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The thirteen-year reign of Alexander III of Macedon fundamentally changed the political and cultural structure of western Asia and North Africa. The Persian Empire, whose rule had extended from the Mediterranean to the borders of India, disappeared and was replaced by a system of competing Macedonian-ruled kingdoms. As a result, the region’s center of gravity shifted westward from its ancient focus in Mesopotamia and southwestern Iran to the shores of the Mediterranean. Equally important, Greek became the language of government and Greek culture became the new elite culture throughout this vast region.

Writing the history of Alexander s brief but remarkable reign is difficult Primary sources are few Of the many accounts written by his contemporaries and the numerous documents issued by his government that once existed only fragments quoted by later writers and a few inscriptions survive Therefore historians depend for their reconstructions on five Greek and Latin biographies ...

Seleucid king of Syria (175–164 BCE), is an important figure in African history because of his involvement with Ptolemaic Egypt during the Sixth Syrian War of 170–168 BCE; although this was only a small portion of his career, it was nonetheless a significant moment in Egyptian history.

Antiochus was the youngest son of Antiochus III ruled 222 187 BCE His date of birth is not known but was around the end of the third century BCE Like many members of the royal families of the Hellenistic East he spent time in Rome in the 180s BCE officially as a hostage This was a typical procedure of the era but it allowed a growing closeness between the Roman elite and eastern royalty and laid the ground for eventual Roman control of all the eastern kingdoms When Antiochus III died in 187 BCE his successor was his son Seleukos IV the elder ...

Kushite king of the Meroitic period was a contemporary of Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy IV and the fifth successor of Arkamaniqo Ergamenes I who was most noted for leading the Kushite expansion and reoccupation of Lower Nubia in the years 205 186 BCE After Ptolemy II s ascent to power circa 274 BCE Ptolemaic Egypt gained control over the long disputed area of Lower Nubia and thereby provoked a retaliatory stance from Upper Egypt and the Meroitic Empire Based on surviving inscriptions it is clear that Arkamani styled himself as a restorer of Meroitic cultural traditions and political supremacy in Lower Nubia He achieved this primarily through two principal activities First he embarked upon an aggressive building campaign in which he continued and completed construction of temples at Philae Kalabsha and Dakka all located in Lower Nubia Second he provided military support to Upper Egyptian nationalists who launched an independence and ...

whose name was translated as “Ergamenes” by contemporary Greeks, was a Kushite king who is considered the founder of the Meroitic period of ancient Nubian history. The transliteration of his name in ancient Egyptian is ir ka imn, which roughly translates as the “the active spirit of Amen.” Arkamaniqo lived during the second quarter of the third century BCE; this assertion is primarily based upon his identification by the Hellenistic historiographer Agatharchides of Cnidus, who wrote that the “Ethiopian king Ergamenes” was a contemporary of Ptolemy II. There are also epigraphic sources that attest to his existence and reign in Kush at his pyramid burial at Begarawiya near Meroe City. His name is in cartouches inscribed in the mortuary cult chapel of this royal superstructure.

Arkamaniqo s pyramid was the first royal burial site in the region of Meroe City this suggests that his rule represented a transitional period ...

was a king of Assyria (668-628 BCE) and conqueror of Egpyt. Between 745 and 705 BCE, Assyria became a conquering imperial power. During the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE), Assyria seized control of Babylon to the south, invaded Urartu to the north, conquered parts of northern and southern Syria, and developed alliances that extended its influence to the borders of Egypt. Following Tiglath-Pileser’s death, his successors—Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal—strived to consolidate and maintain this empire.

