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Mauri (from which derives the English term "Moors") was the Latin designation for the Berber population of Mauretania. It was located in the part of Africa west of Numidia, an area coextensive with present-day Morocco and west Algeria.
The term "Moors" refers primarily to the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Moors initially were the indigenous Maghrebine Berbers. The name was later also applied to Arabs.
Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets and ultimately from the Phoenician alphabet.
Berbers, or Amazighs, are an ethnic group of several nations indigenous mostly to North Africa and some northern parts of Western Africa.
Mauri (Μαῦροι) by Strabo, who wrote in the early 1st century, as the native name, which was also adopted into Latin, while he cites the Greek name for the same people as Maurusii (Μαυρούσιοι).[1] The name Mauri as a tribal confederation or generic ethnic designator thus seems to roughly correspond to the people known as Numidians in earlier ethnography; both terms presumably group early Berber-speaking populations (the earliest Tifinagh epigraph dates to about the third century BC).
Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
The Numidians were the Berber population of Numidia and in a smaller part of Tunisia. The Numidians were one of the earliest Berber tribes to trade with the settlers of Carthage. As Carthage grew, the relationship with the Numidians blossomed. Carthage's military used the Numidian cavalry as mercenaries. Numidia provided some of the highest quality cavalry of the Second Punic War, and the Numidian cavalry played a key role in a number of battles, both early on in support of Hannibal and later in the war after switching allegiance to the Roman Republic.
The Berber languages, also known as Berber or the Amazigh languages, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by the Berbers, who are indigenous to North Africa. The languages were traditionally written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh.
Roman period
The Roman Empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–138), showing the location of the Mauri
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome, consisting of large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean sea in Europe, North Africa and West Asia ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus to the military anarchy of the third century, it was a principate with Italy as metropole of the provinces and its city of Rome as sole capital. The Roman Empire was then ruled by multiple emperors and divided in a Western Roman Empire, based in Milan and later Ravenna, and an Eastern Roman Empire, based in Nicomedia and later Constantinople. Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until 476 AD, when it sent the imperial insignia to Constantinople following the capture of Ravenna by the barbarians of Odoacer and the subsequent deposition of Romulus Augustus. The fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic kings, along with the hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire into the Byzantine Empire, is conventionally used to mark the end of Ancient Rome and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
Mauretania Caesariensis was a Roman province located in what is now Algeria in the Maghreb. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea Mauretaniae, in order to distinguish it from neighboring Mauretania Tingitana, which was ruled from Tingis.
Mauretania Tingitana was a Roman province located in the Maghreb, coinciding roughly with the northern part of present-day Morocco. The territory stretched from the northern peninsula opposite Gibraltar, to Sala Colonia and Volubilis to the south, and as far east as the Mulucha river. Its capital city was Tingis, which is the modern Tangier. Other major cities of the province were Iulia Valentia Banasa, Septem, Rusadir, Lixus and Tamuda.
Mauri raids into the southern Iberian Peninsula are mentioned as early as the reign of Nero in the Eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus: "Geryon's meads, a wealthy prize to tempt the fierce Moor's avarice, where Baetis huge, so legends say, rolls downward on his western way to find the shore."[2] The Baetis is the modern Guadalquivir, so this poem implies Mauri raiding into Baetica in the first century CE. Mauri from the mountains beyond the border of the Roman Empire crossed the straits of Gibraltar to raid into the Roman province of Baetica, in what is today southern Spain, in the early 170s.[3] Mauri raided Baetica again in the late 170s or 180s in the reign of Commodus. At that time they besieged the town of Singilia Barba, which was freed from the siege by the arrival of Roman troops from the province of Mauretania Tingitana, led by C. Vallius Maximianus.[4]
The Iberian Peninsula, simply known as Iberia, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is principally divided between Spain and Portugal, comprising most of their territory. It also includes Andorra, small areas of France, and the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. With an area of approximately 596,740 square kilometres (230,400 sq mi)), it is both the second largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula, and by population, after the Balkan Peninsula.
Nero was the last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius and became Claudius' heir and successor. Like Claudius, Nero became emperor with the consent of the Praetorian Guard. Nero's mother, Agrippina the Younger, was likely implicated in Claudius' death and Nero's nomination as emperor. She dominated Nero's early life and decisions until he cast her off. Five years into his reign, he had her murdered.
