been transliterated from Latin.
It is possible that Juba was not the name given to the son of Juba I by his parents. Unlike many of
the Greek dynasties, the Numidian royal family did not tend to use the same name. In the ten
known generations (nearly thirty individuals), names repeat only on two occasions other than Juba I
and II: the two Hiempsals and the two Massinissas (Appendix 2, Stemma B). In both cases the rela-
tionship is not close: the former were cousins (thus Hiempsal II was not a direct descendant of
Hiempsal I) and the latter five generations apart, Massinissa II being a petty chieftain who probably
took the name of his illustrious ancestor. Thus it is probable that Juba II, his actual name unknown,
was given his father’s name by the Romans.

1
 INTRODUCTION

Juba I had great plans for a North African empire, but these collapsed
after the death of Pompeius, and he was defeated by Caesar at Thapsus and
committed suicide: hence his infant son appeared in the triumph in the
summer of 46 BC. Although some of those in the triumph were executed, a
decision was made to spare young Juba, for reasons that are not clear. By the
time of Caesar’s death two years later, Juba was handed over to one of
Caesar’s relatives and eventually ended up in the household of his grandniece
Octavia. Here he grew up along with the other children of the emergent
imperial family, being particularly close to Marcellus and Tiberius, who
were near his age. Although as a barbarian Juba did not have the status that
the Roman children had, Augustus strongly believed that foreign children
within his extended family were to be treated as natural-born ones, and at
some time Juba was given Roman citizenship.
As a young man growing up in an aristocratic Roman household, Juba
received the best contemporary education, specializing in linguistics, Roman
history, natural history, and the arts. It seems likely that he had contact
with scholars such as Varro and Dionysios of Halikarnassos. Strabo of
Amaseia seems to have been a particularly close teacher or fellow student.
Juba also learned about his own ancestral heritage through the Numidian
exile communities in Rome. African culture of another sort became available
after 30 BC when the children of Marcus Antonius and Kleopatra VII became
part of Octavia’s family, bringing with them a substantial entourage and
much information about the world of the Ptolemies.
By this time Juba would have been nearly 20, and although it is not clear
what life was being planned for him, his talents as a scholar were being
recognized as he published his first works. His literary career probably began
with the Roman Archaeology, perhaps reflecting the influence of Dionysios of
Halikarnassos. Its two books covered the vast range from the mythological
foundation of Italy to at least the Spanish wars of the second century BC, but
it seems to have emphasized elements that were of particular relevance to the
Augustan era, such as the ancient cults that were being rejuvenated, and the
relationship between Rome and Africa. Although the subject of Roman
origins was a common one for the period, Juba’s version gained respect for
reliability, especially in his handling of early material.
Another youthful work is the Omoiotetes (Resemblances or Equivalences), a
linguistic composition whose goal was to prove the Greek origin of the Latin
language, another topical concern in Augustan Rome. It too seems to have
focused on early cultic matters, especially terminology. Fifteen books are
known, an incredible length contrasted with the scantiness of the
Archaeology. It is thus possible that there has been a confusion of titles
and that both are the same lengthy work on Roman history, cult, and
linguistics.
Juba also wrote On Painting, a derivative critique of works visible in
contemporary Rome, and a Theatrical History, whose emphasis seems to have

2
 INTRODUCTION

been on production details, especially musical ones. Although it too was

probably derivative, it is one of the major bodies of information on ancient
music, since Juba’s sources, mostly from Hellenistic south Italy, are even less
extant than his treatise. He also wrote a commentary on the voyage of
Hanno, the great Carthaginian explorer who had descended to the tropics of
West Africa and may have circumnavigated the continent, and it is perhaps
through Juba’s efforts that Hanno’s report survives today. Thus by his early
twenties, just as Octavian became Augustus and plans were being made for
the future, Juba already had a reputation as a scholar of note, with several
published works.
At some time Augustus realized that he had a talent within his household
who could play a role in the developing plans for postwar Rome. But Juba
needed military experience, so, late in 27 BC, he, along with Marcellus and
Tiberius, joined the Princeps in Spain. Augustus resided in Tarraco tending
to administration while the young men waged war against various Spanish
tribes, remaining there until late 25 BC. It was here that the final part of
Juba’s education took place – his training as a soldier and leader – and
Augustus began to implement the plans for his destiny.
Juba could not be sent back to rule his ancestral territories because those
had been provincialized by Caesar twenty years previously. But to the west
was an anomalous area loosely called Mauretania, and increasingly of concern
to the Romans. It had been ruled by a native dynasty – perhaps related to
the Numidian one – that had become somewhat romanized. About the time
of Juba’s birth Mauretania had been split between two contentious relatives,
Bocchus and Bogudes, who tended to take opposite sides in Roman affairs.
Yet by 31 BC both were dead with no heirs, and thus at the end of the civil
war the status of their territories was uncertain. Moreover, Romans from
Spain had long been drifting into northwest Mauretania, largely for com-
mercial reasons, and there were a number of Roman settlements that may
have been virtual colonies. Hence it would have seemed to Augustus that
some normalization was necessary. Thus in 25 BC he decided to settle the
issue by placing Juba in charge of Mauretania as king. Following the loose
procedures of client kingship, Juba was available, competent, a protégé of
prominent Romans, and even had some vague association with the region.
But there was one unsettled matter: the finding of a suitable wife to be
Juba’s partner, someone who could assist in creating a stable kingship and in
bringing Roman ways to North Africa. Augustus did not have to look
beyond his extended family for a promising candidate: his stepniece, the
15-year-old Kleopatra Selene, the only surviving child of Antonius and
Kleopatra VII. Since Kleopatra Selene had been living with Octavia for the
previous five years, she and Juba were doubtless already well acquainted. One
can only imagine the vitality and precociousness of this child, who had a legal
claim to be the queens of both Libya and Egypt, and thus her own African
connection to complement that of Juba. As one of the few remaining children

3
 INTRODUCTION

of Antonius, she was too dangerous either to execute or to keep in Rome, and
Augustus must have felt that the ideal solution to this problem was to send
her to Mauretania as Juba’s wife. She brought her rich Ptolemaic heritage to
the kingdom, and, presumably, her mother’s skill and determination. She
married Juba late in 25 BC; Krinagoras of Mytilene wrote an epigram for the
occasion. The royal couple then departed for Iol, Bocchus’ old capital, which,
in the emerging fashion of the era, was promptly renamed Caesarea.
The monarchs ruled together for the next twenty years, and Juba alone for
nearly thirty more, controlling a vast territory from Roman Africa to the
Atlantic, the largest and probably the most amorphous of the client king-
doms. Much of the time was spent in defending the frontier, not always suc-
cessfully. Barbarian incursions were a constant threat, part of the
never-ending conflicts between populations with different cultures and out-
looks; Roman military assistance became an early and constant feature of
the reign. But Juba and Kleopatra Selene were also assiduous in bringing
Mauretania into the imperial economic sphere: the kingdom produced vast
amounts of grain, fish, garum, purple dye, and timber for export to Italy. A
long series of cornucopia coins shows that Juba saw the kingdom as one of
the economic mainstays of the empire. He fostered close relationships with
Spain and was even appointed city magistrate at two Spanish cities.
At Caesarea, Juba and Kleopatra Selene developed a rich court that com-
bined Roman, Ptolemaic, and indigenous African elements. Saturn, the frugifer
deus, seems to have been a chief divinity, along with Herakles (whose last labor
was localized in Mauretania and who was said to have been an ancestor of both
the monarchs), and of course the imperial cult. Building on his acquisition of
the Carthaginian state library from the heirs of the historian Sallust, Juba
created one of the best royal libraries and attracted scholars and artists:
although the few extant names are obscure, they include the court tragedian
Leonteus of Argos, the botanist and physician Euphorbos, the historians
Asarubas and Cornelius Bocchus, and the gemcutter Gnaios. Kleopatra Selene
brought her own entourage, refugees from her mother’s court, which would
further have heightened the multiculturalism of Caesarea. There was continu-
ing contact with Augustan Rome and with the developing Augustan intellec-
tual circle: Juba was constantly sending information to Marcus Agrippa for his
map of the Roman world. Caesarea was probably a richer, more diverse
environment than any of the eastern courts.
Scholar that he was, Juba immediately set out to explore and study his
territory. Expeditions were sent into the High Atlas, the Sahara, and the
Atlantic. His commentary on Hanno had already interested him in the west
coast of Africa, and he became familiar with other explorations, such as the
Carthaginian circumnavigation of the continent, and those of Eudoxos of
Kyzikos, who had had good reason to believe that India could be reached
from West Africa. Juba’s explorations resulted in the two most enduring
legacies of his scholarship. In the High Atlas he discovered a type of spurge

4
 INTRODUCTION

that he named euphorbion after his physician, writing a treatise on it, the
basis for the modern botanical family Euphorbiaceae and genus Euphorbia.
He also explored islands in the Atlantic noted for their large dogs, which he
named in Greek but which are known today from Pliny’s Latin as the
Canaries.
Juba also began work on a major treatise titled Libyka that would
examine all of North Africa outside Lower Egypt. It outlined not only the
history, geography, and natural history of his territories but also other issues
of increasing concern to the king, such as direct access to East Africa and
India from Mauretania. Building on Ptolemaic explorations of the upper
Nile, he concluded that the river originated in Mauretania, to Juba a politic-
ally correct idea, and one that lasted well into the nineteenth century. The
surviving fragments of Libyka include a diversity of subjects, but one of
special importance is the discussion of the North African elephant, the
major source of information for this now extinct animal.
Libyka was probably published around 5 BC. Augustus was impressed
enough to include Juba as geographical adviser on the eastern expedition of
his grandson Gaius Caesar, which set forth in 2 BC. The king was one of
several distinguished staff members: his decision to go was made easier by
the fact that he had recently become a widower. He traveled with Gaius
from Antioch to Gaza and inland to Petra and the fringes of Arabia, and
then back to Antioch, all the time gathering material for his next work, On
Arabia. He had left the expedition before Gaius fatally encountered the
Armenians, instead joining his fellow client king Archelaos of Kappadokia
at his court city of Elaioussa-Sebaste and completing On Arabia in its
library. On Arabia extended the concept of Libyka to the east, and together
the two works were an examination of the southern half of the known world,
from the Atlantic to India. Although much of the treatise is concerned with
Arabia, especially the commercial and trade exports of the peninsula –
information obtained in the markets of Gaza and Petra – emphasis is on a
related Augustan concern, the routes to India and their economic potential.
Juba had long been interested in this topic, both in his search for the
Atlantic route to India and in his decision extend the scope of Libyka into
East Africa, a region even today frequented by Indian merchants. But
Augustus’ interest in reopening Indian trade had not been paralleled by
recent scholarly examination, and there had been little material added since
the time of Alexander the Great. Indian trade had flourished under the
Ptolemies but had collapsed with the fall of that dynasty, and Juba, with his
Ptolemaic contacts, his published knowledge of East Africa, and his general
expertise in trade and exploration, was the natural scholar to research the
topic.
While he was in residence at the court of Archelaos, Juba’s personal life
took an unexpected turn. Here he met and married Glaphyra, Archelaos’
daughter, another dynamic eastern princess, and recently widowed from a

5
 INTRODUCTION

son of Herod the Great. Clearly Archelaos and Juba had grandiose dynastic
plans for linking East and West, but for some reason the marriage did not
last. Despite Augustus’ regular favor of intermarriages between royal famil-
ies, he might well have disapproved of this sudden connection between the
two most powerful client kings, and when major barbarian incursions at
home caused Juba to rush back to Mauretania, he divorced Glaphyra and
went alone.
When Juba returned home, perhaps around AD 3, he began to show the
signs of age, writing no more and embarking on no more expeditions.
Approaching 60, he handed over many affairs of state to his son Ptolemaios,
the last royal bearer of that illustrious name, who appears on coins from AD 5
and seems to have been raised to virtually equal rule sometime after AD 11.
Ptolemaios’ regnal years began around AD 17–21; in the former year, the
great rebellion of Tacfarinas broke out. This went on for over six years and
required major Roman intervention; although Roman Africa was more
threatened than Mauretania, Juba and Ptolemaios were also heavily
involved. In the midst of the uprising, in AD 23 or 24, Juba died, in his early
seventies. Ptolemaios helped bring the rebellion to conclusion and was vali-
dated as king by the Roman senate.
Little is known about Ptolemaios’ reign, although he clearly did not have
the stature and intellect of his father. He may have been educated in Athens
and was honored at the Gymnasion of Ptolemaios there, which had been
built by an ancestor. But as a grandson of Antonius he fell victim to the
power politics within the imperial family. He seems to have lacked his
father’s diplomacy and incautiously flaunted his power and independence.
Eventually his cousin, the emperor Gaius Caligula, summoned him to Rome
for an explanation. What happened next is obscure, but the situation deteri-
orated and Ptolemaios was suddenly executed. At worst, it was another
example of the emperor’s hostile treatment of his relatives; at best, his
erratic reaction to Ptolemaios’ seemingly inappropriate behavior as a client
king. In any case, this meant the end of the kingdom, as Ptolemaios had no
heir, and the territory was provincialized by Claudius.

Ancient and modern sources

The only contemporary literary sources for Juba II are slight, perhaps Horace,
Ode 1.22, and Krinagoras of Mytilene, Epigrams 18 and 25. A number of
inscriptions provide some prosopographic information and are especially illus-
trative about members of the royal court.2 Velleius Paterculus documented the

2 The major inscriptions are collected in Coltelloni-Trannoy, pp. 218–19. Most important is CIL
2.3417 (⫽ILS 840), from Carthago Nova in Spain, where Juba held a magistracy, which provides
details of his ancestry. Others include CIL 3.8927, 9257, 9342; IG 31.549, 555, 936; and IG
2–32.3436.

6
 INTRODUCTION

eastern campaign of Gaius Caesar to Arabia in which he and Juba took part,
but did not mention Juba.3 Strabo of Amaseia, a friend and schoolmate of the
king, made several casual references, probably written just after Juba’s death,
but did not seem to have access to his scholarly output.4 The bulk of the
material about the king’s life and career comes from standard sources for the
Augustan period, especially Appian, Dio, Josephus, Plutarch, and Tacitus,5
which are enough to construct the basic outline of his life, but all are brief and
scattered, and few mention Kleopatra Selene. Another contemporary source is
the art and architecture of the royal city of Caesarea and other sites in the
Mauretanian kingdom. Further, there is the large number of coins that both
Juba and Kleopatra Selene issued, separately and jointly. Kleopatra Selene had
autonomous powers of coinage, and occasionally even honored her mother on
her coins. These are especially useful in providing contemporary visual por-
traits of the sovereigns and elements of the material culture of their kingdom,
particularly their architecture and royal symbols.6
The earliest extant authors to quote Juba’s works were Dioskourides and
perhaps Pomponius Mela, both in the middle of the first century AC (after
Christ).7 Over 100 fragments of the king’s writings survive, some quite
lengthy, which also provide a certain amount of information about his life.8
Nearly half are found in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, written forty
to fifty years after Juba’s death; much of Pliny’s material on northwestern
Africa, the upper Nile, the Red Sea, and Arabia originates with Juba.9 Many
of the remaining fragments come from two additional authors: Plutarch,
who used Juba’s Roman Archaeology as a source for early Roman history, and
Athenaios, whose interests were in drama, the theater, and linguistics.10
Other sources for the works of Juba include Aelian, Ammianus Marcellinus,
Lucius Ampelius, Avienus, Galen, Harpokration, Philostratos, Photios,

3 Velleius 2.101–4.
4 Strabo 6.4.2; 17.3.7, 12, 25.
5 Appian, Civil War 2.101; Dio 51.15.6, 53.26.2, 55.28.3–4; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.349–50;
Jewish Wars 2.115; Plutarch, Antonius 87; Caesar 55.1–2; Sulla 16.8; Sertorius 9.5; Tacitus, Annals 4.5.
6 Much has been written about the coinage, and many of the relevant articles are cited in the following
text. The most thorough publication is Jean Mazard, Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque
(Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1955); see also Jacques Alexandropoulos, Les Monnaies de l’Afrique
Antique, 400 av. J.-C. – 40 ap. J.-C. (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2000), pp. 213–44,
413–35.
7 Dioskourides 3.82; Pomponius Mela 1.30. The recent suggestion that Vitruvius quoted Juba’s
Libyka is implausible: see further, infra, p. 183, note 2).
8 These are collected as FGrHist #275. Because of Felix Jacoby’s policy of considering as a fragment
only those citations that actually name the author (on this, see FGrHist 4a1, pp. xii–xiii), it is prob-
able that the surviving fragments of Juba’s works, especially in Books 5 and 6 of Pliny’s Natural
History and Book 4 of the Deipnosophistai of Athenaios, are far more extensive than the occasional
point at which the king is mentioned.
9 Juba, fr. 1–3, 28–44, 54, 57–60, 62–9, 72–9.
10 The major citations are Plutarch, Romulus 14, 15, 17; Numa 7, 13; Roman Questions 4, 24, 59, 78, 89;
and Athenaios 1.15, 3.83, 98, 4.170, 175–85, 8.343, 14.660.

7
 INTRODUCTION

Quintilian, and Tatian.11 Athenaios and Aelian, both active around AD 200,
seem to be the last to have quoted Juba directly and at length. His actual
writings were probably lost shortly after that time, and later citations in
various Byzantine lexica are derivative.
Modern interest began in the mid-nineteenth century with Konrad
Müller’s identification and publication of ninety-one fragments of Juba’s
writings12 and the appearance of a number of German dissertations,13 more
collations of the fragments than critiques. A slightly more critical attitude
was displayed by Hermann Peter in the 1870s,14 and in 1883 the first
French study of Juba appeared.15 Yet throughout the century, more
emphasis was placed on Juba as a fragmentary author than as a cultural
figure, although he was early recognized as significant in the history of geo-
graphy.16
When the French colonial presence was established in northern Africa
late in the century, interest turned toward the physical remnants of Juba’s
territories. A museum had been founded at Cherchel in Algeria, Juba’s Cae-
sarea, as early as 1856, and rudimentary excavations began in 1876.17 Much
of the early explorations were directed toward the physical evidence for early
Christianity, but nonetheless this resulted in the discovery of numerous
inscriptions that illuminated the world of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene.
Although excavations have continued until recent times, physical remnants
of the Roman client kingdom continue to be scant and disputed. A similar
situation exists at Volubilis in Morocco, the monarchs’ western capital,
where excavations have continued since 1884, but where most of the visible
remains are from the late flourishing of the city, particularly the Severan
period.18
Nevertheless, the early years of the twentieth century saw an increasing
awareness of Juba in both France and Germany. Felix Jacoby published the
first detailed study of the king in 1916.19 Although still within a narrowly
historical context, this approached Juba as more than merely a fragmentary

11 Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals 7.23; 9.58; 15.8; Ammianus Marcellius 22.15.8; Lucius
Ampelius, Liber memorialis 38.1.4; Avienus, Ora maritima 275–83; Galen 13.271 (Kühn); Harpokra-
tion, “Parrhasios,” “Polygnotos”; Philostratos, Life of Apollonios 2.13, 16; Photios 161.103a, 104b;
Quintilian 6.3.90; Tatian, Oration to the Greeks 36.
12 FHG 3.465–84.
13 In particular, Wenceslaus Plagge, De Juba II rege Mauretaniae (Münster, F. Regensburg, 1849); and L.
Keller, De Juba Appiani Cassiique Dionis auctore (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 1872).
14 Hermann Peter, Ueber den Werth der historichen Schriftstellerei von König Juba II von Mauretanien ( Jahres-
bericht über die Fürsten- und Landesschule Meissen 1878–9, pp. 1–14).
15 Maria-Renatus de la Blanchère, De rege Juba regis Jubae filio (Paris: E. Thorin, 1883).
16 E. H. Bunbury, A History of Ancient Geography (second edition, London: John Murray, 1883), vol. 2,
pp. 174–6.
17 Leveau, Caesarea, pp. 1–3.
18 Jodin, Volubilis, pp. 10–12.
19 RE 9, 1916, 2384–95.

