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Bavares
Babar
Barbar
	Babor mountains, territory of the Bavares (named after the Bavares)
Regions with significant populations
	Mauretania Caesariensis
Languages
	Amazigh, Latin
Religion
	Christianity
Related ethnic groups
	Berber

The Bavares (also Babares or Baveres) were a Berber tribe living in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis^[1] between the 3rd and 5th

centuries AD. They are known only from inscriptions. Two confederations with the same name existed: the Western Bavarians, which remained in western Caesarean Mauretania, and the Eastern Bavarians, a short-lived confederation centered on Little Kabylia. There are also other communities that bear the name of the Bavarians in the Saharan Atlas They are sometimes portrayed as nomads and other times as sedentary mountaineers.^[2] Gabriel Camps argues that the name "Berbers" (Latin barbari) does not derive from "barbarian", as usually thought, but from the name of the Bavares.^[3] the Houaras and the Zenetes are the heirs of the ancient Western Bavarians.

Ethnonym

Babar is the Libyan name for the Bavarians, it is romanized in the form Bavares (Babares), this ethnonym is often distorted in sources written as Barbarians, a form that has nothing to do with Barbari (the Barbarians).^[4] The name "Barbarians" has been identified as that of the Bavarians, researchers, historians and archaeologists have favored this approach.^[5] Gabriel Camps has retained the forms Bavaria / Babares / Barbarians.^[6]

The Libyan origin of this name, transcribed in various ways, is confirmed by epigraphy: in a Libyan inscription found in Algeria, the deceased is called BBR. The same name is attested by a Latin-Punic epigraph from Tripolitania where the deceased is described as lul Babar ("of the Babar tribe")).^[6] Latin epitaphs found in Algeria make it possible to identify the following cognomina: Baberius (Baverius) attested at Theveste and Thubursicum Bure and Barbarus well attested as a cognomen in various places in the province of Numidia.

Nowadays, a commune in the wilaya of Khenchela is called Babar and is located not far from Ras Babar and at the sources of the Bedger wadi also called the Beni Barbar wadi.^[6] The Libyan name Babar is found in the Arabized ethnonym Beni Babar/ Beni Barbar. Documented by sources from the modern period, this ethnonym has been dispersed in three settlement areas located in ancient Numidia: the eastern Aurès (mainly the Chechar massif), the Tafrent located north-east of Mascula (Khenchela) and a region north of Madouros (M'daourouch).^[6] The term Bavare may also come from Houaras^[7]

Location

Two confederations of the same name existed in Caesarean Mauretania: the Western Bavarians, which remained in western Caesarean Mauretania for centuries, and the Eastern Bavarians, a short-lived confederation centered on the Babors and Gergur.^[1] They were two homonymous groups, perhaps with a distant common origin, but probably separated since at least Protohistory and therefore evolving independently of each other.^[8]

The epigraphic documentation indicating the Bavarians sometimes in the western part of Caesarean Mauretania, sometimes in Numidia, suggests a very vast territory and field of action.^[5] The Eastern Bavarians occupied an area mainly in Setifian Mauretania, while the territorial limits of the Western Bavarians were located between the mountains of Trara, and Dahra and Ouarsenis. The two confederations bring together several people.^[5]

The Bavarians were inside the Roman limes, the various conflicts and insurrections stemmed from the occupation of space and the control of the deferential geographical areas.^[5] The Bauares Transtagnenses (Latin qualifier meaning "beyond the marshes"), are located beyond the Chott ech Chergui in the Djebel Amour.^[8]

There is another community, the Zabarbar or Zababari (Beni Babar/ Beni Barbar) in the Aurès who have crossed the centuries, from Antiquity to the present day who also existed south west of Cirta the capital of Numidia, preserving their territory-refuge in the Djebel Chechar. They were transhumant mountaineers whose Romanization and Christianization were relatively late.^[6] They call themselves "Zenetes" according to a tradition collected among them by Masqueray and Allegro.^[6]

History

The Bavarians are mainly known from Roman epigraphic and literary documents of the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries. The documents refer to them either as semi-nomadic mountain populations or as sedentary populations. The Western Bavarians formed, in the Ouarsenis and the Oran, a great confederation, attested from the beginning of the third century to the end of the fourth century.

