Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia and Libya. The polity was originally divided between the Massylii state in the east and the Masaesyli state in the west. During the Second Punic War, Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into the first unified Berber state for Numidians in present-day Algeria. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and an ally of Rome and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state.
The history of North Africa during the period of classical antiquity can be divided roughly into the history of Egypt in the east, the history of ancient Libya in the middle and the history of Numidia and Mauretania in the west.
Timgad was a Roman city in the Aurès Mountains of Algeria. It was founded by the Roman Emperor Trajan around 100 AD. The full name of the city was Colonia Marciana Ulpia Traiana Thamugadi. Emperor Trajan named the city in commemoration of his mother Marcia, eldest sister Ulpia Marciana, and father Marcus Ulpius Traianus.
Syphax was a king of the Masaesyli tribe of western Numidia during the last quarter of the 3rd century BC. His story is told in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita. He ruled over a territory extending from present day Constantine to Moulouya.
Thysdrus was a Carthaginian town and Roman colony near present-day El Djem, Tunisia. Under the Romans, it was the center of olive oil production in the provinces of Africa and Byzacena and was quite prosperous. The surviving amphitheater is a World Heritage Site.
Hadrumetum, also known by many variant spellings and names, was a Phoenician colony that pre-dated Carthage. It subsequently became one of the most important cities in Roman Africa before Vandal and Umayyad conquerors left it ruined. In the early modern period, it was the village of Hammeim, now part of Sousse, Tunisia.
The Numidians were the Berber population of Numidia. The Numidians were originally a semi-nomadic people, they migrated frequently as nomads usually do but during certain seasons of the year, they would return to the same camp. The Numidians soon became more than pastoralists and started to engage in more urban professions. The Numidians were one of the earliest Berber tribes to trade with Carthaginian settlers. As Carthage grew, the relationship with the Numidians blossomed. Carthage's military used the Numidian cavalry as mercenaries. Numidia provided some of the highest quality cavalry of the Second Punic War, and the Numidian cavalry played a key role in several battles, both early on in support of Hannibal and later in the war after switching allegiance to the Roman Republic. Numidian culture flourished between the end of the Second Punic War and around the Roman conquest, with Masinissa as the first king of a unified Numidia.
The Province of Sardinia and Corsica was an ancient Roman province including the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.
African Romance or African Latin is an extinct Romance language that was spoken in the various provinces of Roman Africa by the African Romans under the later Roman Empire and its various post-Roman successor states in the region, including the Vandal Kingdom, the Byzantine-administered Exarchate of Africa and the Berber Mauro-Roman Kingdom. African Romance is poorly attested as it was mainly a spoken, vernacular language. There is little doubt, however, that by the early 3rd century AD, some native provincial variety of Latin was fully established in Africa.
The traditional Berber religion is the sum of ancient and native set of beliefs and deities adhered to by the Berbers. Originally, the Berbers seem to have believed in worship of the sun and moon, animism and in the afterlife, but interactions with the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans influenced religious practice and melted traditional faiths with new ones.
Āfrī was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean. Latin speakers at first used āfer as an adjective, meaning "of Africa". As a substantive, it denoted a native of Āfrica; i.e., an African.
The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians, were a Semitic people who migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term Punic, the Latin equivalent of the Greek-derived term Phoenician, is exclusively used to refer to Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean, following the line of the Greek East and Latin West. The largest Punic settlement was Ancient Carthage, but there were 300 other settlements along the North African coast from Leptis Magna in modern Libya to Mogador in southern Morocco, as well as western Sicily, southern Sardinia, the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, Malta, and Ibiza. Their language, Punic, was a variety of Phoenician, one of the Northwest Semitic languages originating in the Levant.
The Troglodytae, or Troglodyti, were people mentioned in various locations by many ancient Greek and Roman geographers and historians, including Herodotus, Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, Josephus, Tacitus, Claudius Aelianus, Porphyry.
The Massylii or Maesulians were a Berber federation in eastern Numidia, which was formed by an amalgamation of smaller tribes during the 4th century BC. They were ruled by a king. On their loosely defined western frontier were the powerful Masaesyli. To their east lay the territory of the rich and powerful Carthaginian Republic. Their relationship to Carthage resembled that of a protectorate. Carthage maintained its dominance over the Massylii by skillful diplomatic manoeuvering, playing off local tribal and kingdom rivalries. The principal towns of the Massylii were Cirta, Tébessa and Thugga in modern-day Algeria and Tunisia.
The Sardinians, or Sards, are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group indigenous to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy derives its name.
Monte Sirai is an archaeological site near Carbonia, in the province of South Sardinia, Sardinia, Italy. It is a settlement built at the top of a hill by the Phoenicians of Sulci. The history of studies in Monte Sirai has a very precise date: the fall of 1962, when a local boy casually found a female figure carved on a stele of the tophet. Following further inspections, in August 1963, the local Soprintendenza and the Institute of Near Eastern Studies of the Sapienza University of Rome started excavations, leading to a fairly comprehensive study of the entire town.
Hampsicora was a Sardo-Punic political leader and landowner of Sardinia, and the leader of the major anti-Roman revolt in the province of 215 BC.
Naïdé Ferchiou was a Tunisian archaeologist whose work dealt mainly with Roman North Africa. She excavated at several important sites, including Abthugni.
Hiarbas was the king of eastern Numidia from in or shortly after 88 BC until his death. His name is sometimes given as Iarbas, Hiartas or Hiarbal. Hiarbas may be the historical inspiration for the legendary figure of Iarbas, rejected suitor of Dido, described by Virgil as a Gaetulian.