8
 INTRODUCTION

author. Jacoby’s work on the fragments,20 which appeared in 1940, increased

Müller’s ninety-one to a more reliable 104, eliminating some of the ques-
tionable ones, but still limited itself only to citations in which the name
“Juba” occurs. The culmination of the French colonial impact on scholarship
was Stéphane Gsell’s massive Histoire ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord, completed
in 1928, an exhaustive study in eight volumes that devoted more attention
than ever before to Juba, his world, and his ancestors.21 Although excruciat-
ingly thorough and a necessary reference for any scholar of ancient North
Africa, the work is not deeply imaginative and suffers from an inevitable
colonialist perspective.22
There was little new work on Juba in the years immediately after the
Second World War; if he was remembered at all, it was as the son-in-law of
Antonius and Kleopatra VII.23 In recent years, however, a growing awareness
of the role of client kingship in the early Empire and evolving postcolonial-
ist views24 of the fringes of the Roman world have led scholars to the career
of Juba II.25 Yet as recently as 1998 the present author could bemoan the
fact that “there is no good recent study of Juba,”26 and because of a histori-
cally lesser interest in the careers of women than those of men, the life of
Kleopatra Selene even today remains frustratingly vague.

Transliteration and chronological issues

Transliteration is a vexing problem, especially in the world of Greek,
Roman, and indigenous cultures that was the Roman Empire. It becomes
difficult to impose a consistency that was itself lacking in antiquity.

20 FGrHist #275. It is Jacoby’s fragment numbering that is used throughout the present work.
21 See the review of vols. 7–8 (the period after the fall of Carthage) by Jérôme Carcapino, “L’Afrique au
dernier siècle de la république romaine,” RHist 162, 1929, 86–95.
22 On the problems of colonialist interpretations of the history of this region and the attempts to move
beyond them, see David J. Mattingly, “From One Colonialism to Another: Imperialism and the
Maghreb,” in Roman Imperialism: Post-colonial Perspectives, ed. Jane Webster and Nicolas J. Cooper,
Leicester Archaeological Monographs 3, 1996, pp. 49–69.
23 See, for example, Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, paperback edition (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1960), pp. 300, 365–6, which, although written before the Second World War, reflects the
attitudes in place in the immediate postwar years.
24 A good recent study of the issues of romanization in the postcolonial context of modern scholarship is
Greg Woolf, “Beyond Romans and Natives,” WA 28, 1996–7, 339–50; see also Jane Webster, “Cre-
olizing the Roman Provinces,” AJA 105, 2001, 209–25.
25 For example, the work of David Braund, especially his Rome and the Friendly King.
26 Roller, Herod, p. 252. Michèle Coltelloni-Trannoy’s Le Royaume de Maurétanie sous Juba II et Ptolémée
(Paris: CNRS, 1997), while a significant addition to Juban studies and the most complete treatment
since that of Gsell, is narrowly focused on the king within his kingdom, paying no attention to his
impact as scholar and explorer. On other limitations (which do not diminish its value), see the review
by Brent D. Shaw, Gnomon 72, 2000, 422–5. See also the recent examination of Juba’s kingdom by
Ramsay MacMullen, Romanization in the Time of Augustus (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
2000), pp. 42–4, which, although brief, is an incisive and precise summary.

9
 INTRODUCTION

Dependency on extant sources means that the actual form of the personal
name used by its owner may be unfamiliar or even unknown. Nonetheless,
proper names are generally transliterated directly from Greek or Latin into
English except for a few that have common English forms (e.g. Athens,
Egypt). “Ptolemy” is used for the geographer but the more accurate “Ptole-
maios” for royal personages, and “Alexander” for Alexander the Great but
“Alexandros” for all others. The names of the indigenous royalty of North
Africa have been presented in their Greek or Latin forms, since often they
are known only through classical sources.
Juba’s reign began in the second half of the year,27 so his dated coins refer
to a regnal year that, roughly, runs from autumn to autumn: e.g. Year 1 is
from autumn 25 to autumn 24 BC and Juba’s death in regnal Year 48
occurred between autumn AD 23 and autumn AD 24. For convenience, only
the calendar year in effect at the beginning of the regnal year is used herein.

27 Infra, p. 100.

10
 1
JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

Juba II was descended from a long line of distinguished ancestors who had
been involved in Roman politics for nearly two hundred years prior to his
accession to the throne of Mauretania. The family tree can be constructed for
at least seven generations before Juba,1 starting with the tribal chieftain
Zilalsan, born perhaps around 300 BC.2 The family was famous and talented,
producing a variety of scholars and political and cultural leaders, attached
first to Carthaginian interests and then to Roman, with an increasing
amount of Hellenism. This impressive ancestry was certainly a factor in
Caesar’s decision to save young Juba, and that of Augustus to make him
king of Mauretania.
Juba’s ancestors were kings of Numidia, the territory south and west of
Carthage. Originally nomadic herdsmen, by the fourth century BC they
became identifiable as a number of tribal groups, which seem to have begun
to coalesce into a single ethnic unit late in the following century.3 This
process was said to have been largely due to the efforts of Massinissa, the
first of the Numidian kings to appear prominently in the historical record.
His grandfather Zilalsan (the first member of the dynasty whose name is
known with certainty) held the title of suffete, indicating the Carthaginian

1 One may contrast the Herodians, who cannot be traced beyond the great-grandfather of Herod the
Great: see Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, p. 109.
2 See Appendix 2. Nevertheless, Juba was the upstart within his immediate family. His wife Kleopa-
tra Selene, and thus their children, could trace their ancestry back to Lagos, the father of the first
Ptolemaios, born perhaps around 400 BC, and even further through the Antonii into the fifth century
BC.
3 Maria R.-Alföldi, “Die Geschichte des numidisichen Königreiches und seiner Nachfolger,” in
Numider, pp. 43–51. On the early history, see Elizabeth W. B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman
Army: Social, Military and Economic Aspects of the Frontier Zone, BAR-IS 53, 1979, pp. 43–60; François
Decret and Mhamed Fantar, L’Afrique du Nord dans l’antiquité (Paris: Payot, 1981), pp. 1–67; and
Robert Morstein-Marx, “The Myth of Numidian Origins in Sallust’s African Excursus (Iugurtha
17.7–18.13),” AJP 122, 2001, 179–200.

11
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

influence existing by the early third century BC.4 His son, Gaia or Gala, was
the first to carry the title “king,” but presumably was king only of his tribal
group, the Maesyli.5 Gaia came to Roman notice during the Second Punic
War because he opposed another Numidian chieftain, Syphax, who had
revolted from the Carthaginians and sided with Rome, a crucial event of the
latter years of the war.6 For the first time, the Romans began to incorporate
the Numidian tribes into their strategic designs against Carthage. Gaia’s son
Massinissa, who turned 20 the year the war began, fought at the side of his
father for Carthage and against Syphax and Rome.
Gaia died in Spain near the end of the war,7 but Massinissa did not
inherit the kingship because custom caused it to revert to his uncle Oezal-
ces, brother-in-law of the famous Hannibal. Oezalces died shortly thereafter
and was succeeded by his son Capussa, who was promptly killed by a rela-
tive, Mazaetullus, who had married Oezalces’ widow and thus had acquired
the status appropriate for the brother-in-law of Hannibal. This Numidian
civil war now involved three tribal groups, those of Syphax, the brothers
Gaia and Oezalces, and Mazaetullus. Moreover, Roman and Carthaginian
interests were already polarizing in their support of these families. The way
was clear for the rise of Massinissa.
Massinissa was the most famous and notable of the ancestors of Juba II,
his great-great-great-grandfather.8 During his long reign, which extended
from the Second Punic War into the Third, he prospered despite being
caught between Rome and Carthage, eventually siding with the former and
playing a decisive role in the destruction of the latter. Learned and erudite,
he presided over a court that attracted both Greeks and Romans, and thus
became one of the best early examples of the king allied to Rome and an
ideal role model for his descendant.
4 On the predecessors of Massinissa, see J.-B. Chabot, Recueil des inscriptions libyques (Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale, 1940), #2, a bilingual (Libyan and Punic) inscription from Thugga recording the erec-
tion of a temple to Massinissa in the tenth year of his son Micipsa (139 BC); Fentress (supra note 3),
pp. 50–2; Coltelloni-Trannoy, p. 107; Gabriel Camps, Massinissa (LibAE 8.1, 1960), pp. 159–83;
P. G. Walsh, “Massinissa,” JRS 55, 1965, 150. Zilalsan may have been a descendant – perhaps
grandson – of Ailymas, “king of Libya,” an ally of Agathokles of Syracuse (Diodoros 20.17–18). See
Gabriel Camps, “Origines du royaume massyle,” RHCM 3, July 1967, 32–3.
5 The name is Gala in Greco-Roman sources, but the Thugga inscription (Chabot, supra note 4) has
GII, indicating that “Gaia” may be a better transliteration. See also F. Stähelin, “Gaia” (#4), RE
Supp. 3, 1918, 534–8; Gsell, vol. 3, pp. 177–83. Livy (27.19.9) called him “rex Numidarum,” but
this seems anachronistic.
6 John Briscoe, “The Second Punic War,” CAH2 8, 1989, 57–9. The wide and complex issues of the
Second Punic War are not the primary concern here. On this, see, most recently, B. D. Hoyos,
Unplanned Wars: The Origins of the First and Second Punic Wars, Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur
und Geschichte 50 (Berlin 1998).
7 Livy 29.29.6; Gsell, vol. 3, p. 189.
8 The ancient sources are primarily Polybios 14, Livy 25–42, and Appian, Libyka. For modern sources,
see Camps, LibAE (supra note 4); Walsh (supra note 4), pp. 149–60; W. Schur, “Massinissa,” RE 14,
1930, 2154–65; Gsell, vol. 3, pp. 189–364 (passim); R.-Alföldi (supra note 3), pp. 51–7, and the
recent study by Elfrieda Storm, Massinissa: Numidien in Aufbruch (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001).

12
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

Figure 1 The Numidian marble quarries at Chemtou (Tunisia).

Photograph by Duane W. Roller.

The career of Massinissa was lengthy and complex. He was educated at

Carthage and became a protégé of the great Carthaginian leader Hasdrubal.9
His youth and early maturity coincided with the Second Punic War and the
internal power struggles within Numidia. He first fought for Carthage, his
operations ranging far west to Tingis, disrupting the supplies from Syphax
to the Romans, and eventually crossing to Spain and opposing the Scipio
brothers: it was his cavalry that killed P. Cornelius Scipio the elder in
211 BC.10 But a few years later, when the fortunes of war began to turn
in favor of Rome, Massinissa realized that Rome might be of use to him in
asserting his position within Numidia. He sought out M. Junius Silanus,
one of the Roman commanders11 – the details of the interview were not pre-
served by Livy but apparently the result was that he joined the Roman side
– and then returned to Africa in order to bolster support among his country-
men for his change of allegiance. This was a wise move, since both Syphax
9 Appian, Libyka 10, 37.
10 Livy 24.49, 4–6; 25.34; Briscoe (supra note 6), pp. 56–61.
11 Livy 28.16.11–13. He was propraetor in Spain in 210–206 BC (Broughton, vol. 2, p. 577; F.
Münzer, “M. Iunius Silanus” (#167), RE 10, 1917, 1092–3. This family may have been traditionally
sympathetic toward the indigenous populations of North Africa, since sixty-five years later one
Decimus [ Junius] Silanus was considered the outstanding contemporary scholar of the Punic lan-
guage and was given the task of translating Mago’s treatise on agriculture (NH 18.22–3). He is
otherwise unknown (Broughton, vol. 2, p. 577), unless he is mentioned by Cicero, De finibus 1.24;
see also F. Münzer, “D. (Iunius) Silanus” (#160), RE 10, 1917, 1088–9.

13
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

and Mazaetullus had reverted to the Carthaginians.12 With Carthage and

most of Numidia against him, Massinissa’s prospects were not good, and
although initially successful he was eventually wounded and had to hide out
in the mountains and await the Romans. Eventually, in 204 BC, the Romans
under P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus landed in Africa and soon engaged the
Carthaginians. Massinissa’s cavalry was decisive in the battle and he was said
to have personally captured Syphax.13 He also eliminated the other claimant
to Numidian power, Mazaetullus, so his victory over his countrymen was
complete.14 Thus with Roman support Massinissa was able to claim the
kingship of Numidia. Scipio formally addressed him as king and gave him
insignia of office, telling him that he was the foreigner most respected by
Rome;15 the Senate confirmed the title and gave him additional honors and
gifts.16
It is probable that few foreigners had ever been so well treated by Rome.
Massinissa was to rule as king of Numidia for the next fifty-five years, skill-
fully balancing his interests, precarious because he was geographically adja-
cent to Carthage but a client of Rome. He became famous for exploiting the
agricultural bounty of his kingdom,17 which led to exports to Rome and the
Greek world. He was probably the first Numidian to hellenize his court,18
which became a center of culture: among the visitors were the historian

12 Livy 29.23–32; see also Appian, Iberika 37; L. A. Thompson, “Carthage and the Massylian Coup
d’État of 206 BC,” Historia 30, 1981, 120–6. Massinissa also solicited aid from Baga, king of the
Mauri: this is the earliest reference (in terms of context) to Mauretania in Roman literature. On
Baga, see infra, p. 46.
13 Livy 29.34; Polybios 14.3–8; Appian, Libyka 26. Syphax was sent into exile in Italy, and died two
years later at Tibur or Alba, receiving a state funeral (Livy 30.45.4–5; Zonaras 9.23 [from Dio 17]).
His son Vermina, who had been in Italy with his father, seems to have been restored to his father’s
territory and thus ruled on terms agreeable to Rome as petty king over a small district, but nothing
is known about him after the Second Punic War and it is probable that he did not survive long (Livy
31.19.4–6; Zonaras 9.13 [from Dio 17]; Mazard #13–16).
14 Livy 29.30.10–13. The personal combat between Massinissa and Hannibal recorded by Zonaras
(9.14, from Dio 17) is probably apocryphal.
15 Livy 30.15.9–14. He seems to have begun his regnal years sometime in 205 BC: see Werner Huss,
“Die Datierung nach numidischen Königsjahren,” AntAfr 26, 1990, 39–42. On some of the prob-
lems with the veracity of Scipio’s addressing Massinissa as king, see E. Badian, Foreign Clientelae
(264–70 B.C.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), pp. 125–6, 295.
16 Livy 30.17.7–14; Appian, Libyka 32. On this as one of the first instances of the Roman process for
recognition of the client king, of which Massinissa was an outstanding early example, see Braund,
Friendly King, p. 24; see also Erich S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, first paper-
back printing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 159–64, for some of the dif-
ficulties with this view.
17 IDélos 442a, line 101; Polybios 36.16; Appian, Libyka 106; Strabo 17.3.15; Jehan Desanges,
“L’Afrique romaine et libyco-berbère,” in Rome et la conquête du monde méditerranéen, 264–27 avant
J.-C., ed. Claude Nicolet, Nouvelle Clio 8bis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1978), pp.
651–2; Walsh (supra note 4), pp. 152–6 (who diminished the extent of the Numidian agricultural
wealth).

14
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

Polybios and King Ptolemaios VIII, who was impressed with its Greco-
Roman character.19 Massinissa’s coinage shows Greek qualities in the
bearded bust of the king, with royal diadem, and includes the elephant, an
early numismatic representation of this ubiquitous symbol of North African
royalty.20 It was perhaps also Massinissa who began to exploit the Numidian
marble that was soon to be exported to Rome,21 and to build in Hellenistic
fashion, especially the monumental funerary architecture still conspicuous
today.22 He involved himself in the politics of the eastern Mediterranean,
assisting Rome in the Makedonian Wars, and eventually sending his son
Misagetes with a substantial force and supplies to Greece.23 Later he shipped
grain to Delos and was honored by that island,24 and was on friendly terms
with eastern royalty, especially Nikomedes II of Bithynia.25 His sons were
sent to Greece, probably Athens, to be educated.26
Meanwhile, in order to insure his own survival at home, he initiated a

18 Coltelloni-Trannoy, p. 143.
19 Polybios 9.25; Ptolemaios VIII (FGrHist #234) fr. 7–8. The contacts between Ptolemaios VIII and
Massinissa are discussed by Tadeusz Kotula, “Orientalia Africana. Réflexions sur les contacts Afrique
du Nord romaine – Orient hellénistique,” FolOr 24, 1987, 120–1.
20 Mazard #17; Hans R. Baldus, “Die Münzprägung der Numidischen Königreiche,” in Numider,
pp. 191–4.
21 The marble, yellow with red veins and known today as giallo antico, came from the vicinity of Simit-
thu (modern Chemtou) in the upper Bagradas (modern Mejerda) valley, in what is now northwestern
Tunisia, where quarries and workshops are still visible in an impressive setting (Figure 1, p. 12). See
Heinz Günter Horn, “Die antiken Steinbrüche von Chemtou/Simitthus,” in Numider, pp. 173–80;
Mustapha Khanoussi, “Les officiales marmorum numidicorum,” AfrRom 12, 1998, 997–8. It was first
exported to Egypt and Greece and then to Rome, one of the earliest foreign stones to arrive in the
city, where it was used in the Temple of Concord and Forum of Augustus, among other structures.
See NH 36.49; Hazel Dodge, “Decorative Stones for Architecture in the Roman Empire,” OJA 7,
1988, 66; Marble in Antiquity: Collected Papers of J. B. Ward-Perkins, Archaeological Monographs of
the British School at Rome 6, ed. Hazel Dodge and Bryan Ward-Perkins (1992), pp. 15, 24, 116,
157.
22 Infra, p. 130.
23 Livy 36.4.5–8, 42.29.8–9, 43.6.11–14, 45.13.12–17. On the problems and paradoxes this created,
see Braund, Friendly King, p. 184.
24 IG 11.4.1115 (⫽SIG4 652), 1116; IDélos 442A, 100–6; 1577bis. The Delians may have commis-
sioned the noted local sculptor Polianthes to erect a statue of the king. On the grain shipments,
perhaps an attempt to create an eastern market due to the decline of those in Italy, see Lionel
Casson, Ancient Trade and Society (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984), pp. 76–7; Philippe
Gauthier, “Sur le don de grain numide à Délos: un pseudo-Rhodien dans les comptes de hiéropes,”
in Comptes et inventaires dans la cité grecque: Actes du colloque international d’épigraphie tenu à Neuchâtel du
23 au 26 septembre 1986 en l’honneur de Jacques Tréheux, ed. Denis Knoepfler (Neuchâtel: Faculté des
Lettres, Université de Neuchâtel, 1986), pp. 61–9. A delegation to Delos in the 170s BC may have
been led by Massinissa’s son Gulussa: see Marie-Françoise Baslez, “Un Monument de la famille
royale de Numidie à Délos,” RÉG 94, 1981, 160–5.
25 IDélos 1577; Arnaldo Momigliano, “I regni indigeni dell’Africa Romana (1),” in Africa Romana
(Milan: Hoepli, 1935), pp. 94–5.
26 Livy, Epitome 50; IG 22.2316.41–4.

