Altava

Altava was a Roman fort in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis and was named after the invasion of the Vandals about AD 430 the capital of a Roman -Berber small state. The place is now in the area of ​​the city Ouled Mimoun in the north- western Algeria, in the province of Tlemcen.

History

After the Vandals founded their kingdom in the wake of the Great Migration 435/39 in the province of Africa (North Africa), not all Roman territories came under Vandal domination. Several regions in Mauritania and Numidia continued their Roman- Berber coexistence and prevailed as the rest areas of Roman rule, the end of the Western Roman Empire 476, similar to the areas of Julius Nepos in Dalmatia and Syagrius in Gaul. So Altava was at the beginning of the 6th century residence of a king named Masuna, which could be called on an inscription as "King of the Moors and Romans " ( rex gentium maurorum et Romanorum; see also Masties ).

When the Vandal kingdom was destroyed and 533 the Byzantine rule in northern Africa began particularism in North Africa was so far established that local authorities were not willing to submit to the Byzantine emperor. This was also true for the kingdom of Altava. Probably uprisings of the Vandals and the Byzantine soldiers under Stotzas were supported by Altava from. The last time the kingdom of Altava in connection with a campaign of Gennadius, Master of the Soldiers sent by Africam, mentions the 578 Garmules, the ruler of Altava defeated and his small kingdom may be incorporated to the Byzantine Empire. It is also conceivable that the kingdom of Altava lasted until its conquest by the Arabs around 700.

Altava was since late antiquity bishopric, on the titular Altava goes back.