In His Reign, The Moors Of This
Country Were Induced To Revolt By A Numidian Named _Tacfarinas_, Who
Had Served In The Roman Army, And Who, At The Head Of A Set Of
Barbarians Accustomed To Every Species Of Robbery, Assisted The Revolt
He Had Excited.
After a variety of successes and defeats, they were completely routed
by _Dolabella_, the Roman General, and a body
Of Mauritanians sent to
his assistance by _Ptolemy_, This conquest contributed to establish
peace for a short time in these provinces; but at the death of
_Ptolemy_ (who was treacherously cut off by _Caius_), they again
revolted, when _Claudius_ first fixed a Roman army in _Mauritania_.
His generals, though not without difficulty, succeeded in restoring
tranquillity, which scarcely met with any interruption till the latter
end of the fifth century, when the declining state of the Roman power
favoured another revolt, in which the Moors entirely shook off the
yoke of the Romans, assisted by the Vandals, under _Genseric_, who
overran Africa, and obtained possession of most of the maritime
towns. The Vandals were expelled in the seventh century by the
Saracens, under the Caliphs of Bagdad, a ferocious and warlike race of
Arabs, who, from conquest to conquest, had extended and removed their
seat of government from Medina to the city of Damascus; thence to
_Cufa_, and from the latter place to _Bagdad_; where they established
their Caliphate authority.
Flushed with their success, and burning with the hopes of plunder, in
the conquest of countries more fertile and richer, but less warlike
than their own, they extended their arms as far as the western
_Mauritania_. This country then remained for some time subject to the
Caliphs of Bagdad, and was governed by their lieutenants, a set of
cruel, arbitrary, and rapacious men.
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