JUBA, the name of two kings of Numidia.
Juba I. (1st century B.C.), son and successor of Hiempsal, king of Numidia. During the civil wars at Rome he sided with Pompey, partly from gratitude because he had reinstated his father on his throne (Appian, B.C., i. 80), and partly from enmity to Caesar, who had insulted him at Rome by pulling his beard (Suet., Caesar, 71). Further, C. Scribonius Curio, Caesar’s general in Africa, had openly proposed, 50 B.C., when tribune of the plebs, that Numidia should be sold to colonists, and the king reduced to a private station. In 49 Juba inflicted on the Caesarean army a crushing defeat, in which Curio was slain (Vell. Pat. ii. 54; Caesar, B.C. ii. 40). Juba’s attention was distracted by a counter invasion of his territories by Bocchus the younger and Sittius; but, finding that his lieutenant Sabura was able to defend his interests, he rejoined the Pompeians with a large force, and shared the defeat at Thapsus. Fleeing from the field with the Roman general M. Petreius, he wandered about as a fugitive. At length, in despair, Juba killed Petreius, and sought the aid of a slave in despatching himself (46). Juba was a thorough savage; brave, treacherous, insolent and cruel. (See Numidia.)
Juba II., son of the above. On the death of his father in 46 B.C. he was carried to Rome to grace Caesar’s triumph. He seems to have received a good education under the care of Augustus who, in 29, after Mark Antony’s death, gave him the hand of Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and placed him on his father’s throne. In 25, however, he transferred him from Numidia to Mauretania, to which was added a part of Gaetulia (see Numidia). Juba seems to have reigned in considerable prosperity, though in A.D. 6 the Gaetulians rose in a revolt of sufficient importance to afford the surname Gaetulicus to Cornelius Lentulus Cossus, the Roman general who helped to suppress it. The date of Juba’s death is by no means certain; it has been put between A.D. 19 and 24 (Strabo, xvii. 828; Dio Cassius, li. 15; liii. 26; Plutarch, Ant. 87; Caesar, 55). Juba, according to Pliny, who constantly refers to him, is mainly memorable for his writings. He has been called the African Varro.
He wrote many historical and geographical works, of which some seem to have been voluminous and of considerable value on account of the sources to which their author had access: (1) Ῥωμαϊκὴ ἱστορία; (2) Ἀσσυριακά; (3) Λιβυκά; (4) De Arabia sive De expeditione arabica; (5) Physiologa; (6) De Euphorbia herba; (7) Περὶ ὀποῦ; (8) Περὶ γραφικῆς (Περὶ ζωγράφων); (9) Θεατρικὴ ἱστορία; (10) Ὁμοιότητες; (11) Περὶ φθορᾶς λέξεως; (12) Ἐπίγραμμα.
Fragments and life in Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec., vol. iii.; see also Sevin, Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, vol. iv.; Hullemann, De vita et scriptis Jubae (1846). For the denarii of Juba II. found in 1908 at El Ksar on the coast of Morocco see Dieudonné in Revue Numism. (1908), pp. 350 seq. They are interesting mainly as throwing light on the chronology of the reign.