The first trace that can be dated to the reign of Severus Alexander is an inscription relating to a colloquium between a Roman legate and a Baquate prince after a Roman victory. The dissolution of Legio III Augusta in 238 had left enough room for the tribes resistant to Roman hegemony. The rebels pushed on to the Numido-Mauretanian borders, where fighting is reported and where treasures were buried.

The Bavare danger was particularly great in Mauretania Caesariensis. The Eastern Bavarians led the great Mauretanian uprisings between 253 and 298,^[9] but they remained confined by Roman power in their mountains and cut off from the plain. They then decided to form a coalition with other peoples. The Romans won several battles but were unable to completely overcome the Bavarian threat, both in Mauretania and Numidia. The revolts spread among the Bavarians of southern Orania, mentioned by unpublished inscriptions discovered in the region of El Bayadh. There were also Bavarians behind Firmus during the uprising of the third century.

An example allows us to grasp the situation of the Bavarians in the fourth century: the city of Altava, which was composed of sedentary Bavarian populations, with Roman names but peregrine institutions at a time when Romanization seems to be fading in the region. The Western Bavarians make up part of the population of the kingdom of Jeddar. Some of Masuna's subjects must have been Bavarians as well.^[9]

During the third^century, one of the gentes of the eastern confederation momentarily supplanted the main gens, that of the Ucutamani (Kotama), who exercised primacy over the whole federation. The gens Bavare, which gave its name to the federation, had to be exhausted by insurrections and after the Firmus War, the Ucutamani regained their preponderance in the fourth century. Under the name of Kotama, they play the main role in the establishment of the Fatimid empire.^[1]

In Orania and in the region of Tlemcen, called in the Middle Ages "bilād Zanāta", the Houaras and the Zenetes are the heirs of the ancient Western Bavarians.^[6] Indeed, the collective or "federative" name of the Babari would have been eclipsed first by that of the Avars (attested in the fifth century), then by that of the Zanenses (Zenetes) in the seventh century.^[6]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Camps, G. (1991-04-01). "Bavares: (Babares – Baveres)". Encyclopédie berbère (9): 1394–1399. doi:10.4000/encyclopedieberbere.2552. ISSN 1015-7344.
^ Gabriel Camps, "Bavares", Encyclopédie berbère, document B48 (online 1 March 2013, retrieved 1 October 2019).
^ Gabriel Camps, Berbères: aux marges de l'histoire (Éditions des Hespérides, 1980), 86–87.
^ M'Charek, Ahmed; Charek (2022). "Babari de l'Aurès et Babari Transtagnenses". Operae pretium facimus - mélanges en l'honneur de Charles Guittard.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Drici, Salim (2015). "Inscription inédite des Bavares d'El Bayadh et les troubles au Maghreb ancien". Ikosim. 4.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h M'Charek, Ahmed; Charek (2021). "Babari de l'Aurès et Babari Transtagnenses". Operae pretium facimus - mélanges en l'honneur de Charles Guittard.
^ Zerouki, Brahim (1987). L'Imamat de Tahart: Histoire politico-socio-religieuse (in French). L'Harmattan. p. 58. ISBN 978-2-85802-828-3.
^ ^a ^b Wolff, Catherine et Patrice Faure (dir.) (2016). "Les auxiliaires de l'armée romaine Des alliés aux fédérés. Actes du sixième congrès de Lyon (23-25 octobre 2014)". Les auxiliaires de l’armée romaine Des alliés aux fédérés. Actes du sixième congrès de Lyon (23-25 octobre 2014). Lyon: 409–419.
^ ^a ^b Gazeau, Véronique; Bauduin, Pierre; Modéran, Yves (2008). Identité et ethnicité: concepts, débats historiographiques, exemples, IIIe-XIIe siècle [table ronde tenue à la Maison de la recherche en sciences humaines de l'Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, 15-16 octobre 2004]. Tables rondes du CRAHM. Centre de recherches archéologiques et historiques anciennes et médiévales. Caen: Publications du CRAHM. pp. 98, 104. ISBN 978-2-902685-32-5.