15
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

series of territorial disputes with Carthage.27 A continuing series of con-

frontations ensued, warily watched by Rome, that lasted until the outbreak
of the Third Punic War.28 In 151 BC the Carthaginians invaded Numidia (a
violation of the terms of the end of the Second Punic War), and Massinissa,
who was now 87, decisively defeated them, leading his forces personally on
horseback.29 This Carthaginian incursion gave Rome the pretext for war,
something probably already decided, but the Roman government was
ambivalent about what role the elderly monarch should play. Eventually, in
148 BC, it was decided that he could be of use to Rome, but the envoys
found him dead at the age of 90.30
When his great-great-great-grandson Juba II arrived in Rome a century
later, Massinissa’s legend was well established.31 Contemporary Romans
were fascinated with the tale of the witty and cultured barbarian king, who
had lived so long and fathered the last of his forty-four sons at 86, and was
noted for such ability and strength in extreme old age.32 He had been so
impressed with Rome that he became its greatest friend, evolving, in the
best barbarian tradition, from hostility to alliance.33 Particularly romantic,
although doubtless elaborated, was the story of his relationship with
Sophoniba, the elegant daughter of his mentor Hasdrubal. Sophoniba was
27 Livy 34.61.16, 42.23; Appian, Libyka 67–70. For the legality of Massinissa’s actions, see Polybios
15.18.5. See further, Romanelli, Storia, pp. 22–42; Ritter, Rom, pp. 61–79; W. V. Harris, “Roman
Expansion in the West,” CAH2 8, 1989, 144–6. Rome may have hoped that Massinissa and
Carthage would weaken each other (I. M. Barton, Africa in the Roman Empire [Accra: Ghana Univer-
sities Press, 1972], pp. 16–17), or even have feared that Numidia would conquer Carthage if Rome
did not act (F. E. Adcock, “Delenda est Carthago,” CHJ 8.3, 1946, 118–19).
28 The extent to which Massinissa was the catalyst in Rome’s decision to make another war against
Carthage has long been debated, and it is probably best to assume that the Roman concern about
Massinissa’s activities was merely one of many contributing factors. See Walsh (supra note 4); Harris
(supra note 27), pp. 149–57; Gruen (supra note 16), pp. 130–1. But the king, because he retained
Carthaginian contacts, became an important source about internal Carthaginian affairs for the
Romans (Livy 41.22.1).
29 Polybios 36.16; Livy, Epitome 48; Appian, Libyka 70–2.
30 Appian, Libyka 105–6; also Polybios 36.16; Livy, Epitome 48 (which recorded that the king lived to
92); Valerius Maximus 5.2.Ext4; see also OxyPap 4, 1904, p. 668, lines 118–22. On Massinissa’s last
days, see F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957–79),
vol. 3, pp. 675–8; G. M. Paul, A Historical Commentary on Sallust’s “Bellum Jugurthinum” [Liverpool
1984] pp. 26–8.
31 See Diodoros 32.16, which, although adapted from Polybios 36.16, recorded the attitude toward the
king in Juba’s Rome. Another contemporary portrait is that of Cicero (Republic 6.9), who described
the great desire of P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus to meet him: “nothing was more important to me
than to meet Massinissa, who was most friendly with our family, for justifiable reasons. When I
came to him, the old man embraced me and wept before me.” (“nihil mihi fuit potius, quam ut
Masinissam convenirem regem, familiae nostrae iustis de causis amicissimum. Ad quem ut veni,
conplexus me senex conlacrimavit”). It was after his inspiring conversation with Massinissa that
Scipio had his famous dream. Livy was equally eulogistic: see, for example, 37.53.20–2.
32 An example of his wit was preserved by Ptolemaios VIII in his Hypomnemata (FGrHist #234, fr.
8 ⫽ Athenaios 12.518–19). The citation of 44 sons is from Livy, Epitome 50, but the text is unclear.
33 Livy 28.35.8–11, 31.11, 37.53.21–2; see also, somewhat later, Silius Italicus 16.115–17.

16
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

the wife of his enemy Syphax, but Massinissa became enamored with her and
sent her poison so that she would not be captured alive by the Romans – an
episode as much from tragedy as history.34 Massinissa was a role model for
Juba to adopt: the ancestor who embodied all the best qualities of barbarian
integrity, Greco-Roman culture, and political astuteness, strongly attached
to a particular Roman family, turning from enemy to friend, spending his
life balancing the needs of his territory with those of Rome.35
Upon his death, Massinissa left his kingdom to three of his sons and
made P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus the executor of his will,36 one of the
earliest known cases of a royal inheritance involving Rome.37 Scipio had met
the king’s heirs and was the adopted grandson of his patron Scipio
Africanus. The will, whether oral or written, was executed in perilous times,
during the middle of the Third Punic War, in the context of long-standing
Carthaginian–Numidian animosity, when the Carthaginians might have
been expected to meddle in the succession. Scipio, well known in Numidia
and prestigious in Rome, was an obvious choice to supervise this touchy
issue. How much the eventual settlement was the work of Scipio and how
much was the testament of Massinissa is not certain: Appian, the primary
source, is ambiguous, stating only that the sons were to obey (pe…qesqai)
Scipio.38
34 The main source is Livy 30.12–15; see also Appian, Libyka 10, 27–8; Diodoros 27.7; Zonaras
9.11–13 (from Dio 17); U. Kahrstedt, “Sophoniba,” RE 2, ser. 3, 1927, 1099–100; T. A. Dorey,
“Masinissa, Syphax, and Sophoniba,” PACA 4, 1961, 1–2; R.-Alföldi (supra note 3), pp. 48–50. On
whether Juba discussed this tale, see infra, p. 181. Certain of the elements – especially in Appian’s
version – seem the details of a tragedy: the encounter between Massinissa and Sophoniba when he
brings the poison and tells her either to drink it or be captured, Sophoniba’s speech to the nurse
before she takes the poison, Massinissa’s showing of the body to the Romans, Scipio’s final speech to
Massinissa, the ironies of a possible former relationship between Massinissa and Sophoniba, and
Syphax’s subsequent death. The tale also became common in art: see German Hafner, “Das Bildnis
des Massinissa,” AA 1970, pp. 418–20; Karl Schefold, Die Wände Pompejis (Berlin: De Gruyter,
1957), pp. 46, 219; G. Bermond Montanari, “Sofonisba,” EAA 7, 1966, 398–90, figure 489 (a
painting from Pompeii showing her taking the poison); Numider, pl. 56.
35 Strabo (17.3.9) specifically connected Massinissa and Juba, probably influenced in this comparison by
Juba himself, who was acutely aware of his descent from the great king (CIL 2.3417 [⫽ILS 840]).
36 Appian, Libyka 105–7; Zonaras 9.27 (from Dio 21). Scipio had met Massinissa either in 151 BC
when on an elephant-gathering expedition (Appian, Libyka 71), or perhaps two years later (Cicero,
Republic 6.9), and thus was acquainted with his sons, who were to be the heirs.
37 It had been only seven years since the earliest, that of Massinissa’s associate Ptolemaios VIII of Egypt,
written in 155 BC when he was king of Kyrene (SEG 9.7). Although this will was never implemented,
because the circumstances under which it was written were no longer in force when the king died
nearly forty years later, Ptolemaios may have suggested to Massinissa that Roman supervision of his
inheritance was a good idea. See infra, Appendix 3; Braund, Friendly King, pp. 129–30. Whether
Massinissa had a written will, or just made an oral statement of intent, is not clear.
38 Braund, Friendly King, pp. 138–9; Charles Saumagne, La Numidie et Rome: Massinissa et Jugurtha (Paris
1966), pp. 100–4; see further, Badian (supra note 15), pp. 137–8. Yet emphasis on the legalities of suc-
cession can be futile, as often the rules are of no importance; this was to be demonstrated only a genera-
tion later with Jugurtha. For the whole issue of succession to ruling power, see the volume Succession to
High Office, ed. Jack Goody, Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology 4, 1966, especially pp. 1–56.

17
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

Scipio’s decision – whether or not suggested by Massinissa – was to create

a regal triumvirate of Massinissa’s three oldest sons, Micipsa, Gulussa, and
Mastanabal.39 Yet this three-way rule did not last long, for Gulussa and
Mastanabal promptly vanish from the historical record, probably dying soon
after their father. Mastanabal is worthy of further note because he was the
great-great-grandfather of Juba II, but little is known about him other than
that he was educated in Greece and victorious in the Panathenaia in
158 BC.40 Even his status as the father of the famous Jugurtha41 did not lead
to much comment about his career, and he probably died before his son
reached maturity.
Nevertheless, it would be nearly thirty years after Massinissa’s death
before the Numidian royal line reverted to a direct ancestor of Juba:
Micipsa’s brothers seem to have left him sole ruler by no later than 139 BC.42
He survived for another twenty years in control of a territory whose political
realities had changed substantially from his father’s day. Carthage was no
longer an independent state, and, for the time being, no longer a great city,
having been burned and destroyed in an event that was compared to the
Sack of Troy. Scipio Aemilianus is said to have wept at the destruction and
to have told Polybios that Rome would eventually meet the same fate.43 The
Carthaginian territory became the new Roman province of Africa, although
the Numidian kings also acquired a substantial portion of it.44 The material
culture of Carthage was dispersed if not destroyed: of particular note was the
state library, which was given to Micipsa and his brothers.45 Carthage being
unfit for human habitation, a Roman praetor took up residence at Utica,
which had supported Rome in the last stages of the war and was to become
the center of romanization in the region.46
Little is known about the thirty years of Micipsa’s kingship. The oldest
surviving son of Massinissa, he adopted his 4-year-old brother Sthembanon,
and, it seems, the sons of Gulussa and Mastanabal, including Jugurtha.47 He
39 On the reasons for Scipio’s decision, and its possible basis in Greek political theory, see Hervé Trofi-
moff, “Une préfiguration de la séparation des pouvoirs: le testament de Masinissa,” RIDA 3rd ser.
35, 1988, 364–84.
40 Diodoros 34/35.35; Livy, Epitome 50; IG 22.2316.41–4. See Stephen V. Tracy and Christian
Habicht, “New and Old Panathenaic Victor Lists,” Hesperia 60, 1991, 232. His father may have
commemorated this victory (or another) by commissioning at Kyrene the famous bronze “Berber
Head” now in the British Museum (BM Bronze 268): see Duane W. Roller, “A Note on the Berber
Head in London,” JHS 122, 2002, 144–6.
41 Sallust, Jugurtha 5.
42 Sallust, Jugurtha 5; Chabot (supra note 4) #2; on Micipsa, see F. Schur, “Micipsa,” RE 15, 1932,
1522–4.
43 Appian, Libyka 127–32, supplemented by Diodoros 32.24, probably both from Polybios 38. See also
Walbank (supra note 30), vol. 3, pp. 722–5.
44 Romanelli, Storia, pp. 43–5.
45 NH 18.22–3.
46 Polybios 36.3; Appian, Libyka 75.
47 Zonaras 9.27 (from Dio 21); Polybios 36.16; Sallust, Jugurtha 5.

18
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

further developed his father’s capital of Cirta, settling a number of Greeks

there48 and making it a cosmopolitan center that had enough manpower to
produce 10,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry.49 He may also have begun to
favor Iol as a royal city.50 His Greek education, the Greek settlement at
Cirta, and his inheritance of the Carthaginian library (his brothers’ portions
would have come to him) continued his father’s Hellenism, and indeed it
was said that he was the most cultured of the Numidian kings and brought
many Greeks to his court, becoming a student of philosophy.51 Hellenistic-
style mausolea continued to be built throughout the territory, a further
commitment to Greek culture.52 Micipsa also sponsored the building of a
temple to his father in 139 BC at Thugga.53 He had served his father both
diplomatically and militarily during the Third Punic War,54 and further
refined these skills in thirty years of serving Roman interests and protecting
his own. He followed the tradition of his father in supplying elephants and
horses to Rome, especially to commanders in Spain.55 When he was support-
ing the Romans in the Numantine War, which was being prosecuted by his
patron Scipio Aemilianus, he seems to have acquired the friendship of
Scipio’s young relative C. Sempronius Gracchus, and in 126 BC, when Grac-
chus was quaestor on Sardinia, Micipsa sent a shipment of grain to the island
and envoys to Rome announcing his gift. Gracchus, however, was already
demonstrating the populism that would soon result in his death, and the
envoys were rebuffed by the Senate, a cautionary episode for client kings
who might seem to be meddling in Roman internal politics.56 Regardless of
the disposition of the grain, the shipment demonstrates that Micipsa further
exploited and developed the wealth and prosperity of the kingdom he had
inherited, helped, of course, by his acquisition of substantial amounts of
48 Strabo 17.3.13. There is no explicit evidence as to where these Greeks came from. There would have
been a Greek population in Carthage – it had a Pythagorean school in its last years that seems to
have had a Greek clientele (Iamblichos 128, 267) – and Greeks were also displaced by the destruc-
tion of Corinth in 146 BC. Moreover, the philosopher Kleitomachos, who became head of the
Academy in Athens in the 120s BC, was Carthaginian. Originally named Hasdrubal, he went to
Athens in the 160s BC to study with Karneades (Diogenes Laertios 4.67). Such an interest presumes
the availability of Greek learning at Carthage. Within thirty years Cirta also had an Italian popu-
lation, probably mercantile (Sallust, Jugurtha 21, 26). On Greek culture at Carthage, see Walter
Thieling, Der Hellenismus in Kleinafrika (Leipzig: Teubner, 1911), pp. 152–3.
49 Appian, Libyka 106; Strabo 17.3.13.
50 Leveau, Caesarea, p. 11.
51 Diodoros 34/35.35.
52 Friedrich Rakob, “Architecture royale numide,” CÉFR 66, 1983, 335–6. These may include
Micipsa’s own tomb but the evidence is so ambivalent as to make certainty impossible: see J.-G.
Février, “L’Inscription funéraire de Micipsa,” RAssyr 45, 1951, 139–50.
53 Chabot (supra note 4) #2.
54 Appian, Libyka 70, 111.
55 Appian, Iberika 67; Sallust, Jugurtha 7.
56 Plutarch, C. Gracchus 2.3; Badian (supra note 15), 181. It may have been Gracchus’ association with
Micipsa and thus his interest in African matters that led to his abortive attempt to refound Carthage
(Appian, Libyka 136; Civil War 1.24; Plutarch, C. Gracchus 11; see Desanges [supra note 17], p. 630).

19
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

Carthaginian territory. Nothing further is known about him until his death,
which occurred in 118 BC.57 He too adopted the triumviral method of inheri-
tance, leaving the kingdom to his two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal (I), and,
unfortunately for them, to his nephew and adopted son Jugurtha.
The career of Jugurtha and the Roman war against him are well known.
The sharply focused character study by C. Sallustius Crispus, written
perhaps seventy years after Jugurtha’s death, not only hastened the loss of
the more traditional historical analyses by Livy, Dio, and Appian,58 but
created a portrait of Jugurtha formed by Sallust’s own era, the collapse of the
Republic, when he had served in Africa as Caesar’s appointee. Sallust made
his emphasis clear in the early chapters of his Jugurtha, outlining what was
perhaps his primary reason for writing: “This conflict totally mixed up
human and divine matters and advanced to such a frenzy that political
intensity resulted in war and the desolation of Italy.”59 This chaos and
destruction was a world Sallust knew well, as he was one of the players: a
protégé of Caesar who was constantly in ethical and legal troubles, especially
as a result of his actions as the first Roman governor of the provincialized
former Numidian kingdom. He was eventually prosecuted and forced into
retirement, leading him to seek (as he himself wrote) the higher goal of
becoming a historian,60 his researches being aided by the former Carthagin-
ian state library, which had passed from the Numidian kings into his hands.
Yet the result was a peculiar depiction of Jugurtha less as a Numidian
nationalist than as an instigator of the fall of the Republic.61
Because of Sallust, the career of Jugurtha is known in great detail.62
Sallust emphasized his physical and intellectual prowess as a young man,
which first impressed his uncle Micipsa but eventually led him to worry

57 Livy, Epitome 62.

58 Polybios, if he dealt with Jugurtha at all, would have been familiar only with his youth and perhaps
his accession in 118 BC, which is the year of the last datable event in his writings. See F. W.
Walbank, Polybius, first paperback printing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990),
pp. 12–13.
59 Sallust, Jugurtha 5: “Quae contentio divina et humana cuncta permiscuit eoque vecordiae processit,
ut studiis civilibus bellum atque vastitas Italiae finem faceret.”
60 Sallust, Catiline 4; Jugurtha 4; on Sallust’s career, see Ronald Syme, Sallust (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1964), pp. 29–42.
61 On Jugurtha’s effect on Roman internal politics, see Badian (supra note 15), pp. 192–4, and Andrew
Lintott, “Political History, 145–96 BC,” CAH2 9, 1994, 88–95.
62 The scant other sources are Plutarch’s biographies of Marius and Sulla; Livy, Epitome 62–7; Velleius
2.11, and the brief extant fragments of Appian’s Noumidika. A recent summary is Andrew Lintott,
“The Roman Empire and Its Problems in the Late Second Century,” CAH2 9, 1994, 27–31; see also
Fentress (supra note 3), pp. 61–4, and Syme (supra note 60), pp. 138–56 (on the strategy of the
war); Romanelli, Storia, pp. 72–88; Ritter, Rom, pp. 91–119; Saumagne (supra note 38),
pp. 183–235; Domenico Siciliani, “La guerra giugurtina,” Africa Romana (Milan: Hoepli, 1935),
pp. 51–82; Gsell, vol. 7, pp. 123–265; Paul (supra note 30); Th. Lenschau, “Iugurtha,” RE 10,
1917, 1–6; R.-Alföldi (supra note 3), pp. 59–63.