By the end of the eighth century BCE Egyptian hostility to Assyria led to its support of revolts against Assyrian clients in Palestine causing Esarhaddon Ashurbanipal s father to invade Egypt in 671 BCE and defeat the Twenty Fifth Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Taharqa 690 664 BCE who came from Napata in Nubia called Kush by the Egyptians and Meluhha by the Assyrians After three battles Assyrian forces captured Taharqa s capital city Memphis ...

king of Mauretania (c. 120–80 BCE), was the first powerful king of Mauretania, the vast region of northwest Africa including everything west of the Muluccha River. The earliest known event of his career is his involvement with the Greek adventurer Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who, after an attempt to circumnavigate Africa, was shipwrecked on the Atlantic coast of Mauretania and ended up at Bocchus’ capital, Volubilis, probably around 115 BC. Although Eudoxus requested financing for further expeditions, Bocchus was not interested in exposing his kingdom to Greek adventurism and planned to exile Eudoxus to an island (perhaps one of the Canaries), but he escaped to the Roman city of Tingis.

In 112 BCE war broke out between Rome and Jugurtha the claimant to the Numidian throne the territory just east of Bocchus dominions Bocchus attempted to remain neutral but was drawn into the war when refugees began showing up at his ...

king of Mauretania (ruled c. 64–33 BCE), a direct descendant (perhaps grandson) of the famous Bocchus I, inherited the eastern portion of the kingdom of Mauretania from his father Sosus around 64 BCE. A cousin (perhaps brother), Bogudes II, ruled western Mauretania from Volubilis. The earliest evidence for the reign of Bocchus II is the arrival in Mauretania of a dispossessed Roman P. Sittius, an investor in African grain who ended up the scapegoat for irregularities in the commodities market, standing trial twice, on one occasion being defended by Cicero. He fled to the court of Bocchus (who had been one of his suppliers of grain) in 63 BCE and became a military commander for the king.

Aside from this glimpse little is known about the the king s early career At some time he mounted an expedition along the Atlantic coast returning with giant reeds and asparagus the former ...

king of the Vandals and Alans was the son of Godagisil d 406 king of the Hasding Vandals and of an unknown concubine Geiseric also spelled as Gaiseric or Genseric this is a Germanic name most likely meaning Spear king ruled his people for almost fifty years and was one of the most powerful men of late antiquity Born into the noble family of the Hasdings in 428 he succeeded his half brother Gundiric who himself had come to power after their father s death twenty two years before Presumably Geiseric was born in 389 at a point in time when the Vandals were still dwelling outside the Roman Empire The Vandals crossed the Rhine in 406 407 passed through and plundered the provinces of Gaul reached Spain in the autumn of 409 and settled there for the next twenty years After the violent death of Gundiric Geiseric became king ...

king of Numidia 88 62 50 BCE was a nephew of the famous Jugurtha and the next to last king of Numidia His father Gauda r 105 88 BCE left his kingdom to his sons Masteabar and Hiempsal II but the former is obscure and ended up ruling little more that a petty principality Hiempsal inherited most of the traditional territory of Numidia south and west of Carthage and was recognized by the Romans as a friendly king This was perhaps the work of C Marius near the end of a long career that had included much involvement in African affairs The recent attacks by Jugurtha had focused Roman interest on Numidia and for as long as this independent kingdom lasted the Romans were to be greatly involved in it There were numerous Italians generally merchants and traders living in Numidia and the collapsing political situation in Rome also meant ...

was the Hellenized (that is, Greek-influenced) king of Numidia, the North African region south and west of Carthage. He was descended from a famous line of indigenous kings, which included Massinissa, his great-great-grandfather, and Jurgurtha, his great-uncle. By the time of Juba I, Numidia had had a long history of involvement with Carthaginian and Roman politics, with a veneer of Hellenization.

Juba first appears in the historical record in 63 BCE when he visited Rome as the agent of his father King Hiempsal II because Roman expansionism had begun to affect Numidia In 146 BCE the Romans had defeated Carthage and had provincialized its territory although some Carthaginian lands had also been given to the Numidian kingdom Yet in the intervening eighty years Roman interests especially mercantile and agricultural ones had encroached on Numidia It was important to King Hiempsal to be closely involved in Rome s activities and thus ...

