king of Numidia and Mauritania. He had succeeded his father Hiempsal, and he favoured the cause of Pompey against Julius Caesar. He defeated Curio whom Caesar had sent to Africa, and after the battle of Pharsalia he joined his forces to those of Scipio. He was conquered in a battle at Thapsus, and totally abandoned by his subjects. He killed himself with Petreius, who had shared his good fortune and his adversity, in the year of Rome 727. His kingdom became a Roman province, of which Sallust was the first governor.

Juba II, son of the former, was led among the captives to Rome to adorn the triumph of Cæsar. His captivity was the source of the greatest honours, and his application to study procured him more glory than he would have obtained from the inheritance of a kingdom. He gained the hearts of the Romans by the courteousness of his manners, and Augustus rewarded his fidelity by giving him in marriage Cleopatra the daughter of Antony, and conferring upon him the title of king, and making him master of all the territories which his father once possessed, in the year of Rome 723. His popularity was so great, that the Mauritanians rewarded his benevolence by making him one of their gods. The Athenians raised him a statue, and the Ethiopians worshipped him as a deity. Juba wrote an history of Rome in Greek, which is often quoted and commended by the ancients. Of it only few fragments remain. He also wrote on the history of Arabia, and the antiquities of Assyria, chiefly collected from Berosus. Besides these, he composed some treatises upon the drama, Roman antiquities, the nature of animals, painting, grammar, &c., now lost.

Jubilee, among the Jews, denotes every fiftieth year; being that following the revolution of seven weeks of years; at which time all the slaves were made free, and all lands reverted to their ancient owners. The jubilees were not regarded after the Babylonian captivity. —The word, according to some authors, comes from the Hebrew, jobel, which signifies fifty; but this must be a mistake, for the Hebrew יובל, jobel, does not signify fifty; neither do its letters, taken as cyphers, or according to their numerical powers, make that number; being 10, 6, 2, and 30, that is, 48. —Others say, that jobel signifies a ram, and that the jubilee was thus called, because proclaimed with a ram's horn, in memory of the ram that appeared to Abraham in the thicket. Masius chooses to derive the word from Jubal, the first inventor of musical-instruments, which for that reason, were called by his name; whence the words jobel and jubilee came to signify the year of deliverance and remission, because proclaimed with the sound of one of those instruments which at first was not more than the horn of a ram. Others derive jobel from יובל, jobel in hiphil יובל, jobel, which signifies to recall or return; because this year restored all slaves to their liberty, &c. The institution of this festival is in Lev. xxv. 8, 17.

The learned are divided about the year of jubilee; some maintaining that it was every forty-ninth, and others that it was every fiftieth year. The ground of the former opinion is chiefly this, that the forty-ninth year being of course a sabbatical year, if the jubilee had been kept on the fiftieth, the land must have had two sabbaths, or have lain fallow two years, which, without a miracle, would have produced a dearth. On the other hand, it is alleged, that the Scripture expressly declares for the fiftieth year, Lev. xxv. 10, 11. And besides, if the jubilee and sabbatical year had been the same, there would have been no need of a prohibition to sow, reap, &c., because this kind of labour was prohibited by the law of the sabbatical year, Lev. xxv. 4, 5.

The authors of the Universal History, book i. chap. 7, note R, endeavour to reconcile these opinions, by observing, that as the jubilee began in the first month of the civil year, which was the seventh of the ecclesiastical, it might be said to be either the forty-ninth or fiftieth, according as one or other of these computations was followed. The political design of the law of the jubilee was to prevent the too great oppressions of the poor, as well as their being liable to perpetual slavery. By this means a kind of equality was preserved through all the families of Israel, and the distinction of tribes was also preserved, that they might be able, when there was occasion, on the jubilee-year, to prove their right to the inheritance of their ancestors. It served also, like the Olympiads of the Greeks, and the Lustra of the Romans, for the readier computation of time. The jubilee has also been supposed to be typical of the gospel state and dispensation, described by Isaiah, lxi. ver. 1, 2, in reference to this period, as the "acceptable year of the Lord."