20
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

about his ambition and potential as a rival.63 Micipsa thus decided to place
Jugurtha in command of a Numidian contingent sent to aid the Romans in
the Numantine War, allegedly hoping that he would be killed. But he had
underestimated his nephew, who caught the notice of the family patron,
Scipio Aemilianus, who made him part of his entourage. Scipio educated
Jugurtha in Roman ways and customs, and after the war sent him home
with a most enthusiastic letter of recommendation. This evidently encour-
aged Micipsa – his worries seemingly forgotten – to adopt him as joint heir
with his own sons Adherbal and Hiempsal (I) and to leave an oral testament
in which Jugurtha was put forth as the primary heir, not only because of his
ability but because he was older than Micipsa’s sons, who were enjoined to
defer to Jugurtha’s superior wisdom and virtue.64
This arrangement was an obvious prescription for disaster, and it is inter-
esting that there is no evidence of Roman supervision of the will.65 Micipsa
was allegedly out of his mind when he died in 118 BC, and the two Romans
most acquainted with the family, Scipio Aemilianus and C. Gracchus, were
already dead; the civil strife that had led to their deaths may have discour-
aged the Numidians from involving Rome in the succession. There appears
to have been enduring animosity among the three heirs. Jugurtha was sensi-
tive about the low status of his mother, and felt that his grandfather had
slighted him because of this. The sons of Micipsa lost no opportunity to
point this out. Because Jugurtha was the oldest, these insults were acutely
felt, especially when the issue erupted at the first meeting of the three after
Micipsa’s death. This council degenerated into bickering with no agreement
as to how to divide the kingdom. Before long, Jugurtha had Hiempsal mur-
dered and civil war erupted between the two survivors.66 Adherbal soon fled
to Rome.67 Jugurtha sent his own contingent to the city, loaded with pres-
ents to be used in lavish bribery of a number of senators, demonstrating the
power barbarian kings could wield by spreading their wealth through relat-
ively impoverished Rome.68 Both were invited to address the Senate.
Adherbal invoked his position as a grandson of Massinissa and the inheritor
of his friendship and alliance with Rome, emphasizing Jugurtha’s generally
violent and evil character, which had resulted in the murder of Adherbal’s
brother. Although Sallust’s account is anachronistic and chauvinistic in
many ways, as presented it is a powerful summary of the relationship

63 Sallust, Jugurtha 6. On the difficulties with Micipsa’s analysis of Jugurtha as a threat, see Paul (supra
note 30) 29.
64 Sallust, Jugurtha 7–10.
65 It has been assumed that the otherwise undocumented African command of M. Porcius Cato (consul
in 118 BC), recorded by Aulus Gellius (13.20.9–10) but not recognized by Broughton, was to deal
with the Numidian succession. See Gsell, vol. 7, pp. 21, 142; Paul (supra note 30), pp. 46–7.
66 Sallust, Jugurtha 11–12.
67 Adherbal may have been in Rome previously: see Braund, Friendly King, p. 23; De viris illustribus 66.
68 Sallust, Jugurtha 13–15; Braund, Friendly King, pp. 58–9.

21
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

between Rome and client kingdoms.69 Jugurtha’s response was brief –

although he drew attention to his service at Numantia – for he believed that
his bribery was a more powerful weapon.70 An intense senatorial debate
resulted in the sending of a commission to Numidia led by L. Opimius
(consul in 121 BC), who had been implicated in the murder of C. Gracchus
and thus would have been expected to be ill-disposed toward Jugurtha. But
upon his arrival Opimius was well entertained and bribed, and for this
reason, Sallust suggested, the commission reported favorably on Jugurtha’s
claim and divided the kingdom in such a way that he received the better
portions.71
Although Rome believed that it had settled the dispute, Jugurtha still
coveted Adherbal’s part of the kingdom, and attacked it in 112 BC. Adherbal
asked Rome for help and withdrew to Cirta, where he enlisted the aid of the
resident Roman population.72 Another Roman commission arrived in
Numidia and spoke to Jugurtha but was not allowed to approach Adherbal,
now besieged in Cirta, who nonetheless managed to send a further message
to Rome that resulted in a third but ineffective Roman commission. The
siege of Cirta was not lifted, and the Romans in the city urged surrender.
Adherbal did surrender, only to be promptly tortured to death; the Romans
and many others in the city were also killed.73

69 But see Gruen (supra note 16), pp. 159–60.

70 This may be when Jugurtha uttered his famous aphorism that anything could be bought in Rome if
the price were right (Sallust, Jugurtha 20): Appian (Noumidika) and Livy (Epitome 64) placed this
after his second visit to Rome. For a view that diminished the role of bribery, see Walter Allen, Jr.,
“The Source of Jugurtha’s Influence in the Roman Senate,” CP 33, 1938, pp. 90–2. Allen noted that
“a barbarian king would naturally send many gifts with his embassies, and to his old friends in
particular,” which makes the bribery more perceptual than real. See also Christina Shuttleworth
Kraus, “Jugurthine Disorder,” in The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical
Texts, ed. Christina Shuttleworth Kraus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999), pp. 231–2.
71 Sallust, Jugurtha 16. It must be kept in mind that the bribery does not necessarily mean that the
senators acted differently from the way they might have otherwise (see Lintott, “The Roman
Empire” [supra note 62], pp. 30–1), and that the membership of the commission was a result of
internal politics at Rome, especially the ascendancy of those opposed to C. Gracchus, and only sec-
ondarily concerned with issues in Africa (see D. C. Earl, “Sallust and the Senate’s Numidian Policy,”
Latomus 24, 1965, 532–6).
72 The existence of this Italian colony at Cirta, certainly mercantile, demonstrates that much of Rome’s
involvement in Numidian politics at this time was not of territorial but of commercial interest: the
merchants and traders at Cirta must have made long and loud complaints to Rome about their
inability to do business in Numidia. See also Lintott, “The Roman Empire” (supra note 62),
pp. 30–1; Leo Teutsch, Das Städtewesen in Nordafrika in der Zeit vom C. Gracchus bis zum Tode des
Kaisers Augustus (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1962), pp. 5–6; Paul (supra note 30), p. 86.
73 Sallust, Jugurtha 20–6; Livy, Epitome 64. The extent of this “massacre” has long been debated, and it
should be noted that Sallust was explicit in recording that the negotiatores who were killed had taken
up arms against Jugurtha. Regardless, the reports that came to Rome assisted in serving as a pretext
for war. See R. Morstein-Marx, “The Alleged ‘Massacre’ at Cirta and Its Consequences (Sallust
Bellum Iugurthinum 26–27),” CP 95, 2000, 468–77.

22
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

Needless to say, there was outrage in Rome. Jugurtha felt that bribery
would settle the issue and sent ambassadors to the city, but they were told
to go home and only return with the king. Meanwhile, Roman forces had
moved into Numidia and attacked. Jugurtha seems to have been successful
in bribing the Roman commanders into an armistice, but it was repudiated
in Rome. He was finally persuaded to come to the city, but refused to reply
to the charges against him, although he was able to bring about the murder
of his cousin and potential rival Massiva, son of Gulussa, who was resident
in Rome. Jugurtha was then ordered to leave Italy, and even though ambiva-
lence persisted in Rome, full-scale war soon resulted.74
The details of the Jugurthine War need not be recounted here.75 It con-
tinued for seven years, mostly inconclusively, with a series of Roman com-
manders promising quick victory and failing to deliver. Jugurtha had
learned well his lessons in Spain and was quite capable in Roman tactics,
even able to organize the primitive Gaetulians in Roman fashion.76 The last
Roman commander was C. Marius, whose career had been steadily advanc-
ing since distinguished service in Numantia. He went to Numidia in 109 BC
as aide to Q. Caecilius Metellus (consul in 109 BC), but they soon quarreled,
and Marius returned to Rome and was elected consul for 107 BC, forcing
through legislation that would give him superior command, although he
was no more effective than his predecessors. But Jugurtha’s in-law Bocchus I
of Mauretania, playing a careful double game, eventually tilted toward
Rome and turned Jugurtha over to Marius’ quaestor L. Cornelius Sulla.77
Jugurtha was brought to Rome and appeared in Marius’ triumph on
1 January 105 BC, led before the imperial chariot in chains with his two sons.
Within a week he was dead, either by suicide or by execution. His sons
remained in Italy: the kingship of Numidia passed to his brother Gauda.78
As Massinissa had become a paradigm for the ideal barbarian king, his
grandson Jugurtha became the opposite model.79 He was the barbarian who

74 Sallust, Jugurtha 27–35.

75 See Sallust, Jugurtha 43–114; Livy, Epitome 64–7; Plutarch, Marius 7–12, Sulla 3; Appian,
Noumidika; Syme (supra note 60), pp. 138–77.
76 Sallust, Jugurtha 80.
77 Infra, pp. 48–9.
78 Rome would hardly have wanted a son of Jugurtha to return to the Numidian throne, and thus
probably confirmed Gauda as king while keeping Jugurtha’s sons in Italy. Gsell’s argument (vol. 7,
p. 263) that Gauda may never have been king is questionable. A son of Jugurtha named Oxynta or
Oxyntas was living under guard at Venusia fifteen years later: an attempt to use him during the
Social War to inspire the Numidians in the army of Sextus Caesar backfired badly (Appian, Civil
War 1.42; Gsell, vol. 7, pp. 261–2; Ritter, Rom, pp. 119–20).
79 The name Jugurtha, however, was in vogue in later imperial times, as his memory became idealized
(see Elizabeth W. B. Fentress, “Caesarean Reflections,” Opus 3, 1984, 488, and CIL 8.17909). More-
over, Jugurtha also became a modern paradigm for African liberation movements against the Euro-
pean colonial powers: see Jo-Marie Claassen, “Sallust’s Jugurtha – Rebel or Freedom Fighter? On
Crossing Crocodile-Infested Waters,” CW 86, 1992–3, 273–97.

23
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

did not recognize the importance of good relations with Rome (in contrast
to his betrayer, Bocchus of Mauretania), who killed off his rivals and
involved Rome in a horrible and fruitless war that resulted in no obvious
benefits. It was necessary for the power of Rome totally to crush Jugurtha –
at great cost – and Jugurtha died miserable in a Roman prison. This war, it
was believed, began a cascading series of destabilizing events that was still
in process several generations later. The two Romans who were instrumental
in capturing Jugurtha, Marius and Sulla, would come to strenuous disagree-
ment over who was really responsible for ending the war, and this quarrel
would have ominous implications for the Republic. One can be certain that
Jugurtha’s great-great-nephew Juba II – an intimate of the family of Sallust
– was as aware of Jugurtha’s failings as he was of Massinissa’s virtues.80
Jugurtha had not only died intestate but had killed many of his potential
heirs. His sons were detained in Italy and not available. The only remaining
member of his generation was his brother Gauda,81 the great-grandfather of
Juba II, whom his uncle Micipsa had named a secondary heir but who seems
– unlike his cousins – to have survived the era of Jugurtha because he was in
poor health and perceived as having a weak mind. He remains the most
obscure of the Numidian kings.82 He joined the Roman side during the war
against Jugurtha and entered the entourage of Metellus in Utica, eventually
requesting royal honors, which were denied.83 Marius then enlisted Gauda’s
help by calling him by the title of king and promising that he would
become Jugurtha’s successor, especially if Marius were allowed to succeed
Metellus as commander. Marius then encouraged Gauda to write to friends
in Rome asking them to criticize Metellus and to have Marius replace him:
Roman equestrians in Utica were also part of this successful effort.84
Although Sallust implied that Marius was merely manipulating the weak-
minded Gauda, it is possible that like the emperor Claudius, Gauda used his
apparent infirmities as a survival tactic and that Marius was not totally self-
interested but recognized Gauda as the only possible successor to Jugurtha

80 Jugurtha had little time for the arts of civilization, and there is scant information about his reign
other than the intrigues and military events. Nevertheless, his coinage shows not only the standard
Numidian elephant, but also a clean-shaven portrait of the king, the first Numidian monarch to
adopt the Roman custom of shaving (Mazard #73–5). It is perhaps no coincidence that daily shaving
among Romans was said to have been instituted by the Roman patron of the Numidian royal
family, Scipio Aemilianus (NH 7.211).
81 The name is always Gauda in Latin. Dio, the only Greek literary source, mentioned him twice (fr.
89, from book 26), once as GaÚdaj and once as Gna‹oj, which, although a Roman name, is closer
to the G£oj or Gaàoj of Greek inscriptions. G£oj appears on an inscription from Rhodes erected in
honor of his son Hiempsal II, so is perhaps the extant rendering closest to the actual source. See
Vassa N. Kontorini, “Le Roi Hiempsal II de Numidie et Rhodes,” AntCl 64, 1975, 91.
82 Gsell, vol. 7, pp. 138, 220–1, 262–3, 275–6; Romanelli, Storia, pp. 81–5.
83 Sallust, Jugurtha 65; Dio, fr. 89 (book 26).
84 Plutarch’s version (Marius 7–8) makes no mention of Gauda’s involvement in the pressure cam-
paign.

24
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

and felt that he should be encouraged and supported. Presumably he was

confirmed as king after Jugurtha’s death, probably at the instigation of
Marius.85 Yet his actual reign remains a total blank, and he had died by
88 BC, when Marius fled to Africa from Sulla and found Gauda’s son Hiemp-
sal II on the throne.86
Gauda seems to have continued the Numidian custom of dividing his
kingdom, giving it to his sons Hiempsal II and Masteabar. The latter is
known only through a single highly fragmentary inscription that identifies
him as a son of Gauda but provides no further information.87 Masteabar may
have been the grandfather of Arabion, who was still ruling a small portion of
western Numidia after the main part had been provincialized in 46 BC, and
whose rule lasted until about 41 BC.88 Thus the sons of Gauda permanently
split the Numidian territory. The major portion came to Hiempsal II, who
was recognized by the Romans as “rex amicus.”89 Masteabar’s territory
degenerated into little more than a petty fiefdom.
From the time of the death of Gauda, Roman and Numidian affairs
became totally tangled. The scare of Jugurtha and the spread of Roman
influence in North Africa meant that the Numidian territories could no
longer function separately from Rome, especially as the Roman political
structure collapsed, owing to the developing civil war, whose first protag-
onists, Marius and Sulla, had themselves been deeply involved in Numidian
affairs and quarreled over their varying interpretations of their roles.90 Sulla
had placed the scene of Bocchus surrendering Jugurtha to him on his signet
ring, which Marius saw as a deliberate provocation,91 and when Bocchus
dedicated a victory memorial on the Capitol in Rome in 91 BC, Marius was
outraged at the prominence given Sulla and was about to tear the monument
down – and Sulla was about to respond in his own precipitous way – when
the Social War intervened, postponing but not eliminating the hostility
between the two.92 Marius was expelled from Rome by Sulla a few years later
and went to the Numidian court, only to be detained there and to fear for

85 Marius seems also to have given Gauda support by settling Gaetulian cavalry in his territory
(Lintott, “The Roman Empire” [supra note 62], p. 30).
86 Plutarch, Marius 40; Appian, Civil War 1.62; see Broughton, vol. 2, pp. 41–2.
87 Kontorini (supra note 81), pp. 95–8; Gabriel Camps, “Les Derniers Rois numides: Massinissa II et
Arabion,” BAC n.s. 17b1, 1984, 303–6; W. Huss, “Die westmassylischen Könige,” AntSoc, 20,
1989, 210–12. The inscription is from Syracuse, which raises the possibility of Masteabar’s relations
with that city.
88 See further, infra, pp. 92–3.
89 Cicero, De lege agraria 2.58. Official recognition may have been the work of Marius, if Cicero, Post
reditum ad Quirites 20, is to be taken literally (“quibus regna ipse dederat”). On Hiempsal II, see Th.
Lenschau, “Hiempsal,” RE 8, 1913, 1393–5.
90 Pietro Romanelli, “Chi fu il vincitore di Giugurta: Mario o Silla?” ArchStorTL 2, 1960, 171–3.
91 NH 37.9; Valerius Maximus 8.14.4; Plutarch, Sulla 3–4, Marius 10.5–6.
92 Plutarch, Sulla 6, Marius 32; on the monument, see Thomas Schäfer, “Das Siegesdenkmal vom
Kapitol,” in Numider, pp. 243–50.

25
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

his life before escaping.93 In this way, Numidian affairs came to be manipu-
lated by Roman political interests of the era.
The Greco-Roman sources, needless to say, give the impression that
Numidia was merely one of the theaters of the Roman civil war, and little
independent information is available, although a close reading demonstrates
that affairs in Numidia were far from stable and in a state of decline, some-
thing most obvious in the permanent splitting of the kingdom that
Massinissa had unified only a century previously. Moreover, Hiempsal II had
to face a revolt in his own region, led by a certain Hiarbas, who seems to
have seized control not long after Hiempsal became king.94 He attracted
strong Roman interest: Africa became the refuge of choice of many of Sulla’s
opponents in the 80s BC, beginning with Marius in 88 BC.95 Shortly there-
after Hiarbas emerged, and expelled Hiempsal from his throne.96 Where he
came from is a mystery. It is hard to relate him to the reigning family,
which had largely been killed or exiled at the time of Jugurtha. There is
some merit to the suggestion that he was Gaetulian, the Gaetulians being
the indigenous population that lived south of Numidia.97 Portions of them
were beginning a transition toward a sedentary way of life. Jugurtha had
organized them in Roman military fashion, and Marius had provided land
and recognized their independent status.98 It was a good time for a Gaetu-
lian to claim the throne of Numidia – knowledge of the instability in Rome
would only have made the opportunity seem more fortuitous – and this may
have been what happened sometime after 88 BC.99 Yet when Sulla became dic-
tator in 82 BC, the Numidian situation needed attention, both because its
legitimate king (whose rule had probably been ratified by Rome) had been
deposed, and because Sullan opponents were involved in the claims of the
usurper, since Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had fled to Africa after being
proscribed, had gathered a large force and allied himself with Hiarbas.100
Sulla selected a rising young man who had joined his cause the previous
year, Cn. Pompeius,101 who landed with his army at Utica and went to
Carthage. After a ludicrous episode when his troops became obsessed with

93 Plutarch, Marius 40; Appian, Civil War 1.62; Badian (supra note 15), pp. 237–8.
94 Appian, Civil War 1.80; Gsell, vol. 7, pp. 281–7.
95 Plutarch, Crassus 6; Sallust, Jugurtha 64.4; Badian (supra note 15), pp. 266–7.
96 Plutarch, Pompeius 12; Th. Lenschau, “Hiarbas” (#2), RE 8, 1913, 1388; Romanelli, Storia, pp. 93–5.
97 Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army (supra note 3), p. 79.
98 Sallust, Jugurtha 80; De bello africo 32, 56.
99 A memory of the Gaetulian usurper Hiarbas may have been preserved by Vergil in his Gaetulian
Iarbas (Aeneid 4.36, 326).
100 Plutarch, Pompeius 11–12. He was one of the more obscure members of a family that would remain
prominent for the next century. See Broughton 2.560; F. Münzer, “Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus” (#22),
RE 5, 1903, 1327–8; Robin Seager, Pompey: A Political Biography (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), p. 10.
101 Plutarch, Pompeius 11–13; Appian, Civil War 1.80; Seager (supra note 100), pp. 10–12. On the
career of Pompeius in North Africa, see Mohamed Majdoub, “Pompeius Magnus et les rois maures,”
AfrRom 12, 1998, 1321–8.

