Mauretania
and
Mauritania (
Μαυρουσία, from
μαῦρος, “black”) (Pausan. i. 33.5; viii.
43.3). The most westerly of the principal divisions of northern Africa, lying between the
Atlantic on the west, the Mediterranean on the north, Numidia on the east, and Gaetulia on the
south; but the districts embraced under the names of Mauretania and Numidia respectively were
of very different extent at different periods. The earliest known inhabitants of all northern
Africa west of the Syrtes were the Gaetulians, who were displaced and driven inland by peoples
of Asiatic origin, who are found, in the earliest historical accounts, settled along the
northern coast under various names; their chief tribes being the Mauri or Maurusii, west of
the river Malva or Malucha (Muluia); thence the Massaesylii to (or nearly to) the river
Ampsaga (Wady-el-Kebir), and the Massylii between the Ampsaga and the Tusca (Wady-Zain), the
western boundary of the Carthaginian territory. Of these people, the Mauri, who possessed a
greater breadth of fertile country between the Atlas and the coasts, seem to have applied
themselves more to the settled pursuits of agriculture than their kindred neighbours on the
east, whose unsettled warlike habits were moreover confirmed by their greater exposure to the
intrusions of the Phœnician settlers. Hence arose a difference, which the Greeks
marked by applying the general name of
Νομάδες to the tribes
between the Malva and the Tusca; whence came the Roman names of Numidia for the district, and
Numidae for its people. (See
Numidia.) Thus
Mauretania was at first only the country west of the Malva, and corresponded to the later
district of Mauretania Tingitana, and to the modern empire of Morocco, except that the latter
extends further south; the ancient boundary on the south was the Atlas.
The Romans first became acquainted with the country during the war with Iugurtha in B.C.
106. From 106 to 33 the kingdom of Mauretania was increased by the addition of the western
part of Numidia, as far as Saldae, which Iulius Caesar bestowed on Bogud, as a reward for his
services in the African war. A new arrangement was made about 25, when Augustus gave
Mauretania to Iuba II., in exchange for his paternal kingdom of Numidia. Upon the murder of
Iuba's son, Ptolemaeus, by Caligula (A.D. 40), Mauretania became finally a Roman province, and
was formally constituted as such by Claudius, who added to it nearly half of what was still
left of Numidia—namely, as far as the Ampsaga, and divided it into two parts, of
which the western was called Tingitana, from its capital Tingis (Tangier), and the eastern
Caesariensis, from its capital Iulia Caesarea (Zershell), the boundary between them being the
river Malva, the old limit of the kingdom of Bocchus I. The latter corresponded to the western
and central part of the modern French department of Algiers. These “Mauretaniae
duae” were governed by an equestrian procurator. In the later division of the Empire
under Diocletian and Constantine, the eastern part of Mauretania Caesariensis, from Saldae to
the Ampsaga, was erected into a new province, and called Mauretania Sitifensis from the inland
town of Sitifi (Setif); at the same time the western province, Mauretania Tingitana, seems to
have been placed under the same government as Spain, so that we still find mention of the two
Mauretanias, meaning now, however, Caesariensis and Sitifensis. From A.D. 429 to 534
Mauretania was in the hands of the Vandals, and in 650 and the following years it was
conquered by the Arabs. Its ancient inhabitants still exist as powerful tribes in Morocco and
Algeria, under the names of Berbers, Kabyles, and Tuariks. Under the later Roman emperors
Mauretania was remarkable for the great number of its episcopal sees. See
Chénier, Recherches Historiques sur les Maures (1787);
Gibbon,
Decline and Fall, chapters 41 and 43.
