Numidians in Carthaginian service

[Jim Webster]

The DBMM army lists have "Only after 341 BC:
Numidian light horse - Irr LH (O) @ 4AP"

But in Dio Sic
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/13D*.html

80

80 1 When the events of this year came to an end, in Athens Callias succeeded to the office of archon and in Rome the consuls elected were Lucius Furius and Gnaeus Pompeius.41 At this time the Carthaginians, being elated over their successes in Sicily and eager to become lords of the whole island, voted to prepare great armaments; and electing as general Hannibal, who had razed to the ground both the city of the Selinuntians and that of the Himeraeans, they committed to him full authority over the conduct of the war. When he begged to be excused because of his age, they appointed besides him another general, Himilcon, the son of Hanno and of the same family.42 2 These two, after full consultation, dispatched certain citizens who were held in high esteem among the Carthaginians with large sums of money, some to Iberia and others to the Baliarides Islands, with orders to recruit as many mercenaries as possible. 3 And they themselves canvassed Libya, enrolling as soldiers Libyans and Phoenicians and the stoutest from among their own citizens. Moreover they summoned soldiers also from the nations and kings who were their allies, Maurusians and Nomads and certain peoples who dwell in the regions toward Cyrenê. 4 Also from Italy they hired Campanians and brought them over to Libya; for they knew that their aid would be of great assistance to them and that the Campanians who had p349been left behind in Sicily, because they had fallen out with the Carthaginians,43 would fight on the side of the Sicilian Greeks. 5 And when the armaments were finally assembled at Carthage, the sum total of the troops collected together with the cavalry was a little over one hundred and twenty thousand, according to Timaeus, but three hundred thousand, according to Ephorus.

Now various places say that "Greek historians referred to these peoples as "Νομάδες" (i.e. Nomads),"
So are these Numidians?
If so it pushes the date back before 341BC

[Andreas Johansson]

As I understand it , "Numidians" (Lat. Numidae) is simply a Roman mangling of Nomades, so in one sense they're definitely Numidians. That Diodorus lists them alongside Maurusians ("Moors") presumably means he's using it for an ethnicity rather than in the sense of modern English "nomad".

More troublingly, perhaps, he fails to say if they were cavalry.

[Jim Webster]

As I understand it , "Numidians" (Lat. Numidae) is simply a Roman mangling of Nomades, so in one sense they're definitely Numidians. That Diodorus lists them alongside Maurusians ("Moors") presumably means he's using it for an ethnicity rather than in the sense of modern English "nomad".

More troublingly, perhaps, he fails to say if they were cavalry.

he very rarely mentions whether contingents were infantry or cavalry. We know that some of the Campanians were cavalry because he mentions the Carthaginians providing them with horses, but otherwise he doesn't even mention whether the Citizen troops included were infantry or cavalry

[Duncan Head]

Yes, Nomades=Numidians. I take the position that they probably weren't cavalry, since this is before we here of Carthaginian armies having any significant cavalry arm.

[Patrick Waterson]

Do we know when the Numidians began to rely on cavalry as their premier combat arm?

[Duncan Head]

Not really. In Diodoros' accounts of Agathokles' campaigns in Africa (c.310 BC) they are pastoral nomads using the familiar tactics of harassment and avoiding contact. I suspect this is the first appearance of Numidian cavalry, but they are not specifically called horsemen, so it's hard to be sure.