26
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

recovering the lost treasures of Carthage and proceeded to dig up the ruins of
the city, Pompeius engaged Domitius and Hiarbas, defeating them so totally
in a forty-day campaign that he was saluted as imperator. Domitius was killed;
Hiarbas briefly escaped but was soon captured and also killed.102 During the
next year, Pompeius, in Plutarch’s revealing phrase, “arranged the affairs of
the kings.”103 Hiempsal was returned to the throne.104 The Gaetulians were,
officially at least, made his subjects,105 a policy that would cause much
trouble for the next century. There seems to have been some recognition of
the petty kingdom of Masteabar.106 Pompeius then returned to Italy to be
given a triumph, although still in his twenties and only an equestrian,
gaining the title “Magnus” that he would carry for the rest of his life. Like his
mentor Sulla, he first achieved fame by settling a Numidian war,107 but, in a
dramatic indication of how things had changed in the quarter-century since
the time of Jugurtha, this war had seen Romans die on both sides, with a
consul killed by a promagistrate. Ominous precedents were being set.108
Once he had been returned to his throne, Hiempsal was honored by the
Rhodians, probably for commercial reasons:109 Rhodes was near the end of its
independent identity and had long been in decline, and may have been looking
for wealthy allies. He still retained possession of the Carthaginian state library
and perhaps wrote on history himself.110 He appears on his coinage as clean-
shaven in the Roman style.111 But there are no other details about his reign for
twenty years after his restoration.112 Roman interests were elsewhere.

102 Livy, Epitome 89; according to Orosius (5.21), he escaped to Bulla Regia and perhaps was heading
toward Mauretania: because of this it has been suggested (Romanelli, Storia, p. 95) that Bulla Regia
was his power base. See also Coltelloni-Trannoy, p. 89.
103 Plutarch, Pompeius 12.5: diÇthse ta\ tîn basile/wn.
104 Aulus Gellius 9.12.14 (⫽Sallust, Histories 1.45 [ed. McGushin]).
105 De bello africo 56.
106 This, presumably, is the meaning of the phrase in De viris illustribus (77.2) that Pompeius took Numidia
from Hiarbas and gave it to Massinissa. This Massinissa may have been the son of Masteabar and father
of Arabion: see Camps, BAC (supra note 87), pp. 303–10; Huss (supra note 87), pp. 214–15.
107 The parallel was not lost on Sulla: Plutarch, Pompeius 13.
108 This was effectively stressed by Badian (supra note 15), pp. 271–2: “From Hiempsal and Hiarbas the
road leads straight to . . . Juba [I] and Cleopatra.”
109 Kontorini (supra note 81), pp. 89–99.
110 Sallust, Jugurtha 17; Paul (supra note 30), p. 74; Victor Matthews, “The libri Punici of King Hiemp-
sal,” AJP 93, 1972, 330–5; Coltelloni-Trannoy, pp. 137–8. Despite the contrary arguments of Syme
(supra note 60), p. 153, and Camps (LibAE, supra note 4), pp. 15–16, repeated in his “Hiempsal
[Iemsal],” EB 23, 2000, 3464), it seems unlikely that Sallust’s “libri punici . . . regis Hiempsalis”
refers to the short-lived Hiempsal I, who barely had time to be king before tangling fatally with
Jugurtha. See, further, Véronique Krings, “Les libri Punici de Salluste,” AfrRom 7, 1989, 109–17;
Morstein-Marx, AJP (supra note 3), pp. 195–7.
111 Mazard #75–83.
112 At some date the citizens of Thurburbo built a structure in his honor, but the inscription seems
imperial and may be from the time of Juba II or Ptolemaios, his grandson and great-grandson. See
Stéphane Gsell, Inscriptiones latines de l’Algérie 1 (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1965), #1242;
Gsell, vol. 7, p. 290.

27
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

In 63 and 62 BC, however, Numidia again came to the forefront of Roman

politics. Initially, there was the matter of a major agrarian bill proposed
early in 63 BC by the tribune P. Servilius Rullus, an obscurity who was prob-
ably acting for others. The bill is known only through Cicero’s speeches
against it, which makes interpretation difficult.113 A detailed discussion of it
and its context is not in order here;114 of interest is that the bill, basically a
complex procedure for obtaining and distributing land, not only in Italy but
in recently acquired overseas territories, contained a special exemption.
Lands owned by King Hiempsal could not be included, even though they
were within the boundaries of the province of Africa.115 The status of these
royal estates was ambiguous, and the consul C. Aurelius Cotta in 75 BC had
officially asserted Hiempsal’s ownership of them. Yet the Senate does not
seem to have ratified this, and Hiempsal naturally was concerned and sent
his son Juba (I) to state his case in Rome. It seems that Rome had coveted
these estates for some time – the Senate had frequently debated the matter –
and Cotta’s affirmation of Hiempsal’s ownership must be placed in the
context of other events of his consulship, including problems relating to the
official provincialization of Kyrenaika and the related issue of grain short-
ages in Italy that resulted in riots in the streets.116 Cotta’s recognition of the
Numidian claim to rich agricultural lands within Roman territory must
have seemed unwise to many, and twelve years later an attempt to legalize
the exclusion would only have been worse.
One can thus only speculate at the motives for the exemption: Cicero
hinted that it was bribery, and noted deprecatingly the presence of Hiemp-
sal’s son. There certainly was a long history of Numidian bribery at Rome,
or so it was believed.117 The bill did not seem to have popular support, and
ultimately failed to pass, perhaps killed by the threat of a tribunician veto,118
so the effect on Hiempsal’s estates was moot. But it seems that Rome had
begun to look avariciously at the agrarian wealth that the Numidian kings
held.119
A few months later there was a further incident involving the Numidian
royalty. Another claimant to the throne, a certain Masintha, appealed unsuc-

113 Cicero, De lege agraria 1, 2, 3; the few other sources are derivative.
114 For which see Erich S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, first paperback edition
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 389–94; G. V. Sumner, “Cicero, Pompeius, and
Rullus,” TAPA 97, 1966, 569–82; Ritter, Rom, pp. 122–4; E. J. Jonkers, Social and Economic
Commentary on Cicero’s De lege agraria orationes tres (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963).
115 Cicero, De lege agraria 1.10–11, 2.58; see Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army (supra note 3),
pp. 53–4. Pompeius may have been behind the exemption since he had restored Hiempsal to his
throne: see Sumner (supra note 114), pp. 569–82; Seager (supra note 100), pp. 63–4.
116 Broughton, vol. 2, p. 96; Sallust, Histories 2.44 (McGushin); David C. Braund, “Cicero on Hiempsal
II and Juba: de leg. agr. 2.58–9,” LCM 8, 1983, 87–9.
117 Paul (supra note 30), pp. 261–3.
118 NH 7.117; Plutarch, Cicero 12; Cicero, Pro Sulla 65; Gruen, Last Generation (supra note 114), p. 394.
119 On this, see Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army (supra note 3), pp. 53–4.

28
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

cessfully to Rome to be recognized as an independent king. It is probable

that he was a descendant of Jugurtha, perhaps a grandson, since to Suetonius
he was “iuvenis” and Jugurtha’s sons, if still alive, would be in their mid-
forties. A descendant of Jugurtha would have a strong claim to the Numid-
ian kingdom. Whoever Masintha was, his case attracted the notice of one of
the most powerful people in Rome: it was put forth by Julius Caesar. The
position of the legitimate king, Hiempsal, was articulated by his son Juba,
perhaps still in the city after his involvement with the Rullan land bill.120
The hearings became notorious when Juba was physically assaulted by
Caesar. Masintha lost his case and was declared subject to Hiempsal, but
Caesar spirited him out of town and to Spain.
At about the same time there was the matter of P. Vatinius, quaestor in
63 BC, who was early in a long and distinguished career as a Caesarean adher-
ent. He was attached to the staff of C. Cosconius, propraetor in Spain in the
following year. Vatinius went there, probably early in 62 BC, by a strangely
circuitous route: he first visited the court of Hiempsal, and then moved west
to that of Mastanesosus, probably the Mauretanian king.121 Again the only
source for these events is Cicero, who cross-examined Vatinius on another
matter a number of years later,122 and who made the journey sound as sinis-
ter as possible, especially since Vatinius was not only an adherent but a rel-
ative of Caesar’s, and his long route to Spain had taken him well outside
Roman territory. The actual reason behind Vatinius’ actions cannot be
explained. Cicero, with the hindsight of several years, saw it all as part of
some complex Caesarean scheme. Nevertheless, it is intriguing that these
three last glimpses of Hiempsal’s kingship – the visit of Vatinius, Caesar’s
defense of Masintha, and the Rullan land bill – all occurred within a few
months of each other. It is impossible to see beyond to the broad policies
that inspired the events, but clearly there was a growing, almost obsessive,
Roman interest in the Numidian kingdom. Within little more than a
decade, in 50 BC, the tribune C. Scribonius Curio was to propose the Roman
confiscation of all of Numidia,123 a move that was effected by other means
four years later.

120 Suetonius, Julius 71; Ritter, Rom, pp. 124–5; Gsell, vol. 7, p. 294 (who suggested that “Masintha”
was a corruption of Massinissa, perhaps the ally of Caesar mentioned by Vitruvius [8.3.25]);
Romanelli, Storia, p. 100; Teutsch (supra note 72), pp. 52–3. Caesar’s status as the nephew of
Marius may have been the reason Masintha asked for his help, as Numidians were to do in Africa
fifteen years later (De bello africo 32), but there is no hint of this, despite Matthias Gelzer, Caesar:
Politician and Statesman, sixth edition, translated Peter Needham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1968), p. 45.
121 On Mastanesosus, see infra, p. 56.
122 Cicero, In Vatinium 12.
123 Caesar, Bellum Civile 2.25; Dio 41.41; Lucan, Pharsalia 4.689–94.

29
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

Nothing further is known about Hiempsal’s reign. By 50 BC his son Juba

I was on the throne.124 The enclave ruled by Masteabar had remained
independent and passed into the hands of Arabion, probably his grandson,
by about the same time.125 The date of the death of Hiempsal II and acces-
sion of Juba I falls between 62 and 50 BC, but the details of the succession
have not been preserved. Juba I was born no later than around 80 BC and had
spent time in Rome as his father’s agent. In early 63 BC when he attended
the hearings of the land bill of Rullus, Cicero left a description of the young
prince: “Hovering before their eyes is Juba, the son of the king, a young
man as rich as he is long-haired.”126 Cicero’s polemic words imply that Juba
was ready to insure the exemption for his father through abundant monetary
resources, and then degenerate into a racial epithet, contrasting the hirsute
barbarian with the clean-shaven Romans, and punning on the Latin word
iuba, which means “mane.”127 The coinage of Juba I shows his rich beard,128
which plays a role in the only other incident known from his youth: a few
months later Julius Caesar, when defending Masintha against Hiempsal,
came to blows with the prince and pulled his beard.129 As Rome degenerated
into permanent civil instability, the conspicuous physical differences
between Romans and foreigners – especially that implied in the very word
barbarus – became an element of popular culture and invective.
When Juba I became king, a few years later, his rule was not immediately
confirmed by Rome.130 Yet despite his earlier mistreatment by some
Romans, his cultural and political debt to Rome was strong, and he placed
his coinage onto the Roman standard and adopted occasional Latin titulature

124 On Juba I, see Th. Lenschau, “Iuba” (#1), RE 9, 1916, 2381–4; A. Charbonneaux, “Giuba I,” EAA
3, 1960, 917; Ritter, Rom, pp. 126–34.
125 Camps, BAC (supra note 87), pp. 303–11.
126 Cicero, De lege agraria 2.59: “Volitat enim ante oculos istorum Juba, regis filius, adulescens non
minus bene nummatus quam bene capillatus.”
127 The word was used by Ennius, Annals 520, but other citations are from the time of Cicero and later
(see OLD), so it came to be definitely associated with the African kings. On this see Braund, Friendly
King, p. 68; Braund, LCM (supra note 116), p. 89.
128 Especially Mazard #88. A portrait bust from Caesarea (Figure 15, p. 140), now in the Louvre (MA
1885), idealized, with full beard and exceedingly luxuriant hair, is generally identified as the king
and was probably commissioned by his son: see Gisela M. A. Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks
(London: Phaidon, 1965), p. 280, figures 2000–2. A stele from Chemtou in Numidia shows a horse-
man with rich beard and thick hair, carrying a royal diadem and riding on an elaborate saddle and
using a bridle. Because of these characteristics, it has also been suggested to be of the king. See
Theodor Kraus, “Reiterbild eines Numiderkönigs,” in Praestant Interna: Festschrift für Ulrich Haus-
mann, ed. Bettina von Freytag geb. Löringhoff et al. (Tübingen: E. Wasmuth, 1982), pp. 146–7;
François Bertrandy, “À propos du cavalier de Simitthus (Chemtou),” AntAfr 22, 1986, 57–71.
129 Suetonius, Julius 71.
130 In 49 BC Pompeius was unsuccessfully to move that he be made “socius and amicus” (Caesar, Bellum
civile 1.6), a motion blocked by the consul C. Claudius Marcellus, although Pompeius unilaterally
confirmed him as king later that year (Dio 41.42.7).

30
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

(Figure 25a, p. 245).131 He also initiated an elaborate building program at

his capital of Zama and perhaps elsewhere,132 influenced by both Greek and
Roman forms. Coins show an octostyle temple, perhaps in the Doric or
Tuscan style, on a high platform (Figure 25b).133 The eight columns are
divided into two groups separated by a passageway at the head of a stairway
leading up to the platform. The building is surmounted by a cupola. One
coin has this structure on one side and another on the reverse, positioned on
a low stylobate with three Atlas figures alternating with Tuscan Doric
columns, and a second, Ionic colonnade above the architrave.134 The build-
ing is stoa-like and has been suggested to be Juba’s palace at Zama, which
was the site of a major building operation on his part, including a double
fortification wall, but the apparent presence of horned altars on the roof may
indicate a religious function.135 Yet it is in the tradition of the great stoas of
the Hellenistic world,136 or even the basilicas that were beginning to become
common in Rome, such as the so-called Basilica Aemilia, which had been
restored in 78 BC, shortly before Juba’s visit to the city, and whose coin
representations are remarkably similar to the structure depicted on Juba’s
coins.137 The cupola on the octostyle temple is also typically Hellenistic,
remindful of the Stoa of Poseidon on Delos.138
Although the accounts of Juba I were affected by his position on the
losing side of the Roman civil war, he seems to have been an aggressive and
vigorous monarch who continued the expansive ambitions of his predeces-
sors.139 He embarked on a major expedition against unnamed desert tribes
131 Mazard p. 49, #84–93. On the coinage, see also François Bertrandy, “Remarques sur l’origine
romaine du monnayage en bronze et en argent de Juba Ier, roi de Numidie,” BAC 12–14, 1976–8
(1980), 9–22.
132 If not at Zama, the building shown on Juba’s coins may have been at Mactaris (see BAGRW, map
33), modern Makthar, a major pre-Roman city that became a colonia in the second century AC.
Located in his ancestral region of the Zama hinterland (for which, infra, note 170), its extensive
remains and long history make it a possibility for his architectural efforts. See Collette Charles-
Picard and Gilbert Charles-Picard, “Recherches sur l’architecture numide,” Karthago 19, 1980,
20–31, and A. Ennabli, “Mactaris (Makthar),” PECS, pp. 540–1.
133 Mazard #84, 85, 90; Gilbert Charles Picard, “Basilique et palais de Juba I de Numidie,” BAC 18,
1982 (1988), 165–7.
134 Mazard #91.
135 Vitruvius 8.3.24; Gsell, vol. 7, p. 293; Bluma L. Trell, “Ancient Coins: New Light on North
African Architecture,” in Actes du Premier Congrès d’Histoire et de la Civilisation du Maghreb 1 (Tunis:
Université de Tunis, 1979), pp. 83–94.
136 A. W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture, fifth edition, revised by R. A. Tomlinson (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 197–9.
137 Axel Boethius, Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture, second integrated edition (Harmondsworth,
U.K.: Penguin Books, 1978), p. 151. In fact, the coin representation may be significant in under-
standing the enigmatic history of the basilica: see Charles-Picard (supra note 132), p. 19.
138 Lawrence (supra note 136), pp. 200–1. The traditional modern name for this building is the
Hypostyle Hall.
139 If Lucan 10.144–6, on luxury goods from Egypt at Juba’s court, is not anachronistic, Juba I had
commercial relations with the Ptolemies, something not unexpected.

31
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

who were in a state of revolt, and if the source, Aelian (who recorded it for
natural historical, not political or military reasons), can be taken literally,
the campaign lasted a year.140 It is probable that the insurgents were the
Gaetulians, whom Pompeius had ill-advisedly placed under Numidian
control and who were resisting, as they were to do for the next century.141
Juba may also have seized some or all of the territory of Leptis, invited in by
a local faction.142 In attacking the ancient Phoenician city that would
become famous in imperial times as Leptis Magna, he had moved far around
the southern edge of the Roman province to the east, and into the independ-
ent district between Roman Africa and Kyrenaika, a venture perhaps not
unusual for one who had spent a year in the desert pursuing the Gaetulians,
but probably quite frightening to the Romans. The citizens of Leptis com-
plained to Rome, and the Senate appointed a commission that decided in
their favor and forced Juba to withdraw. The taking of Leptis, if nothing
else, would have resulted in serious questions in Rome about the future of
the Numidian kingdom. Moreover, as the polarization between Caesar and
Pompeius intensified, it was obvious that Juba would be on the side of Pom-
peius, who had restored his father to the throne, not that of Caesar, who had
publicly assaulted him in Rome.
It was in this context that a solution to the Numidian question was put
forth early in 50 BC by the ambitious tribune Q. Scribonius Curio, who pro-
posed that the kingdom be confiscated.143 Curio’s legislation was agrarian,
and the agricultural riches of North Africa had long been envied by Rome,
but the singling out of Juba and his kingdom also would have had a nar-
rower political focus. It came to nothing – for complex reasons, Curio even-
tually withdrew his entire legislative program – but nevertheless it would
have fatal consequences, as Juba now knew that certain factions in Rome
meant to destroy him.
Perhaps in part seeking to mitigate the damage done by Curio’s proposal,
and to build his own power base in the face of Caesar’s return from Gaul
early in 49 BC, Pompeius suggested that Juba be officially recognized as a
friend and ally of Rome.144 But the matter was indefinitely postponed, and
when Pompeius left Italy for the East, Juba made plans to support him mili-
140 Aelian, On Animals 7.23. His interest was an encounter with a lion, for which see infra, p. 204.
141 Gsell, vol. 7, pp. 292–3.
142 De bello africo 97; Caesar, Bellum civile 2.38. It seems without question that the object of Juba’s inter-
est was the future Leptis Magna, not Leptis in Africa, on the coast south of Carthage and later
known as Leptis Minor (modern Lamta), which was within Roman territory. An incursion here
would have resulted in a response stronger than a senatorial commission, and there would have been
no debate in Rome about the legality of Juba’s actions.
143 Caesar, Bellum civile 2.25; Dio 41.41; Lucan 4.689–95; Cicero, Ad familiares 8.11.3 (from M. Caelius
Rufus to Cicero, April 50 BC). On the character of Curio and his tribunate, see W. K. Lacey, “The
Tribunate of Curio,” Historia 10, 1961, 318–29; on the legislation and its fate, see Gruen, Last Gen-
eration (supra note 114), pp. 471–81.
144 Caesar, Bellum civile 1.6.

