Masties

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Masties (* before 449; † 494 or after 516) was a late antique military leader ( dux ) and Berber tribal prince in North Africa, who possibly claimed the title of Roman emperor .

Life

When the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 2nd half of the 5th century, several small Roman-Berber empires (including Altava ) emerged in the mountain regions of the provinces of North Africa that were not controlled by the vandals . Since the deposition of Romulus Augustus by Odoacer (476) and the murder of the last legitimate Western Emperor Nepos (480) were under this regna the nominal suzerainty of the Emperor Constantine Opel .

The Berber leader Masties established his territory in Numidia with the Arris residence . In order to legitimize his rule with the Roman provincials, after 476 - probably 484 in connection with a Berber rebellion against the Vandal King Hunerich mentioned by Prokop - he possibly accepted the title of emperor and openly acknowledged himself as a Christian. According to an inscription found in Arris, Masties ruled over “Romans and Moors” for 67 years as dux and ten (according to another reading: 40) years as imperator . The reign is thus either 484 to 494 or 476/477 to 516. There is no indication that Masties' “empire” was recognized by Byzantium; from the perspective of the government in Constantinople, the Berber princes were considered usurpers .

Masties is perhaps identical to the Berber king Mastigas mentioned in Prokop, who ruled the former Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis - with the exception of the capital Caesarea , conquered by Belisarius in 533 - during the Vandal War .

swell

literature

  • Jonathan Conant: Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439-700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012, ISBN 978-0-52-119697-0 .
  • Jehan Desanges: Speaking of masties, imperator berbère et chrétien . In: Ktema 21, 1996, ISSN  0221-5896 , pp. 183-188.
  • Paul-Albert Février: Masuna et Masties. In: Antiquités africaines 24, 1988, ISSN  0066-4871 , pp. 133-147 ( digitized version ).
  • John Robert Martindale: Masties. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , p. 734. ( Excerpt (Google) )
  • Andy H. Merrills (Ed.): Vandals, Romans, and Berbers. New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa . Ashgate, Aldershot 2004, ISBN 0-7546-4145-7 .
  • Andy H. Merrills, Richard Miles: The Vandals (= The Peoples of Europe . Vol. 15). John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken 2010, ISBN 1-4051-6068-3 , p. 127 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  • Yves Modéran: De Julius Honorius à Corippus: la réapparition des Maures au Maghreb oriental . In: Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 147, 2003, pp. 257–285 ( digitized version ).
  • Yves Modéran: Les Maures et l'Afrique romaine. 4th-7th. siècle (= Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome . Vol. 314). Publications de l'École française de Rome, Rome 2003, ISBN 2-7283-0640-0 ( online ).
  • Pierre Morizot: Pour une nouvelle lecture de l'Elogium de Masties . In: Antiquités africaines 25, 1989, ISSN  0066-4871 , pp. 263-284.
  • Pierre Morizot: Masties at-il été imperator? In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 141, 2002, pp. 231–240 ( JSTOR 20191555 ).
  • Roland Steinacher: The vandals. The rise and fall of a barbarian empire. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-608-94851-6 , p. 263ff.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Modéran, Les Maures , pp. 398–412; differently Morizot, Masties , p. 231ff.
  2. ↑ See PLRE 2, p. 734 and Modéran, De Julius Honorius à Corippus , p. 274 ; different reading: AE 1945, 97 . In Mauretania Caesariensis , the Berber prince Masuna carried the title rex Maurorum et Romanorum .
  3. ↑ moderan, De Julius Honorius à Corippus , S. 273rd
  4. ↑ PLRE 2, p. 734.
  5. ↑ See Merrills, Vandals, Romans, and Berbers , p. 6.
  6. ↑ See Conant, Staying Roman , p. 280 .
personal data
SURNAME Masties
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late antique Berber prince and usurper
DATE OF BIRTH before 449
DATE OF DEATH 494 or after 516