Arabio

Arabio (or Arabion) was the last independent Numidian king, ruling the western region between 44 and 40 BC. According to Appian, he was a son of Masinissa II and probable grandson of Gauda, who had divided Numidia between his sons in 88 BC. He was of Massylian origin.

The etymology of the name Arabio is unknown, but it is undoubtedly of Semitic origin. It might be the same as that of "Arab" or else derive from the Punic word rab, meaning "leader". The initial A- represents a lkely berberisation of the Punic root. This root is the equivalent of the Numidian root mess, "leader", which is in turn the root of the name of Arabio's father, Masinissa. It was first proposed by the numismatist Jean Mazard in 1955 that Arabio's given name was the same as that of his father and that Roman authors referred to him merely by the Punic form with which they were more familiar. The Numidian and Punic languages belong to the Berber and Semitic branches of the Afro-Asiatic language family, respectively.

During the Roman civil war of 49–45 BC, Masinissa II and his cousin Juba I, ruler of the larger and more powerful kingdom of eastern Numidia, sided with the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius against Julius Caesar. In 46 BC, Caesar and his allies defeated Masinissa and Juba, who committed suicide, at the battle of Thapsus. Arabio managed to escape and join Pompeius' supporters in Hispania. The kingdom of his father was broken up and given to Caesar's allies: the western part to King Bocchus II of Mauretania and the eastern part, including Cirta, to Publius Sittius, a Roman mercenary captain, to be ruled as an autonomous principality. It is possible that Cirta had belonged not to his father's kingdom but to that of Juba.

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