against Carthage, the 203BC Battle of Cirta was a decisive victory for Scipio Africanus. The kingdom remained an independent Roman ally following the destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War, but Roman commercial influence and political involvement grew. When King Micipsa died in 118BC, a civil war broke out between the king's natural son Adherbal and his adoptive son Jugurtha. Adherbal appealed for Roman help and a senatorial commission brokered a seemingly successful division of the kingdom between the two heirs. Jugurtha followed this mediation, however, by besieging Cirta and killing both Adherbal and the Romans who defended him. Rome then prosecuted the Jugurthine War against his reunited Numidian state to assert their hegemony over the region and to secure the protection of its citizens abroad. As Cirta rebuilt in the 1st centuryBC, its population was quite diverse: native Numidians alongside Carthaginian refugees and Greek, Roman, and Italian merchants, bankers, settlers, and army veterans. This expatriate community made it an important business hub of Rome's African holdings, even while it remained technically outside the lands of the Roman Republic. Roman Empire Cirta fell under direct Roman rule in 46BC, following Julius Caesar's conquest of North Africa. P. Sittius Nucerinus was chosen by Caesar to romanize the locals. His men, the "Sittians" (), were Campanian legionaries who controlled Cirta's lands on Rome's behalf. Together with the colonies at Rusicade, Milevum, and Chullu, their Cirta formed an autonomous territory within "New Africa": the Confederatio Cirtense. Its magistrates and municipal assembly were those of the confederation. Cirta administered fortifications () in the High Plains and at the north end of the colonies: Castellum Mastarense, Elephantum, Tidditanorum, Cletianis, Thibilis, Sigus, and others. In 27 and 26BC, the area's administration was restructured under Augustus, who split Cirta into communities () separating the Numidians from the Sittiani and other newly settled Romans. With the expansion of the Roman limes, this colony at Cirta was at the center of the most Romanized area of Roman Africa. It was protected by the Fossatum Africae stretching from Sitifis and Icosium (present-day Algiers) to Capsa on the Gulf of Gabès. Robin Daniel estimates that by the end of the 2nd century, Cirta had nearly 50,000 inhabitants. Cirta in 303 AD was the administrative capital of the newly created Numidia Cirtense, a small province -named from Cirta- made by emperor Diocletian in Roman Numidia in the last years of the