MASINISSA, a Numidian prince whose history is closely intertwined with that of the wars between Rome and Carthage. With true barbarian fickleness, and a keen eye to his own interests, he espoused now one side now the other, inclining however on the whole decidedly in favour of Rome, so much so indeed as to be spoken of by Roman orators and historians as “a most faithful ally of the Roman people.” He was the son of a Numidian king or chief, Gala, whose dominions coincided with the eastern portions of Numidia, and thus bordered on Carthaginian territory, or what is now Tunis. He was educated, like many of the Numidian chiefs, at Carthage, learnt Latin and Greek, it is said, and was in short an accomplished as well as a naturally clever man. Although his kingdom was nominally independent of Carthage, it really stood to it in a relation of vassalage; it was directly under Carthaginian influences, and was imbued to a very considerable extent with Carthaginian civilization. It was to this that Masinissa owed his fame and success; he was a barbarian at heart, but he had a varnish of culture, and to this he added the craft and cunning in which Carthaginian statesmen were supposed to excel. While yet a young man, he drove his neighbour Syphax, prince of western Numidia, out of the country now known as Algiers, and forced him to fly to the Moors in the extreme west of Africa. Soon afterwards he appears in Spain, fighting for Carthage with a large force of Numidian cavalry against the Romans under the two Scipios. The defeat of the Carthaginian army in 206 b,c., which for a time at least gave the Romans complete mastery of the south of Spain, led him to desert his old allies and to cast in his lot with the fortunes of Rome. The famous Scipio Africanus is said to have ...cultivated his friendship and done all he could to secure his services for his country. Masinissa now quitted Spain for a while for Africa, and was again engaged in a war with Syphax, in which he was so decidedly worsted that he found himself at last merely the head of a small band of marauders, and was obliged to confine his movements to the coast. Scipio’s arrival in Africa in 204 gave him another chance, and no sooner had he joined the Roman general than he quite crushed his old enemy, Syphax, and captured Cirta (Constantineh), the capital of Syphax. Here occurs the romantic story of Sophonisba, daughter of the Carthaginian Hasdrubal, who had been promised in marriage to Masinissa, but who had subsequently become the wife of Syphax. Masinissa, it is said, wedded her immediately after his victory, but was required by Scipio to dismiss her as a Carthaginian, and consequently an enemy to Rome. To save her from such humiliation he sent her poison, with which she destroyed herself. Masinissa was now accepted as a thoroughly loyal ally of Rome, and was confirmed by Scipio in the possession of his hereditary kingdom. In the decisive battle of Zama, 202 b.c., which witnessed Hannibal’s downfall, he commanded the cavalry on Scipio’s right wing, and materially assisted the Roman victory. For his services on that great day he had given him, under a treaty with Rome, the kingdom of Syphax with its capital Cirta, and thus under Roman protection he became master of the whole of Numidia, and his dominions completely enclosed the Carthaginian territories, now straitened and reduced at the close of the Second Punic War.
Masinissa was still far from satisfied, and it would seem that he almost had thoughts of annexing Carthage itself with the connivance of Rome. He spared no opportunity to harass and annoy the city by pressing unfair claims to some of its best and oldest possessions, and threatening perpetual encroachments. In a war which soon followed he was successful; the remonstrances of Carthage with Rome on the behaviour of their ally were answered by deputing Scipio to arbitrate in the quarrel, but, as though intentionally on the part of Rome, no definite settlement was arrived at, and thus the relations between Masinissa and the Carthaginians were still unfriendly. Rome, it is certain, deliberately favoured her ally’s unjust claims with the view of keeping Carthage weak. Masinissa too was cunning enough to retain the friendship and good opinion of the Roman people by helping them with liberal supplies in their wars in the East, with Perseus of Macedon and with Antiochus. As soon as Carthage seemed to be recovering herself, and some of Masinissa’s partisans were driven from the city into exile, his policy was to alarm the fears of Rome, till at last, in 149, war was declared, the Third Punic War, w*hich ended in the final and utter overthrow of Carthage. The king bore some part in the negotiations which preceded the war, and died soon after its commencement in 148 b.c., after a life of ninety and a reign of sixty years.
Masinissa was an able ruler and a decided benefactor to Numidia, the resources of which he developed, while he converted a people which had been little better than a plundering tribe into a settled and civilized population, and out of robbers and marauder’s made efficient and disciplined soldiers. To his sons he bequeathed a well-stored treasury, a formidable army, and even a fleet. Cirta, his capital, became a famous centre of Phoenician civilization. In fact Masinissa changed for the better the whole aspect of a great part of northern Africa. He had much of the Arab nature, was singularly temperate, and equal to any amount of fatigue. His fidelity to Rome was not the fidelity of principle, but merely that of temporary expediency; it is in the really good work he did for his country that the noblest side of his character comes into display.
For Masinissa, Livy and Sallust’s Jugurtha must be specially consulted by scholars. English readers may be referred to a very full article in Smith’s Dictionary of Classical' Biography; also to Mommsen’s History of Rome and Niebuhr’s Lectures.
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