Masinissa
Masinissa was a Numidian prince raised at Carthage who fought for Carthage in Spain, changed sides to Rome when Carthage gave his promised bride and his kingdom to his rival, led the cavalry that decided Zama, and reigned for fifty-four years over a kingdom he made out of two, dying at ninety with a son born in his eighty-sixth year and Carthage, whose land he had spent decades taking, about to be destroyed by the war his raids had provoked. He was born about 238 BC, the son of the king of the Massylii, the eastern of the two Berber confederations, was educated at Carthage as a hostage and an ally, and commanded Numidian horse for the Carthaginians in Spain from 212, where he beat the Scipio brothers and then, in 206, lost to their son at Ilipa and met him. Hasdrubal Gisco had promised him his daughter Sophonisba; when Masinissa's father died and Carthage needed Syphax of the Masaesyli more, the girl went to Syphax, and Syphax with Carthaginian help drove Masinissa out of his own country into the hills, where he lived as an outlaw with a few hundred horsemen until Scipio landed in Africa in 204. He joined him. At the Great Plains in 203 the Roman and Numidian cavalry broke Syphax and Hasdrubal, and Masinissa rode on to Cirta, took it and Syphax, and married Sophonisba in the palace the same day; when Scipio claimed her as Rome's prisoner Masinissa sent her poison rather than let her be led in a triumph, and she drank it. Scipio gave him both kingdoms. At Zama in October 202 his six thousand horse drove the Carthaginian cavalry from the field and came back into Hannibal's rear, which ended the battle and the war. The peace forbade Carthage to make war without Rome's leave, and for fifty years he took its territory piece by piece, appealing to a Roman senate that always found for him, until in 150 Carthage fought back and gave Cato his pretext. He built Cirta into a capital, planted the Numidians as farmers, minted, and kept a Greek court; Polybius, who knew him, says he could ride all day at ninety. He died in 148 with Scipio Aemilianus at his bedside dividing the kingdom among three sons, and Carthage fell two years later.
- Lived: 238 BCE – 148 BCE
- Nationality: Numidian
- Roles: king, monarch, general