The Eclogues is a book of Latin poetry attributed to Calpurnius Siculus and inspired by the similarly named poems of the Augustan-age poet Virgil.
By the early Christian era, the byname Mauritius identified anyone originating in Africa (the Maghreb), roughly corresponding to Berber populations. Two prominent "Mauritian" churchmen were Tertullian and St. Augustine. The 3rd-century Christian saint Mauritius, in whose honour the given name Maurice originated, was from Egypt.
The Maghreb, also known as Northwest Africa or Northern Africa, Greater Arab Maghreb, Arab Maghreb or Greater Maghreb, or by some sources the Berber world, Barbary and Berbery, is a major region of North Africa, which consists primarily of the countries Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania. It additionally includes the disputed territories of Western Sahara and the cities of Melilla and Ceuta. As of 2018, the region has a population of over 100 million people.
Tertullian was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. Of Berber origin, he was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity" and "the founder of Western theology."
Saint Augustine of Hippo was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of the Western Church and Western philosophy, and indirectly all of Western Christianity. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Latin Church Fathers of the Latin Church for his writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most important works are The City of God, De doctrina Christiana, and Confessions.
When Aurelian marched against Zenobia in 272, his army included Moorish cavalry.[5] The Notitia Dignitatum mentions Roman cavalry units called Equites Mauri, or Moorish cavalry. Many Mauri were enlisted in the Roman army and were well known as members of the comitatus, the emperor's mobile army, prior to the reign of Diocletian.[6] Jones cites the record of a consular interrogation from Numidia in 320, in which a Latin grammarian named Victor stated that his father was a decurion in Cirta (modern Constantine), and his grandfather served in the comitatus, 'for our family is of Moorish origin'.[7]
Aurelian was Roman Emperor from 270 to 275. Born in humble circumstances, he rose through the military ranks to become emperor. During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war. He also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empire's eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273. The following year he conquered the Gallic Empire in the west, reuniting the Empire in its entirety. He was also responsible for the construction of the Aurelian Walls in Rome, and the abandonment of the province of Dacia.
Septimia Zenobia was a third century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner and she married the ruler of the city, Odaenathus. Her husband became king in 260, elevating Palmyra to supreme power in the Near East by defeating the Sassanians and stabilizing the Roman East. After Odaenathus' assassination, Zenobia became the regent of her son Vaballathus and held de facto power throughout his reign.
The Notitia Dignitatum is a document of the late Roman Empire that details the administrative organization of the Eastern and Western Empires. It is unique as one of very few surviving documents of Roman government and describes several thousand offices from the imperial court to provincial governments, diplomatic missions, and army units. It is usually considered to be accurate for the Western Roman Empire in the AD 420s and for the Eastern or Byzantine Empire in the AD 390s. However, the text itself is not dated, and omissions complicate ascertaining its date from its content.
By the time of Diocletian, Moorish cavalry were no longer part of the mobile field army, but rather were stationed along the Persian and Danube borders. There was one regiment of Equites Mauri in "each of the six provinces from Mesopotamia to Arabia".[8] The Mauri were part of a larger group called Equites Illyricani, indicating previous service in Illyricum.[5]
While many Mauri were part of the Roman empire, others resisted Roman rule. Diocletian's co-emperor Maximian campaigned against the Mauri for two years in the late 290s. This may be the reason why the border legions of northwest Africa were reinforced in Diocletian's time with seven new legions spread through Tingitania, Tripolitania, Africa, Numidia, and the Mauritanias.[9]
In the 370s, Mauri raided the Roman towns of Northwest Africa. Theodosius the Elder campaigned against them in 372.[10] A Moorish tribe called the Austoriani are specified as participating in these raids.[11] According to Jones, who follows Ammianus Marcellinus, the raids into Tripolitania were caused by the "negligence and corruption of Romanus, the comes Africae ... in 372 Firmus, a Moorish chieftain with whom Romanus had quarrelled, raised a revolt, winning several Roman regiments to his side".[12]Theodosius defeated the rebellion, but was executed shortly thereafter in Carthage.
