Saphonbaal (english version) part II

 

Livy XXIX 23 (continued) "But Hasdrubal always remembered the covenant that Scipio had made with the king and the unreliable and fickle nature of the barbarians, and feared that a crossing from Scipio to Africa this marriage would prove to be a weak bondage.           That's why he brought the Numidian, now he was still in his first love daze, using sweet words of the girl to led envoys to Scipio in Sicily to warn him that he is not on his earlier promises had to cross out on  confidence to Africa on earlier promisses.     He was by his marriage to a Carthaginian citizeness - the daughter of Hasdrubal he had seen a guest with him - and, moreover, linked by a formal treaty with the people of Carthage.       Therefore, he wished for everything that the Romans would perform as they had done so far, their war against the Carthaginians far from Africa so he was not forced to participate in their war record and join one or the other army to and thus to be infidelity with the other convenant. When Scipio would not stay in Africa away and his army would come to Carthage, he could not do anything else than fight for the African country in which he was born, and fight for the home town of his wife and her father and her roommates.

Zonaras B.IX, c.12: "Fearing that Masinissa would like to find his way to Scipio, the Carthaginians tried to convince Syphax to resign its heritage and at the same time regaining that  presented in view. Masinissa saw through the stop well, but he went on with the contract, to inflict under the mask of the reliability of his enemies great damage; for he was angry with them more about Sophonisba, as to the throne due. On the way, he was actually an ally of the Romans, while he wore friendship for Carthage to the public; conversely was the case with  Syphax, while he was in fact on the part of the Carthaginians, apparently an ally of the Romans; in this capacity he sent an embassy to Scipio and dissuaded him to risk the crossing. This learned Scipio in clandestine dialogues with the Herald; to hide the news from the soldiers, he made the Herald depart on the same day, before it has had time to get together with others; then he summoned his army and accelerated the crossing, by pretending the Carthaginians were still not prepared, and already earlier Masinissa had forced the exit and complained about the slowness of the Romans, and would do so Syphax the same. After these words he drove off and landed on the Apollonian promontory. "

 

 

Syphax had already committed himself in 213 BC with the Romans, when Gala Maesulië had defeated him destructively. In 210 BC Syphax even sends a delegation to Rome and is working to fight the Carthaginians. But now he plays fully the Carthaginian card despite pretended neutrality. Syphax is not to be trusted. Carthage is dragged into a civil Numidian war, which now Carthage thinks to have the strongest party at his side but they were also afraid of Masinissa, even though at that time he had very few men under his command. Nevertheless they knew his reputation from Spain! Tellingly, it is also the attitude of Carthage and Syphax, who understand nothing of the Roman mentality. The Romans will have nothing to say by an embassy. Instead, they'll just do exactly the opposite of what the mission of Syphax wanted. Scipio seems to have hastened the crossing therefore almost immediately.
If we are to believe Zonaras than it seems that at this crucial stage Carthage sought to have to get all the Numidians behind her but their internal divisions have prevented that. Worse, at one point no one knew who could not be trusted.

After Scipio's landing near Utica with his army and eventually destroyed the camps of Hasdrubal and Syphax, Sophoniba comes back into the picture:

 

Polybius 14,1,7. World History. "---- The Numidian prince (Syphax) and his aides had initially been planning on their retreat to go directly to their own area. But when they encountered to Abba Celtiberians over 4000 men as mercenaries who were recruited by the Carthaginians, they broke off their retreat, because these auxiliaries inspired in them confidence, and they started to get again some faith in the future Moreover, prayed and begged the girl, Hasdrubal's daughter, who, as I have said, the wife of Syphax, her husband not to go away, and in this critical situation not to let the Carthaginians down. The Numidian was persuaded and acceded to its request. "

Livy XXX 6: "---- It now began to be mobilize men in the city and in the country and envoys were sent to Syphax. He was itself with all its might busy with preparations for the war. His wife, not like before with caresses, which already had impact enough on her loving husband, but with prayers and lamentations used its influence, and tears exorcised her father and hometown not be left to their fate and that Carthage should not be destroyed by flames as was happened to  the army camps. The envoys also brought encouraging news that came at the right time: they were encountered in a town called Obba 4000 Celtiberiërs ----- "

 

Initially, you tend to believe only Polybius about the stories on Sophoniba as he sat in the nearest time there. He was even nearly contemporaneous. However, how can a single supplication of a girl have to bring such a big story.
Livy broadly follows here the passage of Polybius, but he can’t stop romanticizing and paint Syphax as a terribly loving husband. What may be the truth is that the wife of Syphax begged him to resist, and that the arrival of 4,000 mercenaries from Spain were a great support.

 

Syphax and Hasdrubal are again defeated in the battle of the big fields and Masinissa hurries to take Cirta. There, is waiting for him, according to Livy, a big surprise:

 

 

 

Livy XXX 12: "--- When he entered the court, Sophoniba, the wife of Syphax and the daughter of the Punic Hasdrubal, rushed to meet him from the threshold. When she saw the multitude of soldiers around Masinissa who by his armor and subsequent appearance, she kept him for a king, fell down on his knees and said, "The gods, your courage and your lucky stars have brought to you all the power over our lives. But if a prisoner is allowed to elevate him who is master of her life and death, and touch his victorious right hand to her pleading voice, pray and I beg you in your royal majesty, which we recently also possessed by name of the people of the Numidians that you have shared with Syphax, the gods of the palace - that you may receive favorable signs from here then they have to leave Syphax - that if you grant me this favor as a suppliant: that you yourself decide over your prisoner what your heart tells you and me, but not to be a subject to the arrogant, cruel arbitrariness of some Roman. If I had been the wife of Syphax, nothing else, I'd prefer the word of a Numidian and a man born in Africa. And not the word of a foreigner of foreign origin. What a Carthaginian woman, the daughter of Hasdrubal, had to fear of a Roman, you'll see for yourself. If you have no other way available, pray and I beg you, that you protect me from the dead by the arbitrariness of the Romans. '"

Appianus. The Punic Wars V,27: “After this they entered the country of the Massylians and the territory of Syphax, bringing the one again under Masinissa’s rule and winning over the other by persuasion, or, when persuasion failed, by force. Ambassadors also came to them from Cirta offering them the palace of Syphax and others came especially to Masinissa from Sophonisba, the wife of Syphax, to make explanations about her forced marriage.

 

 

It is utterly implausible that Sophoniba has spoken this eloquent and full of subordinate clauses by Livy has spoken so. Something like that could possibly still be. Sophoniba seems to appeal to the joint African descent. This kind of pan-Africanism has never been a real possibility in this region. The division among the African peoples, tribes and cities was too big.

Appian let Masinissa also marry Sophonisba, but then chooses a completely different angle and let her be the major scapegoat in the words of Syphax.
The stories of Livy and Appian are hardly any more credible. It may be that Masinissa found the wife of Syphax at Cirta and that Scipio thought that was dangerous for the faith of Masinissa to the Roman cause. No more than that.

 

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