Pliny the Elder states that the name of the drug was given to it in honor of Euphorbus, the physician of Juba II, king of Mauretania.
She was the widow of Archelaus' brother Alexander, though her second husband, Juba, king of Mauretania, was alive.
Euphorbia regisjubae (King Juba's Euphorbia) was named to honor the king's contributions to natural history and his role in bringing the genus to notice.
There is a particular similarity to the story of Juba in La Calprenède's romance Cléopâtre, who becomes a slave in Rome and is given a Roman name—Coriolanus—by his captors, as Oroonoko is given the Roman name of Caesar.
Juba | Juba II | Middle Juba | Lower Juba | Juba I of Numidia | Stephen Juba | Juba dance | King Juba's Euphorbia | Juba International Airport | Juba Declaration of 8 January 2006 |
After Cato the Younger was defeated by Caesar, he committed suicide (46 BC) in Utica, and Numidia became briefly the province of Africa Nova until Augustus restored Juba II (son of Juba I) after the Battle of Actium.
Further literary evidence, suggesting the deification of Juba II even Ptolemy, is from the brief euhemerist exercise entitled On the Vanity of Idols by the Christian Saint of the 3rd century, Cyprian.