Cd 
CXXXil 
present-day Morocco and was subject to Rome more in name 
than in fact, and the eastern province of Mauretania Caesar- 
iensis comprised what are now called Tunisia and Algeria, 
with Julia Caesarea, the present-day Cherchell, as capital. 
Though the Romans actually occupied only the coast region 
and a portion of the plateaux south of the northern range of 
mountains, they came as far south as Biskra, everywhere 
building roads and bridges and establishing military out- 
posts. The nomadic tribes of the interior of Mauretania, the 
Numidae (from the Greek Nomades), as they were called, 
remained practically independent. When the Roman Empire 
became decadent and inner dissensions weakened its power in 
the conquered provinces held by their legions, a Roman 
general in Mauretania applied for help to the Germanic warrior 
tribe of Vandals, then resident in Spain, and this tribe, follow- 
ing the call for help, helped itself to all there was in the country 
and soon became masters not only of Mauretania, but of 
Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, defeated the Romans everywhere 
and incidentally sacked Rome itself, though less successfully 
than the Romans in the case of Carthage. Their sway over 
the Mediterranean lasted only a century. The tribe was 
gradually exhausted and became absorbed by the population 
of the country, which then fell into the hands of the Byzan- 
tine Empire. Traces of the infusion of Germanic blood into 
the indigenous Berber population are said still to be found in 
eastern Algeria, where fair-haired and blue-eyed Berbers are 
occasionally met with, just as there is a type of man among 
the shepherds in the mountains of northern Portugal which 
recalls the long occupation of the Iberian Peninsula by the 
Germanic Visigoths. 
The Byzantinians, under Belisar, established themselves in 
Mauretania, but did not extend their power to Oran and 
Morocco, which became independent and fell back into bar- 
barism. Under Byzantinian rule, strong fortresses and 
numerous churches were built, only to be swept away a century 
later by another invasion. In the second half of the seventh 
century the irresistible hordes of Mohammedan Arabs pushed 
west over North Africa and made here an end of Christianity. 
The influx of the Arabs drove the inhabitants of Mauretania, 
