How did the Numidians come to be known as such great cavalry...

It was all relative for the Romans. The Numidians were probably the first semi-nomadic people they ever met, and when compared to the more settled people the Romans knew the Numidians seemed vastly superior horsemen.

>And why are there no horse societies in the region today?
Cars exist, and where they have trouble a camel will do better anyway.

Arab Bedouin tribes famously fucked the area up and turned it into a massive dustbowl.

Because you are wrong, they were a horse people with huge amounts of horses, small hardy but fast.

For The Romans Germanic horsemen were shit tier, despite Germanics being notoriously the direct descendants of the first horse tamers

>The Numidians were probably the first semi-nomadic people
Certain Gaulish and German tribes were "semi-nomadic."
Also everyone in this thread is forgetting that the Thessalians were considered the finest horsemen of the civilised world. Horsemanship was nothing new to the Romans.

Is Bedouin a race or something?

I'm confused: they speak arabic and look arabic.

They're a distinct people with their own cultures and customs that aren't shared with other Arabs, like how the Romans were Roman despite belong to the broader group of Latins.

They are Arabs.

Bedouin is from the Arabic word meaning "desert dweller."

Arabs knew their people were split between sedentary cunts and nomadshits.

They are Arabs. The only difference is that while most Arabs took up the sedentary, urban patterns of the people that they conquered, Bedouins continued their nomadic, tribal barbaric ways and ended up trashing North Africa and parts of the Middle East.

This. The Barb horse (also known as the Berber) is one of the most influential breeds of horses when it comes to racing after the Arabian.

>North Africa used to be a vibrant and fertile land
>Angry fucking Bedoin tribes in Arabia gets kicked out by the Muslims
>They rampage across North Africa fucking shit up
>The Magrehbi were one of the tribes are now make up a significant part of the population
Something like that, my history of arabs is a little lacking desu.
Probably because the Germans were less civilized and therefore harder to control and utilize. The Numidians lived on the outskirts of Carthage and therefore interacted with a very advanced and developed culture. Germans meanwhile only interacted with the Celtic tribes, which were less consolidated and did not have as advance a culture as the Romans/Carthage.

He also wrote about India and Yemen, two very exotic and unknown ages centuries after him. He also wrote about what he called Hiperborea, a place that would be in north russia if it even existed. Writing about something doesn't mean there's significant exposition. Just saying since scythian mercenaries did exist in Greece before Rome was relevant, which doesn't mean the greek aristocrats that used them gave a fuck about the culture of their paid dogs.

Because they had a warrior aristocracy and except for some significant exceptions (Sparta) warrior aristocracies are cavalry or are least go to the battle mounted. It doesn't matter if neighbouring warrior aristocracies also mount and are better at it. Keep in mind that romans wouldn't recruit unskilled peasants as auxiliaries.

Beduin = arab nomad, basically. Due to the extreme conditions of their homeland, arabic nomads have quite important cultural features not totally shared by others. But this happens everywhere, your means of survival (and therefore the place you live in) always influences your lifestyle and culture. In this case an extreme situation causes a (relatively) extreme difference.

Note: Since arab culture is clanic and tribal, this means that you don't become a beduin by becoming nomad just because you wanted to. But this is because you're not expected to be an individualist shit, you're expected to continue what your family does.

NUMIDIANS AREN'T FUCKING BLACK.

If you've studied history, the horse spread from the steppes, through Egypt and into the Sahel.

fuck you, Hannibal is the best

Horses aren't for everyone. Camels are for a wider amount of people. Goats and sheep are for turbo-plebs, only above settlers. At least this is how it was among arabs. I doubt it's very different among tuaregs and other traditional berbers. Owning horses isn't for plebs, not even in what you (or OP) considers traditional horse people in the steppe. Even less in very arid places were feeding them is relatively difficult.

>Angry fucking Bedoin tribes in Arabia gets kicked out by the Muslims
they werent kicked out, they just spread in lands conquered by other arabs, it happened in the arab era

>hating on goats and sheep

motherfucker I am Greek

Dude in the OP doesn't look that black to me, just brown like most people in the region.

also

>using ancient coins as an accurate marker for appearances
>assuming the ethnicity of the ruling class reflects the ethnicity of the average pleb

Herodotus was neither Roman nor Carthaginian. He was from Greece, much farther east and closer to the lands Scythians might have entered. And even he probably never met one himself.

Coincidentally Bedawi is also one of the names used to refer to the 'Beja' people who are also nomadic. Somewhat of a fuzzy categorization/distinction there.

I concur with this user's opinion.
The art reminds me of how Egyptians and sometimes Libyans in Ostrey books are depicted, which makes sense.

Nah, many tribes were kicked out of Arabia because they were being angry fucking shitters and wouldnt stop causing havoc.

>e was from Greece, much farther east and closer to the lands Scythians might have entered. And even he probably never met one himself.

There were actually quite a few Scythians wandering about in wealthier Greek lands. Herodotus went to Athens many times in his life and Athens had a state owned group of Scythian archer slaves used as a riot police.

According to Wikipedia Scythians went as far afield as china for mercenary work.

>For The Romans Germanic horsemen were shit tier
Julius Caesar famously had great usage of his mercenary germanic horsemen of who he was quite impressed.

their descendants are not bedouin, but berbers of algeria, and the horse people in the sahara are tuareg, who are probably more related to groups like the garamantes

maghreb is what arabs call nw africa, it means something like west in their language, and i think you are thinking of the banu sulaym and hilal tribes who were pushed by berber dynasties into the western sahara and became the sahrawi, also german and celt cavalry was used by the romans extensively, as someone above said german horse was famously used by caesar in his conquest of gaul, and celtic auxiliaries were one of the few parts of crassus' army to perform well against the parthians at carrhae

just look at images of algerian berbers for an accurate picture of what numidians wouldve looked like, a lot of the traditional clothing looks remarkably similar to ancient libyan and numidian attire

As it turns out, the "scythians" may have just been Athenians dressed and armed in a certain way, at least after the initial corp was hired.