page_title: Kingdom of the Aurès
section_title: Establishment
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of the Aurès / History / Establishment
caption_attribution_description: English: Carthage. Municipal Coinage. Ca 480-533. AE 11mm 4 Nummi. Class II. Struck circa 523-533 AD. Diademed and draped bust left, holding palm / Bar over N over IIII in three lines. MIB I, 20 (Gelimer); BMC Vandals 12 (Huneric); MEC 1, 55.
context_page_description: The Kingdom of the Aurès was an independent Christian Berber kingdom primarily located in the Aurès Mountains of present-day north-eastern Algeria. Established in the 480s by King Masties following a series of Berber revolts against the Vandalic Kingdom, which had conquered the Roman province of Africa in 435 AD, Aurès would last as an independent realm until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in 703 AD when its last monarch, Queen Dihya, was slain in battle.
  Much like the larger Mauro-Roman Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Aurès combined aspects of Roman and Berber culture in order to efficiently rule over a population composed of both Roman provincials and Berber tribespeople. For instance, King Masties used the title of Dux and later Imperator to legitimize his rule and openly declared himself a Christian. Despite this, Aurès would not recognize the suzerainty of the remaining Roman Empire in the East and King Iabdas unsuccessfully invaded the Praetorian prefecture of Africa, established after the Byzantines had defeated the Vandals.
context_section_description: According to the Eastern Roman historian Procopius, the Moors only began to truly expand and consolidate their power following the death of the powerful vandal king Gaiseric in 477 AD, after which they won many victories against the Vandal kingdom and established more or less full control over the former province of Mauretania. Having feared Gaiseric, the Moors under Vandal control revolted against his successor Huneric following his attempt to convert them to Arian Christianity and the harsh punishments incurred on those who did not convert. In the Aurès Mountains, this led to the foundation of the independent Kingdom of the Aurès, which was fully independent by the time of Huneric's death in 484 AD and would never again come under Vandal rule. Under the rule of Huneric's successors Gunthamund and Thrasamund, the wars between the Berbers and the Vandals continued. During Thrasamund's reign, the Vandals suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of a Berber king ruling the city Tripolis, named Cabaon, who almost completely destroyed a Vandal army that had been sent to subjugate the city.
  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. 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.
  Masties had established a realm in Numidia and the Aurés Mountains, with the Arris as his own residence, and used Imperator to legitmize 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.
caption: According to Procopius, the unpopular policies attempted by the Vandal king Huneric (coin pictured) in the late 470s, combined with the fact that the powerful king Geiseric had recently died, prompted large-scale Berber revolts against the Vandals. The revolt of Masties led to the establishment of the Kingdom of the Aurés.
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