32
 JUBA’S NUMIDIAN ANCESTRY

tarily.145 This emerging alliance between Juba and Pompeius may have been
influential in Caesar’s decision to send his own troops into Numidia, select-
ing for command none other than Curio.146 The wisdom of choosing for this
endeavor the Roman whom Juba most hated is not immediately obvious.147
Curio’s primary objective was the Pompeian governor of Africa, P. Attius
Varus, who was encamped at Utica. Varus had been governor previously,
and since the position was vacant, he had returned and used his familiarity
with the district to create a power base that was a center of Pompeian
support. In Curio’s army was the future historian Asinius Pollio, who is the
major source (other than Caesar) for the events that followed.148
Curio landed in Africa and eventually took up a position near Utica. He
was initially successful in defeating both a Numidian cavalry force and
Varus. But Juba sent out his general Saburra to make camp south of the city
on the Bagradas (modern Mejerda) River: the king did not appear in force
for fear that Curio would merely abandon the expedition and put to sea,
implying that, for Juba, personal revenge was a major priority. Curio was
soon in serious difficulty: emboldened by Caesar’s recent successes in Spain,
he was rash and overconfident, ill-prepared for the heat of an African
summer. The scant water resources were diminished by local poisoning of
wells. But he felt that Saburra’s force was defeatable and was taken in by
Juba’s stratagem to appear to remain uninvolved: Juba even let it be known
that domestic problems prevented his appearance. Curio withdrew into the
hills, where his troops continued to suffer from the heat, and then attacked
Saburra’s force, only to find it supplemented by Juba’s troops. The unfortu-
nate Curio and his exhausted and demoralized troops were slaughtered,
except for Asinius Pollio’s detachment, which had retreated to protect
Utica.149
Pollio attempted to embark his troops on merchant ships, but this turned
into disaster and chaos, and those left on shore surrendered to Varus. Juba,
over his objections, had them killed, although Pollio escaped to write

145 De bello alexandrino 51; François Bertrandy, “L’Aide militaire de Juba Ier aux Pompeiens pendant la
guerre civile en Afrique du Nord (50–46 avant J.-C.),” in Histoire et archéologie de l’Afrique du Nord:
Actes du IV e Colloque International 2: L’Armeé et les affaires militaires (Paris: CTHS, 1991), pp. 289–97.
A few years later, in May of 46 BC, Cicero lamented that the alliance between Pompeius and Juba
was a major reason that he had withdrawn from active participation in the war, as he did not want to
end up a refugee in Numidia (Ad familiares 7.3.3).
146 Caesar, Bellum civile 1.30–1. For the chronology, see Erik Wistrand, “The Date of Curio’s African
Campaign,” Eranos 61, 1963, 38–44.
147 Dio 41.41; Lucan 4.692–3.
148 The ancient sources are Caesar, Bellum civile 2.24–42; Livy, Epitome 110; Lucan, 4.666–787; Appian,
Civil War 2.44–6; Dio 41.41–2; Florus 2.13.26; Orosius 6.15. For an analysis of Lucan’s highly lit-
erary and allegorial treatment of the events, see Charles Saylor, “Curio and Antaeus: The African
Episode of Lucan Pharsalia IV,” TAPA 112, 1982, 169–77.
149 Over a century later, Frontinus considered Juba’s tactics worthy of recording in his Stratagems
(2.5.40).

33
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 208. Vit. S. Comgalli, c. 44. Comgall is said in his life to have
visited Britain in the seventh year after the foundation of the
monastery of Bangor, and, as it was founded in the year 559, this
brings us to the year 565.

209. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 36.

210. In octavo anno regni ejus baptizatus est sancto a Columba.—

Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 7.

211. The visit of Columcille to Brude, and this incident which

follows, is contained in the Advocates’ Library MS. only.

212. Whitley Stokes’s Gaedelica, 2d edit., p. 131. The word Tuath

is left untranslated, as it means both a territory and a tribe, as well
as the people generally.

213. Dr. Todd’s Life of Saint Patrick, p. 451. Book of Armagh, in

Betham’s Antiquarian Researches, vol. ii. p. xxvii.

214. Petrie, Hist. Ant. of Tara Hill, p. 34.

215. Ib. p. 169.

216. O’Curry’s Lectures, vol. ii. p. 198.

217. Stokes’s Gaedelica, p. 133.

218. Stokes’s Gaedelica, p. 131.

219. Contigit vero in illo anno idolatriæ sollempnitatem quam

gentiles incantationibus multis et magicis inventionibus aliis idolatriæ
superstitionibus, congregatis etiam regibus, satrapis, ducibus,
principibus, et optimatibus populi insuper, et magis, incantatoribus,
auruspicibus, et omnis artis omnisque doni inventoribus, doctoribus,
ut vocatis ad Loigairum.—Betham, Ant. Res., ii. App. p. v.

220. Ib. p. viii.

 221. Ib. p. xxix.

222. Et venit ad illos cum viiii. Magis induti vestibus albis cum
hoste magico.—Ib., Ap. p. xxxi.

223. O’Connor, Script. Hib. Prolegomena, vol. i. p. xxii.

224. Cormac’s Gloss., Ir. Ar. Socy., p. 94. The gloss adds ‘verbi
gratia, figura solis.’ Is it possible that this can refer to the cup-
markings on stones and rocks?

225. O’Curry’s Lectures on MS. Materials, App. p. 527.

226. Chronicle of the Picts and Scots, p. 31.

227. Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 37, 41, 42.

228. Ib., p. 45.

229. Misc. Irish Arch. Socy., p. 12. Dr. Todd, in his notes to the
Irish Nennius, p. 144, translates Sreod by ‘sneezing;’ and the last
line he renders ‘nor on the noise of clapping of hands.’—Life of S.
Pat., p. 122.

230. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 34.

231. Leabhar Breac, Part i. p. 137; Part ii. p. 198. The old Irish
word for Druid is in the singular Drui; nom. plural, Druadh or
Druada; gen. plural, Druad. The modern form is Draoi, Draoite,
Draoit.

232. Adamnan, B. i. c. 33.

233. Ib., B. ii. c. 33.

234. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 10.

235. Ib., B. ii. c. 35.

 236. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 9.

237. Petrie, Ant. of Tara Hill, p. 123.

238. This Dr. John Stuart has most conclusively shown in the very
able papers in the appendix to his preface to the Sculptured Stones
of Scotland, vol. ii. It is to be regretted that these valuable essays
have not been given to the public in a more accessible shape.

239. Dr. Todd, in a note as to the meaning of the word Beltine,

says, ‘This word is supposed to signify “lucky fire,” or “the fire of the
god Bel” or Baal. The former signification is possible; the Celtic word
Bil is good or lucky; tene or tine, fire. The other etymology, although
more generally received, is untenable.—Petrie on Tara, p. 84. The
Irish pagans worshipped the heavenly bodies, hills, pillar stones,
wells, etc. There is no evidence of their having had any personal
gods, or any knowledge of the Phœnician Baal. This very erroneous
etymology of the word Beltine is, nevertheless, the source of all the
theories about the Irish Baal-worship, etc.’—Life of Saint Patrick, p.
414.

240. Dr. John Hill Burton was the first to expose the utterly
fictitious basis on which the popular conceptions of the so-called
Druidical religion rests, and he has done it with much ability and
acuteness in an article in the Edinburgh Review for July 1863, and in
his History of Scotland, vol. i. chap. iv. But he undoubtedly carries
his scepticism too far when he seems disposed to deny the existence
among the pre-Christian inhabitants of Scotland and Ireland of a
class of persons termed Druids. Here he must find himself face to
face with a body of evidence which it is impossible, with any truth or
candour, to ignore.

241. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 15.

242. Ib., B. i. c. 27.

243. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 43.

 244. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 67.

245. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 83.

246. This account of Aidan’s consecration is contained in the older

Life by Cummine, and repeated by Adamnan, B. iii. c. 6. In Smith’s
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, the author of the article
Coronation says,—‘Aidan was made king by him on the celebrated
Stone of Destiny, taken afterwards from Iona to Dunstaffnage, and
thence to Scone,’ and refers to Adamnan; but there is not a syllable
about the stone in Adamnan. For its removal from Iona to
Dunstaffnage there is no authority whatever, and that from
Dunstaffnage to Scone is part of the exploded fable originated by
Hector Boece. The subject is fully discussed in the author’s tract on
the ‘Coronation Stone.’

247. 575 Magna mordail, .i. conventio Drommacheta, in qua erant

Colum Cille ocus Mac Ainmireach.—An. Ult. It is three times referred
to by Adamnan, B. i. c. 38; B. ii. c. 6. He calls it ‘condictus regum.’

248. These lines are quoted in the old Irish Life as giving the
retinue with which Columba went to Iona; but Dallan Forgaill’s poem
relates to the convention of Drumceatt.

249. Amra Columcille by J. O’Beirne Crowe, pp. 9, 11, 15. The

same account is given in the Advocates’ Library MS. of the old Irish
Life, evidently taken from the Amra. The other tradition referred to
seems to be that in Adamnan. See B. i. c. 8, where this incident is
mentioned.

250. Amra Columcille, p. 15.

251. Ib., p. 13.

 CHAPTER IV.

THE FAMILY OF IONA.