Numidian king, was the son of Mastabanal and grandson of Massinissa (238–148 BCE). Massinissa became an important ally of the Romans in the final years of their struggle against Carthage and Hannibal (Second Punic War, 218–201 BCE), assisting them in the capture of Syphax, the king of the Masaesyli and a Carthaginian ally. He was rewarded by the Romans with all of the cities and territories he had taken by force, and after his death the kingdom passed ultimately to his son Micipsa, the uncle of Jugurtha (Mastabanal and a third brother, Gulussa, having died by disease). Micipsa adopted Jugurtha and raised him together with his own children, Adherbal and Hiempsal.

Jugurtha hampered by the stigma that he was illegitimate his mother whose name is unknown had been a concubine was nevertheless a young man of great gifts so much so that his nervous uncle tried to get rid of ...

ruler of the West African Soso Empire in present-day Mali, was a central iconic figure in the Sunjata epic. In this story, Kanté is described as a “sorcerer king” and is credited with the acquisition of Mande musical instruments and conquest of pre-Malian Mande chiefdoms. His sister Kosiya Kanté was the mother of Fakoli Koroma, who is claimed as an ancestor by most Mande endogamous blacksmith lineages.

Our knowledge of Sumanguru also known as Sumaworo Sumamuru Sumawolo and other similar names comes almost entirely from oral tradition although his ephemeral kingdom is historical and it is reasonable to assume the existence of the ruler on which this legendary character is based Moreover in the Mande worldview Sumanguru plays a pivotal role in events affecting key historical ancestors and leading up to the founding of the Mali Empire The existence of Sumanguru s kingdom is acknowledged in the Arabic sources including ...

Egyptian pharaoh (c. 338–336 BCE). Historians of ancient Egypt end their accounts of Pharaonic Egypt with the reign of Nectanebo II (360–343 BCE), the last king of the Thirtieth Dynasty, and the restoration of Persian rule by Artaxerxes III. They have good authority for doing so. The Hellenistic Egyptian historian Manetho, whose king lists are the basis of modern Egyptian historiography, also ended his history of Egypt with this king. Nevertheless, Nectanebo II was not the last native pharaoh to rule Egypt before the Macedonian conquest in 332 BCE. That distinction belongs to a king named Khababash, who briefly ruled Egypt in the first half of the 330s BCE.

Khababash is not a familiar figure to ancient historians, as he is not mentioned in either Egyptian or Greek historical narratives. Historians first learned of his existence with the publication in 1871 of the Satrap Stela an inscription recording a ...

king of a pre Islamic Berber Empire encompassing parts of what are now Morocco Algeria and Tunisia who led resistance to Arab attempts to bring North Africa under the control of the Umayyad caliphate in the late seventh century Almost nothing is known of his early life or family history he enters the historical record as a tribal chieftain of the Awraba tribe c 670 CE What is known about Kusaila is recorded chiefly in Arabic sources and much of what is reported about him is considered to be legendary The Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun reported him to be headquartered at what is now Tlemcen Algeria near the Moroccan border while earlier reports placed him in the Aures region near the present day Tunisian border While considered a hero in modern Algeria and a symbol of resistance to foreign occupation he was maligned by some early Arab writers for assassinating ...

king (r. 205–148 BCE) of Numidia, the territory south and west of Carthage, who brought his kingdom from a Carthaginian-allied principality to one of the major powers of the era and began the romanization of North Africa. The sources for his long career are Polybius 14, Livy 25–42, and Appian, Libyka.

