ABSTRACT
When Juba II and Kleopatra Selene took up residence in Iol late in 25 BC, Juba had been a scholar for a decade. Despite his new duties as king, his research did not diminish. He immediately turned his proven abilities toward writing the definitive monograph about his new kingdom, titled Libyka.1
Completed within the next twenty years, certainly before he joined the entourage of Gaius Caesar in 2 BC,2 it was based not only on library research but on an extensive amount of exploration. It established his reputation as a geographer and ethnographer, and was instrumental in persuading Augustus to place him on Gaius’ staff. As Juba struggled with the military and cultural realities of his kingdom, his active scholarly mind began to plan his study of it. Expeditions were sent forth to the remote extremities, including the desert, the offshore and Atlantic islands (Figures 21 and 22), and the Atlas Mountains (Figure 23). His new royal library, consisting of copies (if not the originals) of the Carthaginian state library and as many contemporary Greek and Latin writings as he had been able to obtain before leaving Rome, provided the academic nucleus of this scholarly endeavor. Kleopatra Selene had introduced Juba to her ancestral Ptolemaic traditions,3 and the king himself
