Mauretania Tingitana

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Mauretania Tingitana was a Roman province located at nowadays northern Morocco. The province extended from the northern peninsula to chellah (or Sala) and Volubilis to the south and to Oued Laou river to the east.

Its capital city was the city of Tingis, modern Tangier, after which it was named. The major cities of the province included, Volubilis, Lixus and Tamuda.

Mauretania Tingitana served as a supply province for the Romans. It was considered one of the main suppliers of agricultural goods and animals, such as wheat, lions, leaopards which were being shipped toward Rome and Pompeii.

1 History
2 See also
3 External links
4 Sources
5 Further reading

[edit] History

In the first century, after Juba II's son Ptolemy of Mauretania in 40 AD, Emperor Claudius divided the Roman province of Mauretania into Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana along the line of the Mulucha (Moulouya River), about 60 km west of modern Oran, Algeria. ^[1]

The principal exports from Tingitana were purple dyes and valuable woods; and the native Mauri were highly regarded by the Romans as soldiers, especially light cavalry. Clementius Valerius Marcellinus is recorded as governor (praeses) between 24 October 277 and 13 April 280.

According to tradition, the martyrdom of St Marcellus took place on 28 July 298 at Tingis. Since the Tetrarchy (Emperor Diocletian's reform of governmental structures in 296), Mauretania Tingitana became part of the Diocese of Hispaniae (a Latin plural) and hence in the Praetorian Prefecture of the Gauls (Mauretania Caesariensis was in the diocese of Africa, in the other pretorian prefecture within the western empire), and remained so until its conquest by the Vandals. Lucilius Constantius is recorded as governor (praeses) in the mid to late fourth century. The Notitia Dignitatum shows also, in the military organisation, a Comes Tingitaniae with a field army of two legions, three vexillations and two auxilia palatina; Flavius Memorius held this office at some point in the mid-fourth century. However, it is implicit in the sources that there was a single military frontier command for both of the Mauretanian provinces, with a Dux Mauretaniae (a lower rank) controlling seven cohorts and one ala.

The Germanic Vandals, established themselves in the province of Baetica in 422 under their king Gunderic, and from there seem to have carried out raids on Mauretania Tingitana. In 427 the then Comes Africae Bonifacius rejected an order of recall from the Court of the Emperor Valentinian III, and defeated an army sent against him. He was less fortunate when a second force was sent in 428, in which year Gunderic was succeeded by Gaiseric; and Boniface invited Gaiseric into Africa, providing a fleet to enable the passage of the Vandals to Tingis in 429. Boniface intended to confine the Vandals to Mauretania, but once across the straits they rejected any control and marched on Carthage, inflicting grievous sufferings on the Mauretanian provincials.

In 533, the great Byzantine general Belisarius reconquered the former Diocese of Africa from the Vandals on behalf of the Emperor Justinian I. All the territory west of Caesarea had already been lost by the Vandals to the Mauri, but a re-established Dux Mauretaniae kept a military unit at Septem (modern Ceuta); this was the last outpost in Mauretania Tingitana, now an enclave for the coast east of it was abandoned quite far; the rest was united with the now Byzantine part of (V)Andalusia, under the name of prefecture Africa. Most of the North African coast was later organised as the civilian Exarchate of Carthage, a special status in view of the outpost defense needs.

When the Umayyad Caliphs conquered all Northern Africa, replacing Christianity and Paganism with Islam for good, both Mauretanias were reunited in the province of al-Maghrib (Arabic for 'the West', and still the official name of the Sherifian kingdom of Morocco; but also including over half of modern Algeria).

Roman archaeological sites include Volubilis, an administrative center and the site of a palace of Gordius, and Augusta Zilil.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Lacus Curtius - Gazetteer on Bill Thayer's site Mauretania Tingitana: Roman Morocco
Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911: "Mauretania"
Passion of St Marcellus [1]

[edit] Sources

^ Richard J.A. Talberts, Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World - p. 457

[edit] Further reading

J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire
A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, Blackwell, Oxford 1964 ISBN 0-631-15076-5
Pauly-Wissowa (in German)
Westermann, Großer Atlass zur Weltgeschichte (German)