Masuna

Masuna or Massonas () was a Berber from what is now western Algeria who was said to have been a Christian, he ruled the Mauro-Roman Kingdom with its capital based in Altava which is now in present-day Algeria around the Tlemcen area. He was able to maintain the independence of his kingdom by resisting occupation from the Vandals. King Masuna allied with the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian and assisted him in a war against the Vandals in 533 and also against other invading Berber tribal confederations. During his reign he was obeyed by the tribes of Mauretania.

== Reign == Masuna is the earliest recorded ruler of the Mauro-Roman Kingdom, a Berber kingdom that sprung up in the former province of Mauretania Caesariensis following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. This kingdom, unlike many other Barbarian kingdoms, extended beyond the borders of the former Roman Empire, encompassing Berber territories that had never been under Roman control. Masuna is known only from an inscription on a fortification in Altava (modern Ouled Mimoun, in the region of Oran), dated 508 AD, where he styles himself as the Rex gentium Maurorum et Romanorum, the "King of the Roman and Moorish peoples". He is known to have possessed Altava, assumed to have been the capital due to its prominence under subsequent kings, and at least two other cities, Castra Severiana and Safar, as mention is made of officials he appointed there. As the seat of an ecclesiarchal diocese (the diocese of Castra Severiana, an ancient bishophoric which flourished during Late Antiquity), the control of Castra Severiana may have been particularly important.