In the two provinces of Mauretania there were at the time of Pliny a number of towns, including seven (possibly eight) Roman colonies in M. Tingitana and eleven in M. Caesariensis; others were added later. These were mostly military foundations, and served the purpose of securing civilization against the inroads of the natives, who were not in a condition to be used as material for town-life as in Gaul and Spain, but were under the immediate government of the procurators, retaining their own clan organization. Of these colonies the most important, beginning from the west, were Lixus on the Atlantic, Tingis (Tangier), Rusaddir (Melila, Melilla), Cartenna (Tenes), Iol or Caesarea (Cherchel), Icosium (Algiers), Saldae (Bougie), Igilgili (Jijelli) and Sitifis (Setif). All these were on the coast but the last, which was some distance inland. Besides these there were many municipia or _oppida civium romanorum_ (Plin. 5. 19 seq.), but, as has been made clear by French archaeologists who have explored these regions, Roman settlements are less frequent the farther we go west, and M. Tingitana has as yet yielded but scanty evidence of Roman civilization. On the whole Mauretania was in a flourishing condition down to the irruption of the Vandals in A.D. 429; in the _Notitia_ nearly a hundred and seventy episcopal sees are enumerated here, but we must remember that numbers of these were mere villages. In 1904 the term Mauretania was revived as an official designation by the French government, and applied to the territory north of the lower Senegal under French protection (see SENEGAL). To the authorities quoted under AFRICA, ROMAN, may be added here Göbel, _Die West-küste Afrikas im Alterthum_. (W. W. F.*) MAURIAC, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Cantal, 39 m. N.N.W. of Aurillac by rail. Pop. (1906), 2558. Mauriac, built on the slope of a volcanic hill, has a church of the 12th century, and the buildings of an old abbey now used as public offices and dwellings; the town owes its origin to the abbey, founded during the 6th century. It is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. There are marble quarries in the vicinity.