ABSTRACT
Juba II was descended from a long line of distinguished ancestors who had been involved in Roman politics for nearly two hundred years prior to his accession to the throne of Mauretania. The family tree can be constructed for at least seven generations before Juba,1 starting with the tribal chieftain Zilalsan, born perhaps around 300 BC.2 The family was famous and talented, producing a variety of scholars and political and cultural leaders, attached first to Carthaginian interests and then to Roman, with an increasing amount of Hellenism. This impressive ancestry was certainly a factor in Caesar’s decision to save young Juba, and that of Augustus to make him king of Mauretania.
