Rome began exerting increasing control over the region, though, first through traders and advisors and thenparticularly after Thapsusthrough the incorporation of more and more towns and regions into directly administered provinces. Roman settlement at Septem began under Augustus. Caligula assassinated the Mauretanian king Ptolemy in AD40 and seized his kingdom. Claudius organized the new territories in 42, placing Septem in the province of Mauretania Tingitana (administered from Tingis, present-day Tangiers) and raising it to the level of a colony, which gave Roman citizenship to its residents. Wealthy Romans from Claudius's and Nero's reigns are attested in funerary inscriptions found around the Septem basilica.