Massinissa was educated at Carthage a protégé of the famous Hasdrubal He fell in love with Hasdrubal s daughter Sophoniba who was married to Syphax a rival for the throne of Numidia When the Romans invaded the region in the Second Punic War Massinissa gave Sophoniba poison so that she would not be captured alive He fought for Carthage in the early years of the war commanding a group of cavalry that went as far west as Tingis modern Tangier and then crossed into Spain and was responsible for killing the Roman commander Publius Cornelius Scipio the Elder ...

king of Numidia, a son of the famous Massinissa, ruled Numidia from 148 to 118 BCE. The primary sources for his life are Sallust’s Jugurtha, Appian’s Libyka and Iberika, and Plutarch’s C. Graccus. His father Massinissa died in 148 BCE, at the opening of the Third Punic War. The Roman commander Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus was the executor of his will, an early example of Roman supervision of a royal will and an indication of how entangled Roman and Numidian affairs had become, united in part by mutual animosity toward Carthage. Scipio decided to make Massinissa’s three eldest sons (Micipsa, Gulassa, and Mastanabal) joint rulers. All had probably been educated in Greece and were beneficiaries of their father’s hellenization policy. Mastanabal had been a victor in the Panathenaia in 158 BCE, an event perhaps commemorated in the famous Berber Head from Cyrene now in the British ...

whose name means the one who calls for victory with the help of God, was one of the most influential rulers of the Hafsids, recognized by Mecca as the spiritual leader of the Islamic world, renowned for his military prowess, remarkable building program in medieval Tunis, and his signing of a treaty in 1270 that ended the eighth crusade. His reign made Tunis one of the greatest cities of the Islamic world. He was, to many, one of the most powerful and respected rulers in the Muslim world in the second half of the thirteenth century, a century that saw many calamities for the Dar al Islam (the Abode of Islam). For instance, there was the Mongol invasion and fall of Baghdad, which led to the crushing of the last Abbasid caliph in 1248 and the destruction of Muslim cities throughout the east The origins of the Hafsids however ...

Egyptian pharaoh (r. c. 3100 BCE), is generally accepted as the first king of the united Egypt; he may therefore be equated with the legendary unifier Menes. Ruling between the predynastic age and the First Dynasty, Narmer is assigned to Dynasty Zero.

Late predynastic Egypt was a land of independent town- and city-states. The Fifth Dynasty royal record known as the “Palermo Stone” and the king lists commissioned by the New Kingdom pharaohs tell us that Menes was the first to unite and rule this land. But there is no contemporary evidence to support the existence of King Menes. Instead, archaeology confirms the existence of several influential local rulers including the southerners Scorpion, Iri-Hor, and Ka. It cannot be confirmed that any of these ruled a united Egypt.

The predynastic Narmer Palette recovered from the dynastic temple of Horus at Hierakonpolis and now housed in the Cairo Museum records the ...

king of Meroe, reigned in the ancient land of Kush in co-regency with Queen Amanitore between the end of the first century BCE and the beginning of the first century CE. The chronology of his reign is still uncertain. Scholars, however, agree that he was the restorer of Amun temple B500 in Gebel Barkal, destroyed during the raid in Nubia led by the Roman Prefect Petronius in 25 BCE.

Natakamani is a theophoric name in which the suffix amani represents an evident call to god Amun the supreme lord of the Kushite pantheon The king s name was extremely important to the goals of deciphering Meroitic written texts After the Prussian expedition in Nubia organized by C R Lepsius 1842 1845 spread the news of the existence in Nubia of a mysterious native language many scholars began its study but without success Only thanks to the cartouches of Natakamani and ...

pharaoh of Egypt (r. 610–595 BCE), second ruler of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, came from Sais in the northwestern Delta. Son of Wahibre Psammetichus I, his mother was Mehetenweskhet and his wife Khedebnitirtbint. He had four children: the future king Psammetichus II and three daughters, Mer-Neith-ist-es, Mer-nebty, and Esekhebi.

The main historical sources relative to his reign are the Greek historian Herodotus II 158 159 IV 42 the Old Testament 2 Chronicles 35 36 and the so called Babylonian Chronicle while very few indigenous sources are available Nothing of his life before his accession to the throne is known After his father s death Necho II succeeded him with the name of Wehemibre Necho The first date relative to his reign year one eleventh month day one 18 November 610 BCE comes from a funerary stela of a priest named Psammetichus Other dated information comes from the funerary stelae of the ...