Numidian Cavalry
Missile Cavalry(0.6.7)Side / Back
Short description
Numidian Cavalry, armed with javelins and sword, and riding lean wiry ponies, were possibly the most renowned skirmish cavalry of the ancient world.
Description
The Numidian Cavalry were lightly armed and unprepossessing in appearance. They wore no armour, but only light, baggy, sleeveless tunics of undyed wool. They carried small, light, boss-less and rimless leather shields, and rode into battle with a bundle of javelins with iron heads, which enabled them to skirmish like mounted peltasts.
They also carried short swords, 2 feet long, as secondary weapons for close fighting. Livy reports that the Numidians who fought at Cannae carried concealed swords (Livy, 22.48.2).
Numidian Cavalry were skirmishers, harassing the enemy with a rain of javelins, outflanking and surrounding them, but scattering to avoid enemy charges. They would retire swiftly from an enemy charge, but return quickly to the attack. This method of skirmishing combat was used regardless of whether the enemy was on foot or mounted.
Numidian Cavalry were the finest and most feared skirmisher cavalry in the western Mediterranean, famed for their endurance (Polybius, 3.71.10; App. Pun. 11, 71) and their persistent, deadly harassing tactics.
The 'Numidians' were those peoples of Libyco-Berber stock who inhabited North Africa. Unlike those known as 'Libyans', the Numidians and Moors practised a nomadic form of pastoralism rather than a more settled form of agriculture. The Numidian Cavalry had a reputation for being hot-tempered and violent (Livy, 25.41.4, 28.44.5, 29.23.4, 30.12.18).
Numidian Cavalry were expert ambushers, able to hide in undergrowth or folds in the landscape, and make sudden attacks upon unsuspecting enemies. "The Numidians had stationed themselves and their horses among the thickets and although they were not completely hidden by the low trees, it was difficult to distinguish just what was there since the men and their standards were concealed both by their surroundings and by camouflage" (Sallust, The Jugurthine War. 49).
"Whenever a squadron of Roman cavalry began to charge, instead of retiring in a body in one direction, they (the Numidian Cavalry) retreated independently, scattering as widely as possible. In this way they could take advantage of their numerical superiority. If they failed to check their enemies' charge, they would wait until the Romans lost their formation and then cut them off" (Sallust, The Jugurthine War. 51).
Even in formal battles as auxiliaries for Carthage or Rome, the Numidian Cavalry retained this loose manner of fighting; any charge would not be resisted, but rather the flanks and rear of the enemy would be savaged as the attack ran out of steam. The aim was to cut off the victim and force him to stand or run. Numidian Cavalry are particularly deadly and effective when pursuing a broken and flying foe.
Polybius gives an excellent account of this style of fighting in his account of the battle of Cannae. "The Numidian horse on the Carthaginian right were meanwhile charging through the cavalry on the Roman left; and though, from the peculiar nature of their mode of fighting, they neither inflicted nor received much harm, they yet rendered the enemy's horse useless by keeping them occupied, and charging them first on one side and then another. But when Hasdrubal, after all but annihilating the cavalry by the river, came from the left to the support of the Numidians, the Roman allied cavalry, seeing his charge approaching, broke and fled. At that point Hasdrubal appears to have acted with great skill and discretion. Seeing the Numidians to be strong in numbers, and more effective and formidable to troops that had once been forced from their ground, he left the pursuit to them; while he himself hastened to the part of the field where the infantry were engaged, and brought his men up to support the Libyans." (Polybius Book 3, 116.5)
The Numidian Cavalry were not the fastest of cavalry, but their small horses were small, lean, hardy ponies that were agile and very manoeuvrable (Livy, 35.11.6-11; Strabo, 17.3.7), and could also scramble through or over terrain that brought other mounted units to a halt. "Numidians found it more convenient to retreat to the hill rather than the plain, their horses being used to the ground, made their way easily through the thickets" (Sallust, The Jugurthine War. 51). The Numidian Cavalry rode bareback, without bit or bridles or saddles, instead relying on their knees plus a riding crop/stick to control their mounts.
The Numidians were not a single nation, but were divided into many tribes such as the Maccoei, and Areacidae, and even several larger supra-tribal kingdoms, such as Masaesyli in the west and the Massyli in the east, adjacent to Carthage's own territory.
The Moorish tribes of the far west formed a single nation under King Baga. The Gaetulians lived to the south of the Numidians and Moors (Pliny, Nat. Hist., 5.17), and fought in an identical fashion (Livy, 23.18; Caes., B Afr 32, 56, 61); so too the Garamantes and Nasamones, other important Libyco-Berber tribes found in North Africa.
Numidian Cavalry were found as both allies and mercenaries in the armies of Carthage, usually serving under their own princes, famous examples being Navaras (Polybius, 1.78.1-11), Tychaeus (Polybius, 15.3.5) and above all Masinissa.