THE MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES—FISCHER. 501 
The kingdoms and dynasties of the Merinides in Fez, the Zianites in 
Tlemcen, and of the Hafsides in Tunis (1228) were also essentially 
Berber. The fall of these kingdoms started with their incessant 
civil wars, and disintegration was so rapid in the fifteenth century 
that soon a general state of anarchy prevailed, and the overthrow of 
Tunis and Algeria by the Turks in the sixteenth century thus became 
an easy matter. Only Morocco was able to preserve its individuality, 
and has ever since then been an independent state. 
The flourishing condition of Tunis and a large part of Algeria in 
Roman times must not be forgotten. The Roman soldiers and officials 
were there only in comparatively small numbers. Colonization in 
masses had not taken place and the greater part of the population 
had Phoenician and Berber names, even if somewhat Latinized. 
Whatever developments in culture from that time recognizable now 
are to be ascribed to the Berbers, and give good evidence of the great 
role played by the Berbers in the “Arabic ” period. 
These people offered the Romans a very hard fight before succumb- 
ing. The Arabs first appeared in Tunis in the year 647, but is was 
not until 669 that they fully subdued this country and organized it 
as a province under the name Ifrikia. In 685 Okba was killed by 
the Berber chief Koceila, and the Arabs were completely expelled 
from Ifrikia. Every pilgrim from Biskra visits Okba’s grave in the 
little near-by oasis Sidi-Okba. Koceila established his own dynasty 
at Kairwan, which had been founded by Okba, and united the whole 
eastern Atlas region into one kingdom. [Koceila succumbed in 690 to 
another attack of the Arabs, but the Princess Dina of the Zenata (a 
tribe of the eastern Aures Mountains), commonly known as Kahena 
(Priestess), organized the defense and again drove out the Arabs. It 
is characteristic of the Berbers that a woman should play such a part. 
Other Berber tribes also had women as rulers. 
In 703, however, deserted by the Berbers who were again embroiled 
in civil war, the Princess was overpowered by a fresh onslaught of 
the Arabs. At that time 12,000 Berber warriors were forcibly con- 
verted to Mohammedanism and incorporated in the Arabian army. 
After this many of the Berbers, led on by the booty in prospect, and 
by the cleverness of the Arabs in making their interests identical, 
joined with the Arabs of their own free will. Tarik, the conquerer 
of the Visigoths, was a Berber. 
The Berbers from early prehistoric times have inhabited the Medi- 
terranean countries of north Africa from the Red Sea to the ocean 
and the Canary Isles, although they have been expelled from parts of 
this region and deprived of their language in favor of Arabic, under 
the influence of Mohammedanism, and in other ways are more or less 
Arabicized. They have maintained themselves in the purest condi- 
tion in the mountains, especially those of sequestered and out of the 
