『ユグルタ戦争』第17-19章の分析 : 北アフリカ民族誌の視点から

抄録

The arguments about the "libri Punici of King Hiempsal" seem to have entered a new phase with V. J. Matthews' essay. He presents a hypothesis that these books were a part of Carthaginian libraries which were given to the Numidian royal house after the capture of Carthage, and inherited by Hiempsal II. H.-W. Ritter has already criticized this new theory, but his arguments are not very convincing. In this paper, we try to demonstrate, through an analysis of the ideological structure of the so-called "ethnographic" narrative(bell. Jug. 18-19.1) , said to be a summary of the description in the "libri Punici", that the author of the books was Hiempsal II himself or at least a contemporary who shared his political and ideological views. The main grounds for this arguments are as follows : (1) There are various theories concerning the origin of the word 'Numidae'. In the "libri Punici", this ancient author bases his etymologic explanation on the presupposition that 'Numidae' is a Latinized form of the Greek word 'Nomades' ; 'Nomades' is the plural of 'nomas'(roaming). It is well known that the word 'Nomades' became a proper noun for a group of people in Africa after Polybius at the earliest. Therefore, it is most unlikely that the books in question were written before the capture of Carthage, that is before Polybius. (2) In the "ethnographic" narrative we find, an unmistakable tendency of the author to stress the cultural superiority of the newcomers('Medi', 'Persae', 'Armenii')over the natives('Gaetuli', 'Libyes'). The 'Numidae' are a hybrid of the 'Persae' and 'Gaetuli', while the 'Mauri' and a hybrid of the 'Medi', the 'Armenii', and the 'Libyes'. Then, the author begins a type of comparative study of these two hybrid groups, in which he tends to emphasize the merits of the 'Numidae' who preserved their cultural identity in contrast with the 'Mauri' who were degraded by the influence of 'Libyes'. It is remarkable that a passage from Apologia (cap. 24)seems to have exactly the same ideological structure. In that passage, Apuleius mentions Cyrus the Great and thus tries to humilate the Moors hinting that the Numidians are descendants of the Persians, and therefore, the conquerors of the Medes ('Mauri'). All this indicates that the books were written after the unification of the Numidians by Massinissa(c. 193 B.C.) , especially after the Jugurthine War, when the Moors began to form a political unity under Roman protection and thus became a powerful rival of the Numidians. (3) Again in the "ethnographic" narrative, we find that the 'Gaetuli' are thought to be more warlike than the 'Libyes' and, as such, treated with some consideration, barbarous as they are. We know that the Gaetulians became an antagonistic force against the Numidian kings after the Jugurthine War, and Hiempsal II made conciliatory efforts to absorb their leaders into the state apparatus as 'praefecti equitum'. Without doubt such a situation, too, could constitute a strong motive for his writing-or having someone else write-this kind of ethnographic work which asserts the existence of kinship between the Numidians and the Gaetulians.