The Laguatans: conquerors from the desert

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The Laguatans were a confederation of Amazigh tribes, originally from the Libyan desert. Close to the end of the Roman era, they ravaged the cities of Cyrenaica. They then migrated to Tripolitania, where they defeated the Vandals and established a kingdom in the Nafusa Mountains.

The Laguatan tribal confederation appeared in the 3rd Century. The Laguatans were nomads, originally from the oases of the Libyan desert, to the South of Cyrenaica. One Laguatan tribe, the Mzata, lived even further East, in the Egyptian desert. From their native region, the Laguatans migrated to the West. Roman Emperor Maximian fought them in Tripolitania, which shows that they had already gone so far West by the end of the 3rd Century.

In Tripolitania, the Asturiani Laguatan tribe invaded the Roman territory around 365, from their desert bases South of the province. The Asturiani settled in the Nafusa Mountains, from where they launched raids against the Roman cities in the region.

In the 4th and 5th Centuries, the Laguatans started attacking and pillaging the ancient Greco-Roman cities of Cyrenaica. The region’s inhabitants were powerless in front of these attacks and felt abandoned by the Imperial administration, which took time to defend them. The philosopher and bishop Synesius of Cyrene, who lived at this time, devoted a large part of his career to the defense of Cyrenaica against these attacks, which he saw as a threat for Roman civilisation.

In 411, the Laguatans destroyed Ptolemais, the capital of Roman Cyrenaica. Synesius of Cyrene wrote the Catastasis, a lamentation on the fall of Cyrenaica. Cyrene was abandoned shortly later. Only the port cities of Apollonia (Marsa Susa) – the new provincial capital – Berenice (Benghazi) and Arsinoe (Tocra), were still resisting.

The fall of Ptolemais finally forced the Roman authorities to react. General Anysius intervened and was victorious against the Laguatans, giving Cyrenaica some respite. Synesius of Cyrene, who admired him a lot, wrote several letters to him.

One century later, while the Vandals were dominating North Africa, the Laguatans, led by their chief Cabaon, conquered a large part of Tripolitania, from the Nafusa Mountains to the coast. When the Vandal King Thrasamund wanted to take back those territories, Cabaon defeated him, weakening Vandal control of the whole region.

After the Byzantine reconquest, the Byzantines allied themselves with Laguatan tribes to guarantee peace. In 543, Sergius, the governor of Tripolitania (and the nephew of Solomon, governor of Byzantine Africa), received in Leptis Magna a delegation of 79 Laguatan chiefs who were complaining about the pillaging of their fields by the Byzantines, and had them assassinated. The Laguatans avenged themselves by invading Tripolitania. This incident caused a great revolt of all North African Amazigh against Byzantine domination.

While most Amazigh tribes were Christian, the Laguatans remained Pagan until the 6th Century. The poet Corippus, who was from Byzantine Africa, wrote that they worshiped Gurzil, the thunder god of Amazigh mythology, represented by a bull’s head and described as the son of Ammon and a sacred cow. Despite this, during his campaign against the Vandals, the Laguatan chief Cabaon showed great respect for the Christian worship places and restored those that the Vandals had destroyed.

After the Arab conquest, the Laguatans integrated into Islamic society, and their influence was reduced. Today, the Amazigh of the Nafusa Mountains are descendants of the old Laguatans.