in Roman games were acquired through trade connections with the Gaetuli. Culture Lifestyle The region of Gaetulia hosted a multitude of climates and thus forced the Gaetulian tribes to adopt several different means of habitation. They are documented living in huts, presumably in the more mountainous, inland portions of Gaetulia and also under the hulls of overturned ships in the coastal regions. The mobility and varying living styles likely contributed to the difficulty of Roman historians to accurately define the Gaetuli in both a political and cultural sense. Sallust and Pliny the Elder both mention the warlike tendencies of the Gaetuli, which is supported by the frequent accounts of Gaetuli invasions. These accounts appear to demonstrate that the Gaetuli did not discriminate in their targets, as they are recorded invaded both Roman territories as well as other Numidian tribes. The Gaetuli frequently intermarried with other tribes. Apuleius references his semi-Gaetulian, semi-Numidian heritage in the Latin novel The Golden Ass (c. 170 CE). Sallust also mentions that the Gaetuli intermarried with the Persians and gradually merged with them, becoming nomads. Economy Given their nomadic nature, the Gaetuli were largely self-sufficient. According to Sallust the Gaetuli would feed "on the flesh of wild animals and on the fruits of the earth." Following the Battle of Carthage (c. 149 BC), Roman merchants were able to increase contact with the indigenous Berber tribes and establish trade. In Deipnosophistae, Athenaeus mentions several desired crops native to the Numidia and Gaetulia regions. The Gaetuli grew and traded asparagus which was "the thickness of a Cyprian reed, and twelve feet long". Roman colonies in Gaetulia primarily exchanged goods with the Gaetuli for murex, an indigenous shellfish on the Gaetulia coastline (used to create purple dye) and for the exotic fauna native to the region, notably lions, gazelles and tigers. In Horace's Odes, the image of a Gaetulian lion is used to symbolize a great threat. The ferocity and great size of Gaetulian lions contributed to their status as a luxury commodity and Rome is recorded to have imported many to Italy. Religion In Roman mythology, Iarbas was the son of a North African god, Jupiter Hammon, and a Garamantian nymph. Iarbas became the first king of Gaetuli. In Virgil's Aeneid, Iarbas falls in love with the Carthaginian queen Dido, but is rejected as Dido prefers the suitor Aeneas. From the period of Late Antiquity until the Islamic