THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

III. From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter VII - The West from the Peace of Hannibal to the Close of the Third Period

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Page 20

Numidians

While the power of the Phoenicians was thus sinking in the land of their choice, just as it had long ago succumbed in their original home, a new state grew up by their side. The northern coast of Africa has been inhabited from time immemorial, and is inhabited still, by the people, who themselves assume the name of Shilah or Tamazigt, whom the Greeks and Romans call Nomades or Numidians, i. e. the "pastoral" people, and the Arabs call Berbers, although they also at times designate them as "shepherds" (Shawie), and to whom we are wont to give the name of Berbers or Kabyles.

This people is, so far as its language has been hitherto investigated, related to no other known nation. In the Carthaginian period these tribes, with the exception of those dwelling immediately around Carthage or immediately on the coast, had on the whole maintained their independence, and had also substantially retained their pastoral and equestrian life, such as the inhabitants of the Atlas lead at the present day; although they were not strangers to the Phoenician alphabet and Phoenician civilization generally,(2) and instances occurred in which the Berber sheiks had their sons educated in Carthage and intermarried with the families of the Phoenician nobility.

2. Cf. III. I. Libyphoenicians

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