About the very time when the Sicilian slave-war broke out, there was exhibited before the eyes of the astonished world the spectacle of an unimportant client-prince able to carry out a fourteen years' usurpation and insurrection against the mighty republic which had shattered the kingdoms of Macedonia and Asia with one blow of its weighty arm-- and that not by means of arms, but through the pitiful character of its rulers.
Numidia Jugurtha The kingdom of Numidia stretched from the river Molochath to the great Syrtis,( 9) bordering on the one side with the Mauretanian kingdom of Tingis (the modern Morocco) and on the other with Cyrene and Egypt, and surrounding on the west, south, and east the narrow district of coast which formed the Roman province of Africa.
In addition to the old possessions of the Numidian chiefs, it embraced by far the greatest portion of the territory which Carthage had possessed in Africa during the times of its prosperity--including several important Old-Phoenician cities, such as Hippo Regius (Bona) and Great Leptis (Lebidah)--altogether the largest and best part of the rich seaboard of northern Africa.

Numidia was beyond question, next to Egypt, the most considerable of all the Roman client-states.

After the death of Massinissa (605), Scipio had divided the sovereign functions of that prince among his three sons, the kings Micipsa, Gulussa, and Mastanabal, in such a way that the firstborn obtained the residency and the state-chest, the second the charge of war, and the third the administration of justice.( 10) Now after the death of his two brothers Massinissa's eldest son, Micipsa,( 11) reigned alone, a feeble peaceful old man, who was fond of occupying himself more with the study of Greek philosophy than with affairs of state.

As his sons were not yet grown up, the reins of government were practically held by an illegitimate nephew of the king, the prince Jugurtha.

Jugurtha was no unworthy grandson of Massinissa.