What St. Twelve years had now elapsed since Columba

Columba had first set foot on the island of Iona, and he had
accomplished in already to a great extent accomplished the task
twelve years; and
meaning of the he had set before him. He had founded his
expression monastery in the island, as the central point of
“Family of Iona.” his mission; and the exhibition of the Christian
life, as alone it was possible to present it in the
state of society which prevailed among these pagan tribes, as a
colony of tonsured monks following a monastic rule, had its usual
effect in influencing the population of the adjacent districts. He had
converted and baptized the most powerful monarch that ever
occupied the Pictish throne, and secured his friendship and support;
and this was soon followed by the whole nation ostensibly professing
the Christian faith. He had succeeded in re-establishing the Irish
colony of Dalriada in the full possession of its territories, and
obtained from the Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, the recognition
of its independence. He now found himself occupying a position of
great influence and authority both in Ireland and Scotland—as the
founder of numerous monasteries in the former, and as the
acknowledged head of the Christian Church in the latter. Adamnan
tells us that he had founded monasteries within the territories both
of the Picts and of the Scots of Britain, who are separated from each
other by the great mountain range of Drumalban.[252] These
monasteries, as well as those which he had founded in Ireland,
regarded the insular monastery of Iona as the mother church, and
as having, as such, a claim to their obedience; and became subject
to her jurisdiction, while their inmates constituted the great monastic
fraternity which was termed the Muintir Iae, or family of Iona, in the
extended sense of the term. Adamnan mentions only a few of these
monasteries, and gives no details which might enable us to fix the
exact date of their foundation; though we can gather from his
narrative that some of them existed during the earlier years of his
mission, and all must, of course, have been founded at some period
during the thirty-four years of his life in Iona.
Monasteries Among the islands in which he founded
founded in the monasteries, the two most important are those
islands. termed by Adamnan ‘Ethica terra’ and ‘Insula
Hinba,’ or ‘Hinbina:’ the former has been conclusively identified with
the low-lying and fertile island of Tiree, the Tireth, or ‘land of corn,’
which lies about twenty miles to the north-west of Iona, and whose
dim outline would be barely seen on the horizon were it not for the
elevated promontory of Ceannavara at the south end of the island.
The name Hinba or Hinbina seems to designate the group of islands
called the Garveloch Isles, situated in the centre of the great channel
which separates the island of Mull from the mainland of Lorn, and
which were the Imbach, or ‘sea-surrounded.’ The most westerly of
the four islands which constitute this group is termed Elachnave and
Eilean na Naomh, or the Island of Saints. It is a grassy island rising
to a considerable height, and has at the west side a small and
sheltered bay, on the lower ground facing which are a fountain,
called St. Columcille’s Well, and the foundations of what must have
been a monastic establishment, near which are the remains of two
beehive cells.[253] It is probable that on these two islands were
founded the two earliest monasteries by Brendan before they were
lost to the Scots of Dalriada by the defeat of the year 560, by which
event they were probably swept away. In the year 565 Comgall of
Bangor, who had come to the assistance of Columba on his first visit
to King Brude, erected a monastery at a certain village in the land of
Heth, or Tiree, where he is said in his Life to have abode some time;
and that too was ruined by the Picts. We are told in his Life that,
‘one day when Comgall was working in the field, he put his white
hood over his garment; and about the same time a number of
heathen plunderers from the Picts came to that village to carry away
everything that was there, whether man or beast. Accordingly when
the heathen robbers came to Comgall, who was labouring in the
field, and saw his white hood over his cape, thinking that this white
hood was Comgall’s Deity, they were deterred from laying hands on
him, for fear of his God. However, they carried off to their ship the
brethren of Comgall and all their substance.’ The pirates are of
course shipwrecked through the prayers of the Saint, and gave back
their plunder; but afterwards Comgall was conducted back to Ireland
by a company of holy men.[254] This took place during the interval of
fourteen years between the defeat of the Dalriads in 560 and their
re-establishment in 574; and during this period the islands around
Iona, which had been occupied by the Scots and from which they
were driven by the Picts, seem to have formed a sort of debateable
ground with a mixed population of Scots and Picts, who carried on a
kind of guerilla warfare with each other; and any Christian
establishments which existed among them would form points of
attack for the heathen Picts. Thus we have here Pictish sea-robbers
attacking the monastery in Tiree; and Adamnan tells us of a noted
pirate of the royal tribe of Gabhran, and therefore a Scot, called
Johan, son of Conall, whose seat appears to have been the rude fort
which gave the name of Dunchonell to one of the Garvelochs, and
whom we find plundering in the district of Ardnamurchan.[255] He
also tells us of a robber, Erc, the Druid’s son, who resided in
Colonsay, and who plunders in the island of Mull.
Of Columban monasteries in Tiree, Adamnan mentions two. One
he calls ‘Campus Lunge,’ or the plain of Lunge. It was situated near
the shore over-against Iona, and had a portus, or harbour, which is
probably the little creek or bay still known as Portnaluing; and the
site of the monastery has been identified with that of Soroby on the
south-east side of the island, where a large churchyard with some
old tombstones and an ancient cross are the only remains of an
ecclesiastical establishment. The monastery is frequently mentioned
by Adamnan. It seems to have been founded at an early period, and
was under the charge of Baithen, afterwards the successor of
Columba in the abbacy of Iona.[256] The second is termed by
Adamnan Artchain, and said to have been founded by Findchan, one
of Columba’s monks, whose name also appears in Kilfinichen in the
island of Mull.[257] The island, too, which he calls Hinba, is repeatedly
mentioned by Adamnan, and seems also to have been an early
foundation. He tells us that at one time Columba sent Ernan, his
uncle, an aged priest, to preside over the monastery he had founded
many years before in that island;[258] and it seems to have been
especially connected with the penitential discipline of the order, and
a place of retirement for those who wished to lead a more solitary
life. Thus, we find Columba on one occasion visiting Hinba, and
ordering that the penitents should enjoy some indulgence in respect
of food, which one of the penitents in that place, a certain Neman,
refused to accept.[259] Again, one of the brethren, Virgnous, after
having lived for some time in the monastery of Iona, resolved to
spend the rest of his life in Hinba, and led the life of an anchorite for
twelve years in the hermitage of Muirbulcmar.[260] The church and
the house occupied by Columba are mentioned by Adamnan, and it
is not impossible that the hermitage here referred to yet exists in
one of the two beehive cells, which is still entire.[261] Here, too, he
tells us that four holy founders of monasteries came from Ireland to
visit Columba, whom they found in Hinba. These were Comgall of
Bangor and Cainnech of Achaboe, the two who had accompanied
him in his first visit to King Brude, Brendan of Clonfert, and that
Cormac for whom, when on a voyage in search of a solitary island in
which to found a hermitage, he asked King Brude to secure the
protection of the ruler of the Orkneys. This meeting must have taken
place before the year 577, when Brendan died. They are termed by
Adamnan ‘founders of monasteries,’ and he probably means here
monasteries in Scotland; for Cormac is not known to have founded
any monastery in Ireland, where he was superior of the monastery
of Durrow, founded by Columba shortly before he began his mission
in Iona; but in Galloway the church of Kirkcormac probably takes its
name from him. The other three had all founded monasteries in
Scotland—Brendan one in Tiree, and another probably in the island
belonging to the Garveloch group, called Culbrandon; Comgall, in
Tiree; while Cainnech founded several monasteries in Scotland. In
his Life he is said to have lived in Heth, or Tiree, where the remains
of a church called Cillchainnech still exist. He was also in Iona,
where the remains of a burying-ground are still called Cillchainnech.
He is also said to have dwelt at the foot of a mountain in the
Drumalban range, referring, no doubt, to the church of
Laggankenney, at the east end of Loch Laggan, and two islands are
mentioned, Ibdone and Eninis, or the ‘island of birds,’ one or other
of which was probably the island now called Inchkenneth, on the
west side of Mull.[262] Adamnan mentions one other island
monastery, that of Elena, of which one of Columba’s twelve
followers, Lugneus Mocumin, became superior—probably Eilean
Naomh on the west coast of Isla; and two monasteries on the
mainland, one called Cella Diuni, of which Cailtan was superior, on
the lake of the river Aba, which is probably Lochawe; and the other
called Kailleauinde, of which Finten was superior, and which may be
Killundine in the old parish of Killintag in Morvern.[263] A few of
Columba’s other foundations in western districts and islands can be
traced by their dedications to him. In the island of Skye, where he is
mentioned by Adamnan as having been twice, in the very
remarkable ruins on an island in a loch now drained, called Loch
Chollumcille, in the north of Skye. Also, on an island in the river of
Snizort, one which was of old called Sanct Colme’s kirk in Snizort;
and one on a small island in the bay of Portree, called Eilean
Columcille.[264] The church in Canna too bore his name. In Morvern
one of the two old parishes was called Cillcholumchille, and within
the limits of Dalriada, on the mainland, were a few churches bearing
the same name.
Monasteries Of churches founded during his life, and no
founded during doubt in connection with him by others, three
St. Columba’s life were sufficiently prominent to be occasionally
by others in the
islands. mentioned in the Irish Annals. The first was that
of Lismore, founded on the long grassy island of
Lismore, lying between the coast of Lorn and that of Morvern, by
Lugadius, or Moluoc, a bishop. He is termed by Angus the Culdee,
under June 25th, ‘Lamluoc the pure, the bright, the pleasant, the
sun of Lismore;’ and the gloss adds, ‘that is, Moluoc of Lismore in
Alban.’ His death is recorded by Tighernac in 592.[265] He is said by
the Breviary of Aberdeen to have been a disciple of Brendan; but it
is more probable that he was attached to Columba, as his pedigree
takes him up to Conall Gulban, the ancestor of Columba and the
founder of the tribe to which he belonged.[266] The name of
Kilmaluog in Lismore still commemorates his church there. The
second of these monasteries is that of Cinngaradh, or Kingarth, a
church in the south end of the island of Bute, which was founded by
Cathan, who also was a bishop. He was of the race of the Irish Picts,
and the contemporary and friend of Comgall and Cainnech;[267] and
from him were named the churches termed Cillchattan. The third
was founded in the island of Egea, or Egg, which, with its strangely-
shaped hill called the Scuir of Egg, can be seen from the north end
of Iona. The founder was Donnan. He is commemorated by Angus
the Culdee in his Felire, on the 17th of April, as ‘Donnan of cold Eig,’
to which the gloss adds, ‘Eig is the name of an island which is in
Alban, and in it is Donnan. This Donnan went to Columcille to make
him his Anmchara, or soul-friend; upon which Columcille said to him,
I shall not be soul-friend to a company of red martyrdom, for thou
shalt come to red martyrdom and thy people with thee; and it was
so fulfilled;’[268] and in his Litany he invokes the ‘fifty-four who
suffered martyrdom with Donnan of Ega.’[269] This would place the
settlement in the island of Egg in the lifetime of Columba, and
probably during the interval between the defeat and death of Gabran
in 560 and the succession of Aidan in 574, when it required no great
gift of prophecy to anticipate such a fate for a Christian
establishment in one of the group of islands which were at the time
the scene of warfare between the two nations, though this fate did
not in fact overtake them till some time after. The churches termed
Cill Donnan were either founded by him or dedicated to him. The
numerous churches in the west Highlands bearing the names of
Cillmaluag, Cillchattan, and Cilldonnan show that these were centres
of missionary work.
Monasteries Of the monasteries which must have been
founded by founded by Columba in the Pictish territories east
Columba and of the Drumalban range Adamnan gives us no
other among the account, nor does he even mention any by name;
northern Picts. but of the foundation of one we have an
instructive account in the Book of Deer, which shows that they
extended as far as the Eastern Sea. The tradition of the foundation
of the churches of Aberdour in Banffshire and of Deer in the district
of Buchan are thus given. ‘Columcille and Drostan, son of Cosgrach,
his pupil, came from Hi, or Iona, as God had shown to them, unto
Abbordoboir, or Aberdour, and Bede the Cruithnech, or Pict, was
Mormaer of Buchan before them; and it was he that gave them that
cathair, or town, in freedom for ever from Mormaer and Toisech.
They came after that to the other town; and it was pleasing to
Columcille, because it was full of God’s grace, and he asked of the
Mormaer—viz., Bede—that he should give it him, and he did not give
it; and a son of his took an illness after refusing the clerics, and he
was nearly dead. Then the Mormaer went to entreat the clerics that
they should make prayer for the son, that health should come to
him, and he gave in offering to them from Cloch in tiprat to Cloch
pette mic Garnait. They made the prayer, and health came to him.
Then Columcille gave to Drostan that cathair, and blessed it, and left
as his word “Whosoever should come against it, let him not be
many-yeared victorious.” Drostan’s tears came on parting with
Columcille. Said Columcille, “Let Dear be its name
[270]
henceforward.”’ In this traditional account preserved by the
monks of Deer, we have a type of the mode in which these
monasteries, or Christian colonies, were settled among the heathen
tribes—the grant of a cathair, or fort, by the head of the tribe, and
its occupation by a colony of clerics,—which is quite in accordance
with what we learn as to the settlements of this monastic church in
Ireland. The church of Rosmarkyn, now Rosemarky, on the northern
shore of the Moray Firth, and that of Muirthillauch, or Mortlach, in
the vale of the Fiddich, were dedicated to Moluog of Lismore, and
were probably founded by him, as was that of Kildonan in
Sutherland, by Donnan.
A.D. 584-597. In 584 an event happened which appears to
Monasteries have opened up an additional field for Columba’s
founded by missionary labour. This was the death of his
Columba among steady friend and supporter King Brude, who died
the southern in that year.[271] Adamnan seems to be at a loss
Picts.
to account for death having been allowed to
overtake King Brude while the powerful intercession of the great
saint might have been exercised on his behalf, and attributes it to
the disappearance of a mysterious crystal which Columba had
blessed, and which, when dipped in water, was believed to impart to
it a curative virtue. It was preserved among the king’s treasures, but
could not be found, though sought for in the place where it was kept
on the day when King Brude died in his palace near the river Ness.
[272]
His successor was Gartnaidh, son of Domelch, who belonged to
the nation of the southern Picts, and appears to have had his royal
seat at Abernethy, on the southern bank of the Tay, near its junction
with the river Earn. The only fact recorded of his reign is that he
built the church of Abernethy two hundred and twenty-five years
and eleven months before the church of Dunkeld was built by King
Constantin.[273] The statement is so specific, that it seems to embody
a fragment of real history contained in some early chronicle, and
places the date of the foundation of Abernethy during the first ten
years of Gartnaidh’s reign. The nation of the southern Picts had, as
we have seen, been converted early in the previous century by
Ninian; and the Pictish Chronicle attributes the foundation of the
church of Abernethy to an early King Nectan, who reigned from 457
to 481; but the Christianity established among them had no
permanence, and they gradually fell off, till hardly even the
semblance of a Christian church remained. What King Gartnaidh did,
therefore, was to found a new monastic church where the earlier
church had been, which, like it, was dedicated to St. Bridget of
Kildare, and this not only took place during Columba’s life, but is, in
the ancient tract called the Amra Columcille, directly attributed to his
preaching, for in alluding to his death it contains this line: ‘For the
teacher is not, who used to teach the tuatha, or tribes, of Toi;’ and
the gloss upon it is, ‘The teacher who used to teach the tribes who
were around Tai. It is the name of a river in Alban;’ and again, ‘He
subdued the mouths of the fierce who were at Toi with the will of
the king,’ which is thus glossed: ‘He subdued the mouths of the
fierce with the Ardrig, or supreme king of Toi; though it was what
they wished—to say evil, so it is a blessing they used to make, ut
fuit Balam.’[274] Gartnaidh is here called the supreme king of Toi, or of
the Tay, and the people whom Columba taught, the tribes about the
Tay, which leaves little doubt that the church of Abernethy on the
banks of the Tay, at this time the chief seat of government, had
been refounded in connection with his mission to the southern Picts.
In this work Columba had also the assistance of his friend Cainnech,
whose Pictish descent would render his aid more effective. Cainnech
appears to have founded a monastery in the east end of the
province of Fife, not far from where the river Eden pours its waters
into the German Ocean at a place called Rig-Monadh, or the royal
mount, which afterwards became celebrated as the site on which the
church of St. Andrews was founded, and as giving to that church its
Gaelic name of Kilrimont. In the notice of Cainnech on 11th October
in the Martyrology of Angus the Culdee, the following gloss is added:
‘And Achadh-bo is his principal church, and he has a Recles, or
monastery, at Cill Rig-monaig in Alban. Once upon a time, when
Cainnech went to visit Finnin, he asked him for a place of residence.
I see no place here now, said Finnin, for others have taken all the
places up before thee. May there be a desert place there, said
Cainnech, that is, in Alban;’[275] and this seems to be alluded to in
the Life of Cainnech when it is said, ‘Afterwards the Irish saints sent
messengers to Cainnech, having learnt that he was living as a hermit
in Britain; and Cainnech was then brought from his hermitage
against his will.’[276] The churches dedicated to Moluog, to Drostan,
to Machut the pupil of Brendan, and to Cathan, and the church
founded at Dunblane by Blaan of Cinngaradh, the son of King Aidan
and nephew of Cathan,[277] show the spread of the Columban Church
in the territory of the southern Picts.
Visit of Saint In the latter years of his life we find Columba
Columba to residing for a few months in the midland part of
Ireland. Ireland, and visiting the brethren who dwelt in
the celebrated monastery of Clonmacnois. His reception there shows
the estimation in which he was now held. ‘As soon as it was known
that he was near, all flocked from their little grange farms near the
monastery, and, along with those who were within it, ranged
themselves with enthusiasm under the Abbot Alither; then,
advancing beyond the enclosure of the monastery, they went out as
one man to meet Columba, as if he were an angel of the Lord;
humbly bowing down, with their faces to the ground, in his
presence, they kissed him most reverently, and, singing hymns of
praise as they went, they conducted him with all honour to the
church. Over the saint, as he walked, a canopy made of wood was
supported by four men walking by his side, lest the holy abbot
Columba should be troubled by the crowd of brethren pressing upon
him.’[278] In 593 Columba completed thirty years of his missionary
work in Britain, and this seems to have given him a foreboding of his
coming end;[279] but he survived four years longer, and then his
thirty-four years’ pilgrimage in Britain was brought to its close with
his life.
Last day of his The touching narrative which both his
life. biographers, Cummene and Adamnan, give of his
last days has been often quoted; but it presents such a charming
picture of what his life in the island was, that it may well be
repeated here. In the year 597 Columba had reached his seventy-
seventh year, and towards the end of May in that year, says
Cummene, the man of God, worn with age and carried in a car, goes
to visit the working brethren, who were, adds Adamnan, then at
work on the western side of the island, and addresses them, saying,
‘During the Paschal solemnities in the month of April just past I
could have desired to depart to Christ, but lest a joyous festival
should be turned for you into mourning my departure has been
deferred,’ Hearing these words, the brethren, or, as Adamnan calls
them, the beloved monks, were greatly afflicted. The man of God,
however, as he sat in his car, turned his face towards the east and
blessed the island with its insular inhabitants. After the words of
blessing, the saint was carried back to his monastery. On Sunday the
second of June we find him celebrating the solemn offices of the
eucharist, when, as his eyes were raised to heaven, the brethren
observed a sudden expression of rapture on his face, which he
explained to them was caused by his seeming to see an angel of the
Lord looking down upon them within the church and blessing it, and
who, he believed, had been sent on account of the death of some
one dear to God, or, as Adamnan expresses it, ‘to demand a deposit
dear to God, by which he understood was meant his own soul, as a
deposit intrusted to him by God.’
Columba seems to have had a presentiment that the following
Saturday would be his last day on earth, for, having called his
attendant Diormet, he solemnly addressed him—‘This day is called in
the sacred Scriptures the Sabbath, a day of rest; and truly to me this
day will be a day of rest, for it is the last of my life, and in it I shall
enter into my rest after the fatigues of my labours; and this night
preceding Sunday I shall go the way of my fathers, for Christ already
calls me, and thus it is revealed to me.’ These words saddened his
attendant, but the father consoled him. Such is Cummene’s short
narrative. Adamnan, who amplifies it, states that Columba had gone
with his attendant Diormet to bless the nearest barn, which was
probably situated close to the mill and not far from the present
ruins. When the saint entered it, he blessed it and two heaps of
winnowed corn that were in it, and gave thanks in these words,
saying, ‘I heartily congratulate my beloved monks that this year also,
if I am obliged to depart from you, you will have a sufficient supply
for the year.’ According to Adamnan, it was in answer to a remark
which this called forth from his attendant that he made the
revelation to him, which he made him promise on his bended knees
that he would not reveal to any one before his death. Adamnan then
introduces after it the incident that Columba, in going back to the
monastery from the barn, rested half-way at a place where a cross
which was afterwards erected, and was standing to his day fixed into
a millstone, might be observed at the side of the road; and there
came to him a white pack-horse, the same that used, as a willing
servant, to carry the milk vessels from the cowshed to the
monastery. It came up to the saint, and, strange to say, laid its head
on his bosom and began to utter plaintive cries and, like a human
being, to shed copious tears on the saint’s bosom, foaming and
greatly wailing. The attendant, seeing this, began to drive the
weeping mourner away; but the saint forbade him, saying, ‘Let it
alone, as it is so fond of me—let it pour out its bitter grief into my
bosom. Lo! thou, as thou art a man and hast a rational soul, canst
know nothing of my departure hence, except what I myself have just
told you, but to this brute beast devoid of reason the Creator himself
hath evidently in some way made it known that its master is going
to leave it;’ and saying this the saint blessed the work-horse, which
turned away from him in sadness.
According to both Cummene and Adamnan, he then went out,
and, ascending the hillock which overhangs the monastery,[280] he
stood for some little time on its summit, and, uplifting his hands, he
blessed his monastery; and, looking at its present position and
future prospects, he uttered a prophecy, the terms of which
Adamnan alone adds: ‘Small and mean though this place is, yet it
shall be held in great and unusual honour, not only by the kings of
the Scots with their people, but also by the rulers of foreign and
barbarous nations and by their subjects; the saints also of other
churches even shall regard it with no common reverence.’ After this,
both biographers tell us, descending from the hill and returning to
the monastery, he sat in his cell and transcribed the Psalter. When
he came to that verse of the thirty-third Psalm (the thirty-fourth of
our version) where it is written, ‘They that seek the Lord shall want
no manner of thing that is good.’—‘Here,’ he said, ‘I think I can write
no more: let Baithen write what follows.’ Having thus written the
verse at the end of the page, he entered the holy church in order to
celebrate the nocturnal vigils of the Lord’s Day; and, as soon as they
were over, he returned to his cell and spent the rest of the night on
his bed, where he had for his couch the bare ground, or, as
Adamnan says, a bare flag, and for his pillow a stone. While reclining
there, he commended his last words to his sons, or, as Adamnan
says, to the brethren. ‘Have peace always and unfeigned charity
among yourselves. The Lord, the Comforter of the good, will be your
helper; and I, abiding with Him, will intercede for you that He may
provide for you good things both temporal and eternal.’ Having said
these words, St. Columba became silent. Then, as soon as the bell
rang at midnight, rising hastily, he went to the church, and, running
more quickly than the rest, he entered alone and knelt down in
prayer beside the altar. Diormet, his attendant, however, following
more slowly, saw from a distance the whole interior of the church
filled at the same moment with a heavenly light; but, when he drew
near to the door, the same light, which had also been seen by some
of the brethren, quickly disappeared. Diormet, however, entering the
church, cried out in a mournful voice, ‘Where art thou, father?’ and,
feeling his way in the darkness, the lights not having yet been
brought in by the brethren, he found the saint lying before the altar;
and raising him up a little, and sitting down beside him, he laid his
holy head on his bosom. Meantime the rest of the brethren ran in,
and, beholding their father dying, whom living they so loved, they
burst into lamentations. The saint, however, his soul having not yet
departed, opened wide his eyes and looked around him from side to
side as if seeing the holy angels coming to meet him. Diormet then,
raising his right hand, urged him to bless the brethren; but the holy
father himself moved his hand at the same time as well as he was
able, and, having thus signified to them his holy benediction, he
immediately breathed his last. His face still remained ruddy and
brightened in a wonderful way from the heavenly vision: so that he
had the appearance not so much of one dead as of one that
sleepeth.’[281]
‘In the meantime,’ as both biographers inform us, ‘after the
departure of his saintly soul, the matin hymns being finished, his
sacred body was carried, the brethren chanting psalms, from the
church to his cell, where his obsequies were celebrated with all due
honour for three days and as many nights; and when these praises
of God were finished, his holy body, wrapped in fine clean linen
cloths’ and, Adamnan adds, placed in a coffin, or tomb,[282] prepared
for it, was buried with all due veneration. The stone which St.
Columba had used as a pillow was placed, as a kind of monument,
at his grave, where it still stood in Adamnan’s day. His obsequies,
which lasted three days and nights, were confined to the inhabitants
of the island alone; for there arose a storm of wind without rain,
which blew so violently during the whole time that no one could
cross the sound in his boat;[283] but immediately after the interment
the wind ceased and the storm was quelled, so that the whole sea
became calm.
Character of St. Columba died on Sunday morning the 9th of
Columba. June in the year 597,[284] and left behind him an
imperishable memory in the affections and veneration of the people
whom he first brought over to the Christian faith. It is unfortunately
the fate of all such men who stand out prominently from among
their fellows and put their stamp upon the age in which they lived,
that, as the true character of their sayings and doings fades from
men’s minds, they become more and more the subject of spurious
traditions, and the popular mind invests them with attributes to
which they have no claim. When these loose popular traditions and
conceptions are collected and become imbedded in a systematic
biography, the evil becomes irreparable, and it is no longer possible
to separate in popular estimation the true from the spurious. This
has been peculiarly the case with Columba, and has led to a very
false estimate of his character. It has been thus drawn by a great
writer, in language at least of much eloquence:—‘He was vindictive,
passionate, bold, a man of strife, born a soldier rather than a monk,
and known, praised and blamed as a soldier—so that even in his
lifetime he was invoked in fight; and continued a soldier, insulanus
miles, even upon the island rock from which he rushed forth to
preach, convert, enlighten, reconcile and reprimand both princes and
nations, men and women, laymen and clerks. He was at the same
time full of contradictions and contrasts—at once tender and
irritable, rude and courteous, ironical and compassionate, caressing
and imperious, grateful and revengeful—led by pity as well as by
wrath, ever moved by generous passions, and among all passions
fired to the very end of his life by two which his countrymen
understand the best, the love of poetry and the love of country.
Little inclined to melancholy when he had once surmounted the
great sorrow of his life, which was his exile; little disposed, save
towards the end, to contemplation or solitude, but trained by prayer
and austerities to triumphs of evangelical exposition; despising rest,
untiring in mental and manual toil, born for eloquence, and gifted
with a voice so penetrating and sonorous that it was thought of
afterwards as one of the most miraculous gifts that he had received
of God; frank and loyal, original and powerful in his words as in his
actions—in cloister and mission and parliament, on land and on sea,
in Ireland as in Scotland, always swayed by the love of God and of
his neighbour, whom it was his will and pleasure to serve with an
impassioned uprightness. Such was Columba.’[285] Or rather, such is
the Columba of popular tradition, described in the beautiful and
forcible language of his most eloquent biographer; but much of this
character is based upon very questionable statements, and, as the
facts which appear to sanction it do not stand the test of critical
examination, so the harder features of his character disappear in the
earlier estimates of it. Adamnan says of him, ‘From his boyhood he
had been brought up in Christian training, in the study of wisdom,
and by the grace of God had so preserved the integrity of his body
and the purity of his soul, that, though dwelling on earth, he
appeared to live like the saints in heaven. For he was angelic in
appearance, graceful in speech, holy in work, with talents of the
highest order and consummate prudence; he lived during thirty-four
years an island soldier. He never could spend the space even of one
hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or some other holy
occupation. So incessantly was he engaged night and day in the
unwearied exercise of fasting and watching, that the burden of each
of these austerities would seem beyond the power of all human
endurance. And still, in all these, he was beloved by all; for a holy
joy ever beaming on his face revealed the joy and gladness with
which the Holy Spirit filled his inmost soul.’[286]
Dallan Forgaill, in the ancient tract called the Amra Choluimchille,
speaks of him in the same strain. He describes his people mourning
him who was ‘their souls’ light, their learned one—their chief from
right—who was God’s messenger—who dispelled fears from them—
who used to explain the truth of words—a harp without a base
chord;—a perfect sage who believed Christ—he was learned, he was
chaste—he was charitable—he was an abounding benefit of guests—
he was eager—he was noble—he was gentle—he was the physician
of the heart of every sage—he was to persons inscrutable—he was a
shelter to the naked—he was a consolation to the poor;—there went
not from the world one who was more continual for the
remembrance of the cross.’[287] There is no trace here of those darker
features of vindictiveness, love of fighting, and the remorse caused
by its indulgence; nor do the events of his life, as we find them
rather hinted at than narrated, bear out such an estimate of it. He
was evidently a man of great force of character and determined zeal
in effecting his purpose—one of those master-minds which influence
and sway others by the mere force of contact; but he could not have
been the object of such tender love and implicit devotion from all
who came under the sphere of his influence, if the softer and more
amiable features pictured in these earlier descriptions of him had not
predominated in his character.
Three peculiarities he had, which led afterwards to a belief in his
miraculous powers. One was his sonorous voice. Dallan Forgaill tells
us

