It is by now a truism to say that Classical Athens, like any Greek polis, was essentially a "men's club:' a bastion of male privilege, and that women were generally relegated to the background of society, in subordinate, passive positions. Though the women of Athens were the mothers, daughters, and sisters of citizens, they were not citizens themselves in the usual (or constitutional) sense of the term. They pos. sessed no true political rights (they could not attend, much less vote, in the citizen assembly), they could not sit on juries in citizen courts, they did not con- trol whatever property may technically have been attached to their name, they were not autonomous individuals before the law (they were always under the authority of a male guardian, or kyrios,usually father or husband, and so were perpetual minors)," and their proper place was in the home, where their principal function was to raise children who none- theless "belonged entirely to the father.

Foreign hostages had been quar-tered well before, but it must have startled Romans, and greatly pleasedNumidians, that Caesar then fostered in his owndomusa Numidian prince-ling, whom Octavian later raisedlike an adoptive half-brother

as captive kingsought to be, the living picture beside the father’slifelessimage:butCaesarthusshowed offthe toddlerasa rightful prince.

For the stability of Rome’s Africa Caesar needed them as well asRomans to heal communal psychological wounds.

some masternarratives of Roman art history and expand Numidian ones

the common regional badge of North Africa, theLibyan Lion of Carthaginian and regal Numidian coinage

Marital love, sexual mor-ality and patriotism choosing death over dishonour: this admiring, pityingvisual appraisal would have seemed as awe-inspiring as stories of earlyRepublican heroes who honourably kill themselves and kin, often with asexualised twist (Lucretia, Horatius ready to kill a sister, Verginia’s murderby protective father).

It is historiographically interesting that all who want this to be a myth,or simply about a drunk lady (to which the regal and warlike thematics illsuit), close their eyes to the pictorialisation, unparalleled in extant art, of racialdifference between‘light-skinned’Greeks/Romans and darker indigenousdynasts and followers in Africa. The African heroine’s‘Greco-Roman’white-skinned and ovoid face (the replicator botched the foreshortening) isawell-knownconventionin‘ethnic images’of (legendary) history, Punic andotherwise; in any case, Punes were not tagged as‘dark people’

Massinissa was caught between humanpietasto wife and tofriend,fidesto personal and (as king) political morality. Powerless to keep herphysically safe, he could only help her to die–a classic Punic honour-suicide,like that of her brother Hannibal, self-poisonedc. 183 BCE to escape imprison-ment, and of Hasdrubal’s wife in 146

Briefly, Sophonisba was betrothed to young Massinissa to bind theNumidian leader to Carthage, whose empire depended on the military supportof the various Numidian states. Carthage cancelled the betrothal for whatseemed a better political move, marrying her to Syphax, another Numidianprince.

Greek Appian, our only extant source, his Romansources now lost, was solely concerned to denote Roman suicide. But Romanword-pictures demonstrate that that joint death’speculiarpoignancywasthatit was jointly undertaken. There are two textual accounts: a death-duel, ordrinking poison together. It is perhaps more likely that the latter was painted,since Roman and foreignerfighting would have resembled enemies not friends.

If the policies ofthe Numidian rulers were responsible for the diffusion of the Puniclanguage and script from the second centurybce, this was not the onlyroute that encouraged the penetration of Carthaginian influence.

In western Numidia, for instance, imports and coins from Carthage arenot at all abundant and thus do not suggest direct commercial relations

The Balearic Islands probably played the role of middleman in thediffusion of Mediterranean imports in the Oranie. In fact, they receivedthe full set of products attested in western Algeria, and their role as a re-distributor in the western Mediterranean

The presence of Italians in eastern Numidia from themid-second centurybcecertainly had an effect on supply circuits in thisregion

the existence of Phoenicio-Puniccommercial routes in the context of growing Roman domination in thewestern Mediterranean. From the end of the third or beginning of thesecond centurybce, Italian productsflooded the markets of the westernMediterranean, including Numidia.

Numidia belonged to this Punic world to the extent that it succumbed toCarthaginian cultural influences and was inserted into Phoenicio-Punicdistribution circuits. But such inclusion does not imply direct relationswith Carthage any more than it implies Carthage’s role as middleman ormaster. Instead, those areas with the greatest geographical proximity toNumidian settlements were most tightly connected with them commer-cially.

The settlements of eastern Numidia were also the only onesto receive imports from the Greek world.

the majority ofNumidian settlements did not have direct economic relations with Car-thage. The evidence instead suggests regional differences and a variety ofspecific connections with areas belonging to the Punic world. Some of theseconnections reveal that the role of Carthage in the diffusion of Mediterra-nean products in Numidia was not essential,

One thing is certain: Carthaginian influences were widespread in Numidia,in particular in the realms of religion, funerary traditions, language andwriting.

Thus the Numidians are cited among the allies or enemies ofCarthage in textual accounts relating to thefifth‒fourth centuriesbce(Just.Epit. 19.2‒3; Diod. Sic. 13.80, 20.17.1, 20.18.3), and over the courseof the third centurybcethe rivalry between Carthage and the variousNumidian kingdoms played out primarily in the territory of modernnortheastern Tunisia.

He begged Antiochus, then, now he knew this for a fact, as long as his intentions were hostile to Rome, to rely on him confidently and believe that he would have in him his sincerest supporter, 9 but from the moment he made peace and alliance with her he had no need to wait for accusations but should mistrust and beware of him; for there was nothing he would not do against the Romans.

 This success of the Carthaginian project in Spain must be held to be the third cause of the war, for relying on this increase of strength, they entered upon it with confidence.

For there are some people who pay regard not to what he writes but to the writer himself and, taking into consideration that he was a contemporary and a Roman senator, at once accept all he says as worthy of credit.

6 Consequently, he now began this war against Rome on his own initiative and in defiance of Carthaginian opinion, 7 not a single one of the notables in Carthage approving his conduct towards Saguntum.