Firmus' brother Gildo, also a Moorish chieftain, joined the Romans and helped defeat Firmus' revolt. As a reward, he was given the post of magister utriusque militiae per Africam, or master of foot soldiers and cavalry for Africa. [13] In 397 he broke his allegiance to the Western Empire, then under the control of the child emperor Honorius and his master of soldiers Stilicho. Gildo withheld the corn ships from Rome and declared allegiance to Stilicho's enemy Eutropius in Constantinople. Eutropius sent encouragement but no troops or money. The Roman Senate declared Gildo a public enemy (hostis publicus).[14]
Gildo had another brother called Mascezel. At some point, Gildo executed Mascezel's children.[15] Because of this, Mascezel helped the Romans defeat his brother's rebellion. With Mascezel's help, a Roman force of 5000 men defeated Gildo and restored control over northwest Africa to the Western Empire. Stilicho then saw to it that Mascezel was eliminated. To replace Gildo, Stilicho put his brother-in-law Bathanarius in charge of military affairs in Africa in 401.[16]
In the late 4th and early 5th centuries, large numbers of troops from the mobile imperial field army (the comitatus) were permanently stationed in Africa to maintain order against the Moors. A.H.M. Jones estimated that out of a total of 113000 men in the comitatus 23000 were stationed in Africa. These troops were in addition to the limitanei, the permanent border armies; but the limitanei were insufficient against the Moors and so portions of the field army were placed alongside them. These troops were, according to Jones, then unavailable for their original purpose, which was to respond to barbarian invasions rapidly and wherever necessary.[17]
In 411-412, the dux Libyarum (commander of Roman forces in Libya) was named Anysius. He is recorded as the commander of a war against the Austuriani Mauri. Synesius of Cyrene praised him for courage and effective management of the war.[18]
In the year 412, the limitanei (permanently stationed border guards) of Cyrenaica needed help to resist attacks by the Austuriani group of Mauri. The Eastern Empire (at that time under regents for the young Emperor Theodosius II) sent a squadron of Unigardi barbarians. Synesius of Cyrene praised these barbarian federates and requested more.[19]
Byzantine period
After the fall of Rome, the Germanic kingdom of the Vandals ruled much of the area. Neither Vandal nor Byzantine could extend effective rule; the interior remained under Mauri (Berber) control.[20] The Vandal army was not a standing army, and under the later Vandal kings (from Huneric to Gelimer), its strength deteriorated. No frontier army was set up to protect against Mauri incursions, so the Mauri encroached on the border areas of the kingdom. As a result, when Belisarius reconquered Africa for the Byzantine Empire in 533-534, he had little difficulty establishing rule over the Vandal kingdom, but his successors had great difficulty controlling the Mauri.[21]
The Vandal king Huneric (477-484) exiled 4966 catholic bishops and priests across the southern border of the Vandal kingdom into Mauri territory.[22] Huneric was an Arian Christian and wanted only Arian clergy in the Vandal kingdom. Exiling catholic clergy to the Mauri was thus Huneric's means of establishing Arian dominance in the Vandal kingdom of north Africa.
Hilderic (523-530) was not able to control Mauri attacks.[23] In 530 he was deposed and replaced with Gelimer. The Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, used this as an excuse for invasion, as he had treaty relations with Hilderic. Justinian's general Belisarius quickly established control over the old Roman province of Africa. The Mauri did not resist Belisarius, but waited for the outcome of the battle and gave their allegiance to the Byzantines when it was done.[23] The Vandals had lost a great deal of the original Roman territory to the Mauri, including everything west of Caesarea. [24] As soon as Belisarius left Africa in 534, the Mauri began raiding again.[25] The general Solomon fought a series of campaigns against them, putting a stop to the raids, until a Byzantine troop rebellion in 536.[25] Following the troop mutiny the Mauri were able to raid again with impunity into Byzantine territory. Solomon was recalled and replaced with Germanus, who pacified the troop rebellion; then Solomon was recalled to fight against the Mauri again in 539.[26] Because of the Mauri war and the troop rebellion, the Byzantines had difficulty collecting taxes from the newly conquered province. [27] Justinian was preoccupied with wars against the Ostrogoths and Persians and was unable to apply many resources to controlling the Mauri, opening the door to further Mauri rebellions in the 540s and later.[28]
Solomon succeeded in establishing Byzantine control over Mauri in Byzantine territory. However, his nephew Sergius invited the chiefs of a local Mauri tribe called the Levathi to a parley, and massacred them in 544. This led to a Mauri uprising, in which Solomon was killed. Justinian gave control of the Byzantine African province to Sergius, but Sergius was incompetent, so Justinian sent Areobindus as general. The Byzantine duke of Numidia, Gontharis, wishing to become king of Africa, supported the Mauri in secret. The Byzantine troops were not being paid on time and were frequently unreliable. Gontharis occupied Carthage and killed Areobindus, only to be killed in turn by an Armenian Byzantine loyalist, Artabanes. Artabanes managed to regain control of the troops. His successor, John, defeated the Mauri revolt in 546-547. Following this defeat there were no more Mauri rebellions until 563, and this one was quickly suppressed.[29]
