Syphax and the Battle of the Great Plains
The Second Punic War in Africa turned on which of two Numidian kings each side had bought, and for several years Carthage had the better one. North Africa west of Carthage was held by two Berber confederations: the Masaesyli in the west under Syphax, and the smaller Massylii in the east under Masinissa. Both supplied the light cavalry that every Mediterranean power wanted - horsemen who rode without saddle or bridle, guiding their mounts by weight and a neck strap, and who fought as skirmishers that could not be caught and would not close. Syphax was the stronger king and both sides courted him. Livy has Scipio and the Carthaginian commander Hasdrubal Gisco received at his court on the same evening, dining together as guests of a man they were competing for - the kind of detail that is too good to verify. He chose Carthage, and the reason was a marriage. Hasdrubal gave him his daughter Sophonisba, who had been promised to Masinissa. Syphax then drove Masinissa out of his own kingdom, and Masinissa went over to Rome with what was left of his cavalry. That decided the war. Scipio landed in Africa in 204, burned the combined Carthaginian and Numidian camps at night, and destroyed Syphax at the Great Plains the following spring. Syphax was captured, paraded in a Roman triumph and died in Italy; Sophonisba took poison rather than be displayed in one. Masinissa was given both kingdoms and united them as Numidia in 202, and his cavalry on Scipio's right wing at Zama is what broke Hannibal. Almost everything known about the Masaesyli comes from Livy and Polybius, who were writing for the side that won.
- Year: 204 BCE
- Category: Military
