Relations with Carthage and Rome
By the 9th century BC, when Carthage in North Africa was established under Phoenician rule, the larger Berber groups had transitioned from hunting and nomadic to settled livestock-farming societies.
The indigenous peoples of North Africa provided the seafaring Phoenicians with what they were looking for: a trading partner. In the coastal areas, agriculture – which may have interacted with Egyptian and Crescent-Wo region societies very early on – became a major feature of Berber society.
Carthage
Two of Libya's most famous sedentary societies appeared in the 2nd century BC: Numidia and Mauritania.
Carthage, as a city-state, did not occupy a vast land area and did not have much direct influence on the Tunisian peninsula and off the coast of North Africa. Thus, the Kingdom of Libya of the Numidians and Mauri enjoyed independent commercial relations for at least most of their history with Carthage.
The Numidian Berbers were also the main population of carthage, with the Phoenicians occupying the aristocratic and merchant classes, and the natives predominantly serfdom and soldiers. During this time, the Greeks began to turn their gaze to North Africa and its kingdom, learning more about the Berber tribes and their relationship with Carthage, and becoming the first to refer to the Maghrebs as Libyans.
Located east of the Tunis Peninsula, Mauritania traded heavily with Carthage off the coast of North Africa. During the Second Punic War, the Mauri, led by the tribal king, joined forces with Massinisa, the son of the Numidian chief, against Carthage. The Roman language Mauri was the predecessor of the Moorish term used in later centuries to refer to the inhabitants of northeastern Africa.
Punic War
The Numidians were praised for their equestrian skills and were therefore an important part of the Carthaginian cavalry during the Punic War. However, during the Second Punic War, the status of the Kingdom of Numidia and Carthage changed dramatically.
Massinissa, the eldest son of the Numidian sheikh and an ally of Carthage, betrayed the city when he saw that the carthaginian city was losing to the Roman army of Scipio on the Iberian Peninsula.
He joined forces with the Roman Republic in 206 BC. Massinissa gained the support of the Romans for his ascension to the throne of Numidia and helped defeat the Carthaginians at the Battle of Zama, where Hannibal was eventually captured. The decisive victory ended the Second Punic War and made Numidia a Roman vassal state.
Massinissa
Under Massinissa, Roman jurisdiction over Numidia contributed to the technological progress of Berber tribal societies in Numidia, with most people turning to settled agricultural production and the state participating in the expanding Mediterranean trade.
Two years before carthage was sacked in 146 BC, the Roman Republic decided to legitimize various Numidian tribal chiefs as heads of their respective Numidian vassal states, which could help ensure stability and curb the aspirations of a Libyan ruler to establish an empire in North Africa. However, subsequent chiefs worked to consolidate power in the region.
A century after Rome's victory in the Second Punic War, a chief named Djugurta (160-140 BC) bribed the Roman authorities to seize the Numidian throne, leading to the Jugurdin War, the first major conflict between Rome and independent Numidia.
King Jugurta paraded in Rome as a prisoner
Djurta was captured and killed. The state of Numidia remained unchanged as a vassal state until the rise of Juba II (85-46 BC), a chieftain who united numidians and Mauritanians against Julius Caesar.
Royal Mausoleum of Juba
Juba, fearing that Numidia might be established as a directly occupied imperial province rather than a vassal state, sided with the Pompeians during the Roman Civil War, a decision that left him dead at the Battle of Sapsus in 46 BC. The war ended, establishing Caesar's position as dictator.
Caesar divided the existing province of Numidia into a new political entity, completely juxtaposing it as an African province (New African Province), which was renamed and re-established as the Province of Numidia in the years that followed.
During the years of the reorganization of the empire, Rome's jurisdiction over Mauritania also shifted from vassal state relations to provincial annexation. The political identity of the Berbers of Numidia did not change significantly during the Roman period; There was hardly any Romanization between the tribes and good relations with Roman rule. Only religion – first Christianity and then Islam – can fundamentally change the Berber way of life, and even then many ancient traditions still exist and flourish.