What a fantastic subject this would be for a film. Born a prince of Numidia, in northern Africa, the hero of Andrew Kenrick’s book saw his life capsized when he was barely more than a baby. His father, Juba I, was defeated by Julius Caesar and arranged his own death. Little Juba was paraded through Rome in chains, then brought up in Caesar’s household. The biographer Plutarch summed up the tension in his circumstances when he called him ‘the most fortunate captive ever taken’.

Juba grew up to be a soldier, scholar and explorer. Having personally led an expedition to the Atlas mountains in search of the source of the Nile, he claimed to have found it. It sounds strange now, but there was then a widespread belief that the Nile might originate somewhere in western Africa. Juba thought he found evidence in the form of a valley, with a lake where crocodiles lurked – a sure sign, he felt, that this was where the croc-infested river originated. Moreover, when it rained in those mountains, the Nile was said to rise.

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