When Masinissa died, he had put his kingdom in order, and made Scipio executor of his will. He left his dominions to his three sons, Gulussa, Micipsa, and Mastanabal, whom we are by no means to look upon as having been somewhat like the chieftains of the tribes which now dwell in those countries; for Livy says of Mastanabal, that he had been _litteris Græcis apprime eruditus_. He knew Greek so well, that he wrote it; a fact which shows us how wrongly we deem the Numidians and all such races to have been mere barbarians. Even among the rude Thracians, there can be no doubt that at that time Greek learning was not unknown; we meet with it afterwards even among the Parthians. The civilization of the Greeks had spread very widely, more especially since the fall of the nation. The Numidians, as well as the Libyans, had an alphabet of their own, as one sees from remains which are found in several towns in those parts. Colonel Humbert has discovered over the gate of a city an _inscriptio bilinguis_, Punic and Libyan; in Cyrene, there are inscriptions in three languages, Punic, Greek, and one which is unknown; in the desert of Sahara, among the Tuariks, the travellers Clapperton and Denham have met with an alphabet which is quite distinct from the Arabic. I am convinced that it belongs to the Libyan language, which is spoken in the Canary isles, throughout the whole of the desert and the oases, as far as the Nile and the Barabras in Upper Egypt. Denham[80] is too shallow, to see his way through it; we shall be able to read the Libyan inscriptions when we fully know the alphabet, of which Denham gives one letter. The whole of this matter will one day be cleared up. The Numidian kings likewise had the Carthaginian library given them as a present by the Romans. Gulussa died early, as also did Mastanabal, who left behind him only a son by a concubine, Jugurtha. The Numidian empire, which reached from the borders of Morocco to the Syrtes as far as Leptis and Tripolis, was now in the hands of Micipsa alone. He had two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal. Jugurtha, who had excellent abilities, at first won the heart of the old king; but when the latter discovered in him talents superior to those of his own sons, he became jealous of him, and sent him to Spain, where Scipio was gathering troops together from all parts for the siege of Numantia: there he hoped that he would perish. But Jugurtha was befriended by fortune; and he gained great favour with Scipio, under whose protection he desired to be placed, lest Micipsa should murder him. Many Romans of rank even encouraged him to revolt, and provided him with money, as he had no prospect of coming to the throne lawfully; for after Micipsa’s death, the whole of the kingdom was to be kept together. He now got letters of recommendation to Micipsa, who, taking fright, adopted him, and in his will divided the sovereignty among the three princes, who were to reign together as colleagues.