The accuracy of the description given of them by Ibn Khaldoun, in the fourteenth century, may be verified in a thousand particulars at the present day.
‘From the most ancient times,’ he says, ‘the west country was peopled by this race. They construct their houses either with stone and mud, with reeds and brushwood, or with cloths made of horse-hair or camel’s wool. Those who possess a certain degree of power and govern the others, adopt a nomad life, and wander about with their flocks in search of pasturage. But they never quit the Tell to enter into the vast plains of the desert.
‘They gain their living by rearing sheep and cattle, and reserve their horses for riding and for the propagation of the species. A part of the nomad Berbers breed camels also, thus following an occupation which is ordinarily that of the Arab. The poorer Berbers live off the produce of their fields and flocks; but the higher classes, those who live as nomads, wander over the country with their camels, and lance in hand are as much engaged in robbing strangers as in tending their flocks.
‘Their raiment and almost all their effects are of wool, and they clothe themselves in striped garments, one end of which is thrown over the left shoulder.’[55]
The origin of the Berber name, according to the same author, is as follows:—
‘When Ifrikos, son of Kais, son of Saifi, one of the Himyarite kings or Tobbas of Yemen, invaded North Africa, to which country he gave his name, he was astonished at the strange idioms spoken by the inhabitants, and exclaimed, “What a berbera yours is!” The word berbera signifies a mixture of unintelligible cries, and the name of Berber was ever afterwards applied to designate them.’[56] He further adds that the Berbers of the Aures had previous to this embraced Judaism;[57] certainly, during the domination of the Romans they resigned themselves to the profession of the Christian faith, and submitted to their conquerors, paying without much resistance the heavy taxes imposed upon them. The enormous amount and the magnificent character of the Roman ruins still existing in and around the Aures show how extensive their occupation of the country was. All the fertile plains and valleys must have been appropriated by them, and their hands being as prompt to suppress insurrection as to uphold military discipline, the native races were, no doubt, either entirely assimilated to their conquerors, or driven to mountains and deserts, where even the Roman power was unfelt.
The Vandal invasion, which swept all this away, never penetrated into the Aures, and for a brief period the Berber princes were again permitted to rule their country in peace and quietness. The last Vandal king was Gilimer, and it was in his reign (A.D. 533) that Justinian sent a powerful army under Belisarius to invade Africa. The secretary of that general was Procopius, who has left us a most valuable account of the wars of the Byzantines against the Vandals. In less than six months Belisarius conquered the whole country from Carthage to the Atlantic, and either drove the Vandals out, or forced them to retreat to the mountains, especially the Aures, where their conquerors did not at first dare to follow them.
Belisarius then returned to Constantinople with the captive king in his train, leaving his wisest and most valiant general, the eunuch Solomon, to supply his place. The Berbers soon raised the standard of revolt, and the most formidable chief he had to contend against was Iabdas,[58] who occupied the Aures Mountains. Thither Solomon followed and signally defeated him, compelling him to flee into Mauritania. The conquerors ravaged the country all round the Aures, but they carefully restored the strong places, such as Thamugas, Baghaia, and Theveste. Risings amongst the native races however still continued; and, after a short and brilliant career, Solomon was utterly defeated, and lost his life under the walls of Theveste (the modern Tebessa).
From this moment the power of the Latin race began rapidly to decay. The remnants of the Roman and Byzantine colonies either concentrated themselves in the neighbourhood of a few strongly fortified positions, or retreated to the almost inaccessible mountains now known as Kabylia and the Aures.
At this conjuncture a new conquering power appeared on the scene. Mohammedanism began to extend its conquests beyond Arabia, and when those wonderful expeditions under Abdulla ibn Saad, Moawia ibn el-Hodeidj and Okba ibn Nafa overran the whole of North Africa, they met with but little resistance from the Berbers, who had suffered so cruelly from one set of foreign invaders after another; they regarded the Arabs rather as liberators than conquerors, and willingly embraced the religion of El-Islam and recognised the authority of the Khalifa. These new masters, however, proved even more tyrannical than the old ones, and soon the flames of revolt spread all over the country.