Numidian Infantry
Light Infantry(0.6.7)Side / Back
Short description
The Numidian Infantry were armed with javelins, sword and shield, and were trained to fight after the Roman fashion.
Description
This Numidian Infantry is equipped with an oval thureos shield with spine and winged metal boss, two javelins, sword and helmet, which was of the typical Punic design with a thick rim.
The Numidian Infantry fought as close-fighting troops, in a maniple-type formation, with standards.
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. They 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 who were two other important Libyco-Berber tribes found in North Africa.
During the period of Carthaginian supremacy in North Africa, the Numidian kings were never able to come up with decent infantry, although they did succeed in making some improvement under King Syphax. During the Second Punic War, King Syphax asked visiting Roman envoys to provide him with a centurion to train his Numidian infantry, saying his army was quite shapeless and haphazard, a mere casual mob. This centurion, Quintus Statorius, went to work: "Statorius found ample material from which to enrol infantry soldiers for Syphax; he organised them very much after the Roman pattern, gave them instruction in forming up, maneuvering, following the standards, and keeping formation, and accustomed them to various military duties, including fortifications, and all so successfully that the prince soon came to trust his infantry no less than his cavalry, and that when an engagement took place on open ground he defeated his Carthaginian foe."
These Numidian Infantry thereafter fought for Syphax against Carthage and their Massyli allies until they were finally defeated between 213-210 BC. Some vestige of the training of Statorius must have stuck, however, because the Numidian infantry are never again referred to as a "formless mass". The Numidian allies of Rome and Carthage in the later part of the Second Punic War are recorded as fielding significant infantry forces.
In fact, these formations do seem to echo the Roman maniples and although this can only be conjecture, the infantry fight in a mix of Roman and Numidian techniques as a sort of light infantry. Showing an ability to maintain unit cohesion and rally to standards like the Roman troops.