Mauretania

Mauretania, region of ancient North Africa corresponding to present northern Morocco and western and central Algeria north of the Atlas Mountains.

Its native inhabitants, seminomadic pastoralists of Berber stock, were known to the Romans as the Mauri (i.e., Moors) and the Massaesyli. From the 6th century bce the Phoenicians and Carthaginians also settled at points along the coast. The Massaesyli became part of Masinissa’s Numidian kingdom in 203 bce, after the defeat of their ruler Syphax, who had been an ally of Carthage against Rome. Beginning in the late 2nd century bce, the kings of Mauretania became Roman vassals. Under the emperor Claudius (about 44 ce), the area was annexed to Rome and divided into two provinces: Mauretania Tingitana, with its capital at Tingis (modern Tangier); and Mauretania Caesariensis, with its capital at Caesarea (modern Cherchell, Algeria). Roman influence was mostly confined to the coast, and Rome ruled much of the province’s vast interior through local chieftains. Mauretanians made effective light cavalrymen in the Roman legions, however.

In the late 3rd century another province, Sitifensis, was formed out of the eastern part of Caesariensis. When the Vandals arrived in Africa in 429, much of Mauretania became virtually independent. Christianity had spread rapidly there in the 4th and 5th centuries but was extinguished when the Arabs conquered the region in the 7th century.