Kingdom of the Aurès
Kingdom of the Aurès Regnum Aurasium | |||||||||
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c. 484–703 | |||||||||
Dihya | |||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||
• Separation from the Western Roman Empire | 429 | ||||||||
• Death of the vandal king Huneric | 484 | ||||||||
703 | |||||||||
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Today part of | Algeria | ||||||||
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History of Algeria |
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The Kingdom of the Aurès (
Much like the larger
Despite these hostilities, the Byzantines supported Aurès during the Muslim invasion of the Maghreb, hoping that the kingdom could act as a resistance to the Arabs. The final Queen of the kingdom, Dihya, was the final leader of the Berber resistance against the Arabs, which ended with her death and the fall of the Kingdom of the Aurès in 703 AD.
History
Establishment
According to the Eastern Roman historian
As the new Berber kingdoms adopted the military, religious and sociocultural organization of the Roman Empire, they continued to be fully within the Western Latin world. The administrative structure and titulature used by the Berber rulers suggests a certain romanized political identity in the region.[3] This Roman political identity was maintained not only in the large Mauro-Roman Kingdom but in smaller kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of the Aurès, where King Masties claimed the title of Imperator during his rule around 516 AD, postulating that he had not broken trust with either his Berber or Roman subjects.[4]
Masties had established a realm in Numidia and the Aurés Mountains, with the Arris as his own residence, and used Imperator to legitimize his rule over the Roman provincials, also openly declaring himself a Christian during his rebellion against Huneric. According to his own 516 AD inscription, Masties had reigned for 67 years as a dux, and 10 years as Imperator up until that point.[5][6]
The Vandalic War and its aftermath
Byzantine records referring to the Vandal Kingdom, which had occupied much of the old Roman province of Africa and coastal parts of Mauretania, often refer to it with regards to a trinity of peoples; Vandals, Alans and Moors, and though some Berbers had assisted the Vandals in their conquests in Africa, Berber expansion was more often than not focused against the Vandals rather than with them, which would lead to some expansion of even the smaller local kingdoms, such as the Aurès.[7]
Following the Byzantine re-conquest of the Vandal Kingdom, the local governors began to experience problems with the local Berber tribes. The province of
Though the
Wars against the Arabs
Despite previous hostilities, the Byzantine Empire supported the Kingdom of the Aurès during the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, hoping that the kingdom would act as resistance to the Arabs.[12] Even with the fall of the Mauro-Roman kingdom in the 570s, its capital of Altava appears to have somewhat remained a seat of Berber power. The Altavan king Kusaila, the last Berber king to rule from Altava, died fighting against the Umayyad Caliphate. At the Battle of Mamma in 690 AD, a combined Byzantine-Altavan army was defeated and Kusaila was killed.[13]
With the death of Kusaila, the torch of resistance passed to a tribe known as the Jerawa tribe, who had their home in the
List of known kings and queens of the Aurès
Monarch | Reign | Notes |
---|---|---|
Masties | c. 484 – c. 516 | Founded the kingdom following a revolt against the Vandal king Huneric. Claimed the title Imperator.[5][6] |
Iabdas
|
c. 516 – 539 | Led a short-lived conflict against the newly re-conquered Byzantine North Africa.[8][9] Fled to Mauretania following his defeat at the hands of the Byzantines in 539 AD.[15] |
Dihya
|
c. 668 – 703 | Ruling Queen. The final ruler of Aurès and the romanized Berbers. Said to have ruled for 35 years, ruler of the entire Berber resistance from 690 AD onwards.[13] |
References
Citations
- ISBN 9780860781172.
- ^ Procopius.
- ^ Conant 2012, p. 280.
- ^ Rousseau 2012.
- ^ a b Merrills & Miles 2009, pp. 127–128.
- ^ a b Modéran 2003.
- ^ Wolfram 2005, p. 170.
- ^ a b Martindale 1992, p. 1171.
- ^ a b c Bury 1958, p. 143.
- ^ Grierson 1959, p. 126.
- ^ Martindale 1992, p. 1172.
- ^ a b Rubin 2015, p. 555.
- ^ a b c Talbi 1971, pp. 19–52.
- ^ Julien & Le Tourneau 1970, p. 13.
- ^ Raven 2012, pp. 213–219.
Sources
- Bury, John Bagnell (1958). History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, Volume 2. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-20399-9.
- Conant, Jonathan (2004). Literacy and Private Documentation in Vandal North Africa: The Case of the ISBN 0-7546-4145-7.
- Conant, Jonathan (2012). Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107530720.
- Grierson, Philip (1959). "Matasuntha or Mastinas: a reattribution". The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society. 19: 119–130. JSTOR 42662366.
- Julien, Charles André; Le Tourneau, Roger (1970). Histoire de L'Afrique du Nord (in French). Praeger. ISBN 9780710066145.
- Martindale, John Robert (1992). ISBN 978-0521201599.
- Merrills, Andrew; Miles, Richard (2009). The Vandals. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1405160681.
- Modéran, Yves (2003). Les Maures and l'Afrique romaine. 4e.–7e. siècle (= Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, vol. 314) (in French). Rome: Publications de l'École française de Rome. ISBN 2-7283-0640-0.
- Procopius (545). "Book III–IV: The Vandalic War (pts. 1 & 2)". History of the Wars.
- Raven, Susan (2012). Rome in Africa. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415081504.
- Rousseau, Philip (2012). A Companion to Late Antiquity. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-405-11980-1.
- Rubin, Barry (2015). The Middle East: A Guide to Politics, Economics, Society and Culture. Routledge. ISBN 978-0765680945.
- Talbi, Mohammed (1971). Un nouveau fragment de l'histoire de l'Occident musulman (62–196/682–812): l'épopée d'al Kahina (in French). Cahiers de Tunisie vol. 19. pp. 19–52.
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: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Wolfram, Herwig (2005). The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520244900.