Mauretania

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For other uses, see Mauretania (disambiguation).

Mauretania was a Berber kingdom on the Mediterranean coast of north Africa (named after the Maure tribe, after whom the Moors were named), corresponding to western Algeria, Spain's Plaza de soberanía and northern Morocco. The kingdom of Mauretania was not sited where modern Mauritania lies, on the Atlantic coast south of Western Sahara.

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History

With the rise of the Roman Empire, it became a Roman client kingdom. The Romans placed Juba II of Numidia there as client-king. When Juba died in AD 23, his Roman-educated son Ptolemy of Mauretania succeeded him on the throne, but Caligula killed him in AD 40 and annexed Mauretania directly as a Roman province in AD 42, under an imperial (not senatorial) governor.

Not depriving the Mauri of their line of kings would have contributed to preserving loyalty and order, it appears: "The Mauri, indeed, manifestly worship kings, and do not conceal their name by any disguise," Cyprian observed, in AD 247, doubtlessly quoting a geographer rather than personal observation, in his brief euhemerist exercise on deflating the gods, "On the Vanity of Idols".

In the first century AD, Emperor Claudius divided the Roman province of Mauretania into Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana along the line of the Mulucha (Muluya) River, about 60 km west of modern Oran:

Mauretania Tingitana, named after its capital Tingis (now Tangier; corresponding to that Spanish plaza de soberanía, i.e. sovereing enclave) and northern Morocco
Mauretania Caesariensis, comprising western and central Algeria as far as Kabylia.

Mauretania gave to the empire one emperor, the equestrian Macrinus, who seized power after the assassination of Caracalla in 217 but was himself defeated and executed by Elegabalus the next year.

Since emperor Diocletian's Tetrarchy (AD 293), the country was further divided in three provinces, as the small, easternmost region Sitifensis was split off from Mauretania Caesariensis.

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