The sound of his voice, Columcille’s,

Great its sweetness above every company;
To the end of fifteen hundred paces—
Vast courses—it was clear.[288]

Adamnan includes this among his miraculous gifts, and adds that to
those who were with him in the church his voice did not seem louder
than that of others; and yet, at the same time, persons more than a
mile away heard it so distinctly that they could mark each syllable of
the verses he was singing, for his voice sounded the same whether
far or near! He gives us another instance of it. Columba was
chanting the evening hymns with a few of his brethren, as usual,
near King Brude’s fortress, and outside the king’s fortifications, when
some ‘Magi,’ coming near to them, did all they could to prevent
God’s praises being sung in the midst of a pagan nation. On seeing
this, the saint began to sing the 44th Psalm; and, at the same
moment, so wonderfully loud, like pealing thunder, did his voice
become, that king and people were struck with terror and
amazement.[289] Another trait, which was ascribed to prophetic
power, was his remarkable observation of natural objects and skill in
interpreting the signs of the weather in these western regions.
Dallan Forgaill says: ‘Seasons and storms he perceived, that is, he
used to understand when calm and storm would come—he
harmonised the moon’s cocircle in regard to course—he perceived its
race with the branching sun—and sea course, that is, he was skilful
in the course of the sea—he would count the stars of heaven.’[290]
When Adamnan tells us that Baithene and Columban asked him to
obtain from the Lord a favourable wind on the next day, though they
were to sail in different directions, and how he promised a south
wind to Baithene next morning till he reached Tiree, and told
Columban to set out for Ireland at the third hour of the same day,
‘for the Lord will soon change the wind to the north,’[291] it required
no more than great skill in interpreting natural signs to foretell a
south wind in the morning and the return breeze three hours after.
The third quality was a remarkable sagacity in forecasting probable
events, and a keen insight into character and motives. How tales
handed down of the exercise of such qualities should by degrees
come to be held as proofs of miraculous and prophetic power, it is
not difficult to understand.
Primacy of Iona After Columba’s death, the monastery of Iona
and successors of appears to have been the acknowledged head of
St. Columba. all the monasteries and churches which his
mission had established in Scotland, as well as of those previously
founded by him in Ireland. To use the words of Bede, ‘This
monastery for a long time held the pre-eminence over most of those
of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and had the
direction of their people,’[292] a position to which it was entitled, as
the mother church, from its possession of the body of the patron
saint.[293] Of the subsequent abbots of Iona who succeeded Columba
in this position of pre-eminency, Bede tells us that, ‘whatever kind of
person he was himself, this we know of him for certain, that he left
successors distinguished for their great charity, divine love and strict
attention to their rules of discipline; following, indeed, uncertain
cycles in their computation of the great festival (of Easter), because,
far away as they were out of the world, no one had supplied them
with the synodal decrees relating to the Paschal observance; yet
withal diligently observing such works of piety and charity as they
could find in the Prophetic, Evangelic and Apostolic writings.’[294]
A.D. 597-599. According to the law which regulated the
Baithene, son of succession to the abbacy in these Irish
Brendan. monasteries, it fell to the tribe of the patron saint
to provide a successor; and Baithene, the cousin and confidential
friend and associate of Columba, and superior of his monastery of
Maigh Lunge in Tiree, who was also of the northern Hy Neill, and a
descendant of Conall Gulban, became his successor, ‘for,’ says the
Martyrology of Donegal, ‘it was from the men of Erin the abbot of I
was chosen, and he was most frequently chosen from the men of
Cinel Conaill.’ He appears to have been designated by Columba
himself as his successor, and to have been at once acknowledged by
the other Columban monasteries; for Adamnan tells us that Finten,
the son of Tailchen, had resolved to leave Ireland and go to Columba
in Iona. ‘Burning with that desire,’ says Adamnan, ‘he went to an old
friend, the most prudent and venerable cleric in his country, who
was called in the Scotic tongue Columb Crag, to get some sound
advice from him. When he had laid open his mind to him, he
received the following answer: “As thy devout wish is, I feel, inspired
by God, who can presume to say that thou shouldst not cross the
sea to Saint Columba?” At the same moment two monks of Columba
happened to arrive; and when they remarked about their journey,
they replied, “We have lately come across from Britain, and to-day
we have come from Daire Calgaich,” or Derry. “Is he well,” says
Columb Crag, “your holy father Columba?” Then they burst into
tears, and answered, with great sorrow, “Our patron is indeed well,
for a few days ago he departed to Christ.” Hearing this, Finten and
Columb and all who were there present fell on their faces on the
ground and wept bitterly. Finten then asked, “Whom did he leave as
his successor?” “Baithene, his disciple,” they replied. And we all cried
out, “It is meet and right.” Columb said to Finten, “What wilt thou do
now, Finten?” He answered, “With God’s permission, I will sail over
to Baithene, that wise and holy man; and if he receive me, I will
take him as my abbot.”’[295] Baithene enjoyed the abbacy, however,
for two years only, and died in the year 599, on the same day of the
year as Saint Columba, on which day his festival was likewise held.
[296]

A.D.599-605. His successor was Laisren, son of Feradhach,

Laisren, son of who was also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and
Feradhach. had been superior of Durrow during Columba’s
life. It was in his time that the discussion commenced between the
Roman and the Irish Church regarding the proper time for keeping
Easter. The mission of Columbanus to Gaul in the year 590, and that
of Augustine to Britain in 597, had now brought the Roman Church
in contact with the British and Irish Churches, and this—the most
salient point of difference between them—became at once the
subject of a contest for the enforcement of uniformity on the one
part, and the maintenance of their ancient customs, to which the
Celtic mind clings with peculiar tenacity, on the other. Augustine, on
his death in 604, was succeeded by one of his companions, named
Laurentius; and this prelate, Bede tells us, ‘did not only attend to the
charge of the new church that was gathered from the English
people, but also regarded with pastoral solicitude the old natives of
Britain, and likewise the people of the Scots who inhabit the island
of Ireland adjacent to Britain. For observing that the practice and
sentiments of the Scots in their own country, and also those of the
Britons in Britain itself, were contrary to church order in many
things, particularly because they used not to celebrate the solemnity
of Easter at the proper time, but supposed, as we have shown
above, that the day to be observed in commemoration of the Lord’s
resurrection was included in the week from the fourteenth to the
twentieth day of the moon, he, in conjunction with his fellow-
bishops, wrote them a letter of exhortation, beseeching and
entreating them to keep the bond of peace and Catholic observances
with that church of Christ which is extended all over the world. The
beginning of his letter is here given: “To our lords and most dear
brethren the bishops or abbots throughout all Scotia (or Ireland),
Laurentius, Mellitus and Justus, bishops, the servants of the servants
of God. When the Apostolic See, according to her practice in all the
world, stationed us in these western parts to preach to the pagan
nations here, and so it came to pass that we entered into this island
which is called Britain, before we were acquainted with it, supposing
that they walked in the ways of the universal church, we felt a very
high respect for the Britons as well as the Scots, from our regard to
their sanctity of character; but when we came to know the Britons,
we supposed the Scots must be superior to them. However, we have
learned from Bishop Daganus coming into this island and Abbot
Columbanus coming into Gaul, that the Scots differ not at all from
the Britons in their habits. For Bishop Daganus, when he came to us,
would not take meat with us, no, not so much as in the same
lodging where we were eating.”’[297] This letter does not appear to
have had any effect; but it shows the spirit in which the two
churches came into contact with each other.
A.D. 605-623. Laisren died in the following year.[298] His
Fergna Brit, son successor was Fergna Brit, or the Briton. From
of Failbhe. what he derived this epithet it is impossible to
say, for certain it is that he also was of the tribe of the patron saint
and a descendant of Conall Gulban. He had apparently been a pupil
in the monastery of Iona during Columba’s life, and Adamnan
mentions him as Virgnous—the Latin form of Fergna—‘a youth of
good disposition, and afterwards made by God superior of this
church in which I, though unworthy, now serve.’[299] In his time we
again hear of two of the three great island monasteries which are
specially mentioned in the Irish Annals. In 611 Tighernac records the
death of Neman, bishop of Lismore; and in 617 of Donnan of Egg
having been burnt on the fifteenth day before the kalends of May, or
17th April, with his martyr clerics.[300] The tale of their martyrdom is
thus told in the gloss upon the Martyrology of Angus the Culdee
already quoted. It says, ‘Donnan then went with his muintir, or
monastic family, to the Gallgaedalu, or Western Isles, and they took
up their abode there, in a place where the sheep of the queen of the
country were kept. This was told to the queen. Let them all be killed,
said she. That would not be a religious act, said her people. But they
were murderously assailed. At this time the cleric was at mass. Let
us have respite till mass is ended, said Donnan. Thou shalt have it,
said they. And when it was over, they were slain every one of them,’
The Calendar of Marian Gorman has the following commemoration:
‘Donnan the great with his monks. Fifty-two were his congregation.
There came pirates of the sea to the island in which they were, and
slew them all. Eig is the name of that island.’[301] The island of Egg is
the most easterly of a group of islands lying between the
promontory of Ardnamurchan and the island of Skye. It faces a wild
and rugged district on the mainland, extending from Ardnamurchan
to Glenelg, still known by the name of the Garbhcriochan, or rough
bounds. The Christian religion appears to have as yet hardly
penetrated the western districts north of Ardnamurchan, as is
indicated by the dedications of their churches. The island of Egg was
probably at this time connected with this district as a pasture island
reserved for their flocks of sheep; and, while the people would seem
to have been favourable to the little Christian colony established in
the island by Donnan, the rule had passed into the hands of a queen
who was still pagan and employed pirates to destroy them, who
burnt the wooden church in which they were celebrating the
eucharist, and the whole community accordingly perished. We have
also at this time a slight trace of the Columban Church in the eastern
districts of the northern Picts in the Irish Annals, which record in 616
the death of Tolorggain or Talarican, who is associated in the Scotch
Calendars with the Church of Fordyce on the south shore of the
Moray Firth, and who gives his name to the great district of
Cilltalargyn, or Kiltarlity, in the district of the Aird, extending from
the river Ness to the bounds of Ross-shire.[302]
The only other event which took place while Fergna Brit was abbot
was one which was destined to lead to a great extension of the
Columban Church. In the year 617 there arrived at Iona some young
and noble Angles of Bernicia. They were the sons of Aidilfrid, king of
Bernicia, who, while still pagan, as were his people, had been slain
by Aeduin, king of Deira. Bede tells us that his sons, with many of
the youth of the nobility, took refuge among the Scots or Picts,
where they lived in banishment during the whole of Aeduin’s reign,
‘and,’ says Bede, ‘were there catechised according to the doctrine of
the Scots, and regenerated by the grace of baptism.’[303] Many of
them were no doubt sent to the monastery of Iona to receive this
catechetical instruction, and among them was certainly Osuald, the
second son of Aidilfrid, who was at that time about thirteen years
old, and who, we are expressly told, with his followers had, ‘when in
banishment, received the sacraments of baptism among the seniors
of the Scots,’ by whom those of the monastery of Iona are meant.
He appears to have remained there during the rest of Fergna’s
tenure of the abbacy, and the first ten years of that of his successor.
A.D. 623-652. Fergna died in the year 623,[304] and was
Segine, son of succeeded by Segine, son of Fiachna and nephew
Fiachna. of Laisren the third abbot, who of course also
belonged to the tribe of the patron saint, the race of Conall Gulban.
The presidency of Segine over the family of Iona was chiefly
remarkable for two great events in two opposite directions. One was
the extension of the Columban Church into the Anglic kingdom of
Northumbria; the other, that a large section of the Irish Church
conformed to Rome: and both events appear to have taken place at
the same time.
A.D. 634. At the time that the sons of Aidilfrid fled from
Extension of the face of King Aeduin, the latter and his people
Columban Church were still pagans; but the king having married
to Northumbria.
the daughter of the Christian king of Kent, in the
eleventh year of his reign he was converted to Christianity by the
preaching of Paulinus, who had been ordained bishop by Archbishop
Justus of Canterbury, and accompanied the queen to York. Aeduin
was baptized at York on Easter Sunday in the year 627, ‘in the
church of Saint Peter the apostle, which he himself had there built of
timber whilst he was being catechised and instructed in order to
receive baptism. In that city also he appointed the see for the
bishopric of his instructor and bishop, Paulinus.’[305] The people of
the two provinces of Bernicia and Deira followed their king, and
ostensibly embraced Christianity. As soon as the news reached Rome
that the nation of the Northumbrians with their king had been, by
the preaching of Paulinus, converted to the faith of Christ, Honorius
I., who was at that time Pope, sent the ‘pallium’ to Paulinus, and at
the same time wrote letters of exhortation to King Aeduin, exhorting
him with fatherly charity that his people should persist in and profess
the faith of truth which they had received.[306] When this letter
reached York, King Aeduin had been slain, the heathen Penda of
Mercia and the apostate Caedwalla of Wales were in possession of
the country, the infant Christian Church was trampled under foot,
and Paulinus, with his ‘pallium,’ had fled back to Kent. After a year, in
which the land had been given up to paganism, Osuald, who was
now thirty years old, and to whom the right to the Anglic throne had
opened by the death of his brother Ainfrid, invaded Northumbria,
and won his kingdom by the battle of the Heavenly Field, at
Denisburn, near Hexham. His first object was to restore the Christian
Church which had been swept away; and for this purpose he
naturally turned to the church where he himself had been trained in
the Christian faith. As Bede tells us, ‘He sent to the seniors of the
Scots, among whom himself and his fellow-soldiers, when in
banishment, had received the sacrament of baptism, desiring they
would send him a bishop, by whose instructions and ministry the
Anglic nation which he governed might be taught the advantages of
faith in the Lord and receive its sacraments. Nor were they slow in
granting his request, but sent him Bishop Aidan, a man of singular
meekness, piety and moderation.’[307] Bede further tells us that ‘it is
reported that when King Osuald had asked a bishop of the province
of the Scots to minister the word of faith to him and his nation,
there was first sent another man of more austere disposition, who,
after preaching for some time to the nation of the Angles and
meeting with no success, and being disregarded by the Anglic
people, returned home, and in an assembly of the seniors reported
that he had not been able to do any good in instructing that nation
he had been sent to preach to, because they were untameable men,
and of a stubborn and barbarous disposition. They, as is testified, in
a great council seriously debated what was to be done, being
desirous of the good of the nation in the matter which it demanded,
and grieving that they had not received the preacher sent to them.
Then said Aidan, who was also present in the council, to the priest
then spoken of, “I am of opinion, brother, that you were more severe
to your unlearned hearers than you ought to have been, and did not
at first, conformably to the apostolic discipline, give them the milk of
more gentle doctrine, till, being by degrees nourished with the Word
of God, they should be capable of greater perfection, and be able to
practise God’s sublimer precepts.” Having heard these words, all who
sat with him, turning on him their eyes, began diligently to weigh
what he had said, and presently concluded that he deserved to be
made a bishop, and ought to be sent to instruct the unbelievers and
unlearned, since he was found to be endowed with the grace of a
singular discretion, which is the mother of other virtues; and
accordingly, being ordained, they sent him to preach.’[308] Bede adds
that ‘most of those that had come to preach were monks, and that
Bishop Aidan was himself a monk of the island called Hii, whose
monastery for a long time held the pre-eminence over almost all
those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts;’ and again,
‘that from the aforesaid island, and from this college of monks, was
Aidan sent to instruct the province of the Angles in Christ, having
received the episcopal grade. At this time Segine, abbot and priest,
presided over that monastery.’ There can therefore be little doubt
that the great council was held in Iona under the presidency of
Abbot Segine; and it would almost appear that he himself had gone
personally to Northumbria on the failure of the first mission, as
Adamnan refers to a conversation which he says Abbot Failbe
solemnly declared that he himself heard between King Osuald and
Abbot Segine after the battle of the Heavenly Field had been fought.
[309]

As the first missionary sent had been a priest, and the result of
Aidan’s interposition was that all declared him worthy of the
episcopate, there can be little doubt that, as we have already had
occasion to show, the distinction of the orders and the superiority of
the episcopal grade were fully recognised. By the custom of the
Scottish Church, only one bishop was necessary for the consecration
of another bishop. That there were bishops in the Columban Church
we know, for Bede tells us that ‘all the province, and even the
bishops, were subject to the abbot of Iona;’ and, as we have seen,
two of the monasteries subject to Iona—Lismore and Cinngaradh, or
Kingarth—had episcopal heads. There may have been an especial
reason why it should be better that Aidan should have episcopal
orders, which did not exist in the case of the Columban monasteries;
for, as the head of a remote church, he might have to ordain priests
from among his Anglic converts; while the Columban Church had
Ireland at its back as a great storehouse of clerics, both bishops and
priests. When, therefore, it is said that he received the episcopal
grade, no doubt a bishop had been called in to consecrate him. But
though he was thus enabled to exercise episcopal functions, in other
respects the organisation of the church thus introduced into
Northumbria, both with respect to jurisdiction and to its monastic
character, was the same as that of the Columban Church at home;
for, instead of fixing his episcopal seat at York, he followed the
custom of the monastic church by selecting a small island near the
Northumbrian coast, bearing the Celtic name of Inis Metcaud,[310] but
known to the Angles as Lindisfarne, as the site of his monastery,
which he was to rule as episcopal abbot. Bede tells us that, ‘on the
arrival of the bishop, the king appointed him his episcopal see in the
isle of Lindisfarne, as he himself desired; which place, as the tide
flows and ebbs, twice a day is enclosed by the waves of the sea like
an island, and again, twice in the day, when the shore is left dry,
becomes contiguous to the land,’—a very apt description of the
island, which is now called Holy Island; and Bede adds, in his Life of
Cudberct, ‘And let no man marvel that in this same island of
Lindisfarne, which is of very small extent, there should be, as we
mentioned above, the seat of a bishop, and, at the same time, as we
now state, the residence of an abbot and monks. For so it is, in
truth. For one and the same habitation of the servants of God
contains both at the same time. Yea, all whom it contains are
monks; for Aidan, who was the first bishop of this place, was a
monk, and was always wont to lead a monastic life, with all his
people. Hence, after him, all the bishops of that place until this day
exercise the episcopal functions in such sort, that, while the abbot,
who is chosen by the bishop with the consent of the brethren,
governs the monastery, all the priests, deacons, chanters, readers
and the other ecclesiastical orders, with the bishop himself, observe
in all things the monastic rule.’[311] This Northumbrian church was
therefore an exact counterpart of the monastic church of which Iona
was the head; and Bede bears a noble testimony to its efficiency as