A.H.M. Jones states that the grave difficulties experienced by the Byzantines in establishing control over the Mauri following the conquest of the Vandal kingdom, were in large part due to a failure to supply enough money and resources to the troops stationed in Africa, and this in turn due to the numerous wars being fought by Justinian elsewhere.[30] The Mauri had taken large areas of land from the Vandals during the reign of the ineffective Hilderic, and the Byzantines never recovered these territories. Within the area of Byzantine control, almost every town was fortified, even far from the border areas. Many towns appear to have been reduced in size as populations concentrated within reduced fortified areas. In some towns the forum was fortified. All this suggests reduced prosperity and population and increased threat of war, most likely with the Mauri.[31] Jones argues that because of the failure to commit enough resources to thoroughly pacify the region, it never contributed more taxes to Justinian's government than it cost in resources to maintain control.[32] However, some Mauri were recruited into the Byzantine armies for service overseas, and at least two African regiments were raised and assigned to Egypt.[31]
A major Mauri revolt against Byzantine rule took place in 569, during the reign of Justin II, in which the praetorian prefect was killed. The following year, the magister militum was killed. In 571 another magister militum was killed. [33] During the reign of the Emperor Maurice, 582-602 there were another two, smaller, Mauri rebellions.[34]
Islamic period
The Byzantine Empire would remain in control of North Africa until the late 600s, when the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb ended Byzantine rule in Africa. After the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, there seem to have been continued Mauri resistance for another 50 years.[35] The Chronicle of 754 still mentions Mauri but by the High Middle Ages the endonym seems to have disappeared, while Christian sources begin to apply the term Mauri, Moors to the Islamic populations of the Maghreb and Andalusia in general.
Revival of the name
The modern state of Mauritania received its name as a French colony in 1903; it was named after ancient Mauretania in spite of its being situated considerably to the south of the ancient province.
↑ οἰκοῦσι δ᾽ ἐνταῦθα Μαυρούσιοι μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων λεγόμενοι, Μαῦροι δ᾽ ὑπὸ τῶν Ῥωμαίων καὶ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων "Here dwell a people called by the Greeks Maurusii, and by the Romans and the natives Mauri" Strabo, Geographica 17.3.2. Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary, 1879 s.v. "Mauri"
↑ Siculus, Calpurnius. "Eclogue IV". Internet Archive eclogues of Calpurnius. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
↑ Richardson, John (1996). The Romans in Spain. Blackwell. p.231.
↑ Richardson, John (1996). The Romans in Spain. Blackwell. p.232.
1 2 Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.57.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.53.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. pp.52–53.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.55.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.59.
↑ Richardson, John (1996). The Romans in Spain. Blackwell. p.292.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.140.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.183.
↑ Jones, A.H.M.; Martindale, J.R.; Morris, J. (1971). Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume I. pp.395–396.
↑ Jones, A.H.M.; Martindale, J.R.; Morris, J. (1971). Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume I. p.396.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.184.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.197.
↑ Martindale, J.R. (1980). Prosopography of the Late Roman Empire, Volume II. Cambridge University Press. p.108.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire. London: Basil Blackwell. p.203.
↑ Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib (Cambridge Univ., 1971) at 27, 38 & 43; Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (Blackwell 1996) at 14, 24, 41–54; Henri Terrasse, History of Morocco (Casablanca: Atlantides 1952) at 39–49, esp. 43–44; Serge Lancel, Carthage (Librairie Artheme Fayard 1992, Blackwell 1995) at 396–401; Glenn Markoe, The Phoenicians, Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2000, pp. 54–56.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.260.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.263.
1 2 Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.273.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.274.
1 2 Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.277.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.278.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.283.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.287.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.293.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.298.
1 2 Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.300.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.300-301.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.305.
↑ Jones, A.H.M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford: Blackwell. p.313.
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