Mauretania, or Maurusia as it was called by Greek writers, signified the land of the Mauri, a term still retained in the modern name of Moors (q.v.). The origin and ethnical affinities of the race are uncertain; but it is probable that all the inhabitants of this northern tract of Africa were kindred races belonging to the great Berber family, possibly with an intermingled fair-skinned race from Europe (see Tissot, _Géographie comparée de la province romaine d'Afrique_, i. 400 seq.; also BERBERS). They first appear in history at the time of the Jugurthine War (110-106 B.C.), when Mauretania was under the government of Bocchus and seems to have been recognized as organized state (Sallust, _Jugurtha_, 19). To this Bocchus was given, after the war, the western part of Jugurtha's kingdom of Numidia, perhaps as far east as Saldae (Bougie). Sixty years later, at the time of the dictator Caesar, we find two Mauretanian kingdoms, one to the west of the river Mulucha under Bogud, and the other to the east under a Bocchus; as to the date or cause of the division we are ignorant. Both these kings took Caesar's part in the civil wars, and had their territory enlarged by him (Appian, B.C. 4, 54). In 25 B.C., after their deaths, Augustus gave the two kingdoms to Juba II. of Numidia (see under JUBA), with the river Ampsaga as the eastern frontier (Plin. 5. 22; Ptol. 4. 3. 1). Juba and his son Ptolemaeus after him reigned till A.D. 40, when the latter was put to death by Caligula, and shortly afterwards Claudius incorporated the kingdom into the Roman state as two provinces, viz. Mauretania Tingitana to the west of the Mulucha and M. Caesariensis to the east of that river, the latter taking its name from the city Caesarea (formerly Iol), which Juba had thus named and adopted as his capital. Thus the dividing line between the two provinces was the same as that which had originally separated Mauretania from Numidia (q.v.). These provinces were governed until the time of Diocletian by imperial procurators, and were occasionally united for military purposes. Under and after Diocletian M. Tingitana was attached administratively to the _dioicesis_ of Spain, with which it was in all respects closely connected; while M. Caesariensis was divided by making its eastern part into a separate government, which was called M. Sitifensis from the Roman colony Sitifis.