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This article concerns the period 49 BC – 40 BC.
Year 46 BC was the last year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Lepidus. The denomination 46 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
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 in the east and the Masaesyli in the west. During the Second Punic War, Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into the first Berber state in present-day Algeria. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state.
Lucius Afranius was an ancient Roman plebeian and a client of Pompey the Great. He served Pompey as a legate during his Iberian campaigns, his eastern campaigns and remained in his service right through to the Civil War. He died in Africa right after the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC.
Jugurtha or Jugurthen was a king of Numidia. When the Numidian king Micipsa, who had adopted Jugurtha, died in 118 BC, Jugurtha and his two adoptive brothers, Hiempsal and Adherbal, succeeded him. Jugurtha arranged to have Hiempsal killed and, after a civil war, defeated and killed Adherbal in 112 BC.
The Battle of Thapsus was a military engagement that took place on April 6, 46 BC near Thapsus. The forces of the Optimates, led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, were defeated by the forces of Julius Caesar. It was followed shortly by the suicides of Scipio and his ally, Cato the Younger, the Numidian King Juba, and his Roman peer Marcus Petreius.
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Masinissa II was the petty king of western Numidia with his capital at Cirta (81–46 BC). He was named after, or took his name after, his famous ancestor Masinissa I, the unifier and founder of the kingdom of Numidia.
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The Battle of Hippo Regius was a naval encounter during Caesar's Civil War which occurred off the coast of the African city of Hippo Regius in 46 BC. Metellus Scipio and a number of influential senators from the Optimate faction were fleeing the disastrous Battle of Thapsus when their fleet was intercepted and destroyed by Publius Sittius, a mercenary commander in the employ of the Mauretanian king Bogud, an ally of Gaius Julius Caesar's. Scipio committed suicide and all of the other senators were killed during the battle.
Saburra was a Numidian general who served the king of Numidia, Juba I, and fought Julius Caesar during Caesar's Civil War. He managed to defeat one of Caesar's lieutenant, Gaius Scribonius Curio at the Battle of the Bagradas before eventually being killed in battle by a mercenary commander Publius Sittius, who was loyal to Caesar.
The Battle off Carteia was a minor naval battle during the latter stages of Caesar's civil war won by the Caesarians led by Caesar's legate Gaius Didius against the Pompeians led by Publius Attius Varus.
References
- ↑ "Publius Sittius and Caesar's Revenge". History Today. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
- ↑ Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, 5.17
- ↑ Cicero, Pro Sulla, 58.
- ↑ Sallust, De Catilinae coniuratione 21.
- ↑ Caesar Alexandrian, African and Spanish Wars, with an English translation by A.G. Way, M.A., Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press MCMLV.
- ↑ "Cirta, called the Sittians' Colony", Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book V; 22 or II, 1 (according to the two different numbering conventions).
- ↑ "The Civil War" by Appian, Book IV, 54.
- ↑ Cicero, Ad Atticus, 15.17.