[OT] Troops of Carthage and Numidia?

[Darklance]

Carthage was at one point a colony of the Phoenicians who were I believe white. However, as time progressed would it be likely that the Carthaginians interbreeded with the local population? Would some Carthaginians be black? Or were the locals a lighter skin tone like egypt? The same goes for the kingdom of Numidia which took land from the weakened Carthage after the third punic war. Would they be black?

Another point of interest is what happened in Africa after the fall of Rome? Numidia which seems to have succeeded Carthage was very powerful. Masinissa, its leader settled his nomadic people into cities and set about creating universities, making people learn Punic script...basically Civilizing his people. Eventually this all must of come apart just like in Europe. Did things basically go to a state that the Europeans found it in hundreds of years later?

Just wondering. Thanks.

 

[Fenes 2]

As far as I recall, the North of Africa was never Numidic, but settled by mediterran folks - Egyptians, Arabs etc. - and it was always a very civilized region. After the fall of Rome I think there was a strong vandall influence, but pretty soon the islam conquered North Africa.
Do not confound Central (Black) Africa with North Africa, the regions, races and cultures are vastly different.

 

[Darkness]

You might want to ask that question in SHARK's reading group thread; there are probably a lot of people in that thread who are interested in this particular period of history.

Anyway, I believe that the Phoenicians were a Semitic people. And so, they quite possibly were of a slightly darker complexion...

 

[sword-dancer]

Marius and Sulla crushed the numidians under Jugurtha, and made North Africa a roman province.

North Africa, Carthago and co was invaded from Spain from the vandals, they crushed a Constantionopel counter invasion.

Later the Bycantean magister militium Belisar invaded North Africa and broke the might of the vandals.

King Gelimer was brought in Triumph through the Gates of Constantinopel.

Does the Things go apart:
No, the Vandals overtook the cities and such they didn`t destroy the cities.

 

[Tonguez]

Firstly the Phoenicians weren't white (what ever that is)- they were Semitic- their ancestors were the biblical Amorites (also Arabs, Hebrews and Abbysinians are all Semites and range from oliveskinned to 'black').

Second the peoples of Ancient Egypt (Kemites)were closely related to the Nubians and were 'black' the later Hittite and the greek invasions/contacts caused skins to become fairer (brown as it were)

The Numidians were descendents of these brown skinned african/semites as were the carthaginians and the berbers et al

Anyway as to what happened in Africa after the fall of rome

No it didn't collapse like in Europe instead the Islamic empires moved in

ie it was Byzantium which initially moved in to claim Nth Africa however by 642 Arabs had conquer Egypt and in 707 Musa ibn-Nusayr captures Tangiers and is made governor of North Africa

We later see development of the African Kingdoms (Ghana, Songhai, Kanem Boru et al.)