King Juba II, following the annexation of Numidia by Rome in 33 BCE, has rapidly developed Iol (at present Cherchell), founded as a small Carthaginian port on the coast of Algeria, sixty miles (ninety-six kilometers) west of Algiers.

Iol, prospering through its strategic location on Atlantic and Mediterranean trade routes, is renamed Caesarea after Augustus Caesar.

Juba embellishes the city with baths, a theater, and high-quality copies of classical Greek and Hellenistic sculptures.

Juba II, who Augustus had restored as the king of Numidia between 29 BC – 27 BCE, had established Numidia as a Roman ally; he is to become one of the most loyal client kings that serves Rome.

Between 26 BCE and 20 BCE, Augustus has arranged for him to marry Cleopatra Selene II, giving her a large dowry and appointing her queen.

It is probably due to his services with Augustus in a campaign in Spain that lead Augustus to make him King of Mauretania.

By then her brothers, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, have died, probably from illness.

When Cleopatra marries Juba, she is the only surviving member of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Juba and Cleopatra cannot return to Numidia, as it had been provincialized in 46 BCE.

The couple is sent to Mauretania, an unorganized territory that needs Roman supervision.

When the couple moves to Mauretania, they rename their new capital Caesaria (modern Cherchell, Algeria) in honor of Augustus.

The construction and sculpture projects at Caesaria and …

Juba II encourages and supports the performing arts, the research of the sciences and the research of natural history; he also heavily promotes Mauretanian trade.

The value and quality of Mauretanian coins becomes distinguished.

The Greek historian Plutarch describes Juba II as 'one of the most gifted rulers of his time'.

The Kingdom of Mauretania is of great importance to the Roman Empire.

Mauretania trades throughout the Mediterranean, particularly with Spain and Italy, exporting fish, grapes, pearls, figs, grain, wooden furniture and purple dye harvested from certain shellfish, which is used in the manufacture of purple stripes for senatorial robes.

Juba II travels with Gaius Caesar (a grandson of Augustus), as a member of his advisory staff to the troubled Eastern Mediterranean between 2 BCE and CE 2.

During this trip, the Mauretanian king meets Glaphyra, the widow of Alexander of Judea.

They fall in love, and are married prior to 6 CE.

A discovered hoard of coins of Cleopatra Selene II, dated to CE 17, supports the notion that Cleopatra had been alive to mint them.

However, this would mean that Juba had married the Cappadocian Princess, Glaphyra during Cleopatra's lifetime.

To explain this strange marital problem, historians have supposed some sort of rift between Cleopatra and Juba that was eventually mended after Juba's divorce from Glaphyra.

Modern historians dispute the idea that Juba, a thoroughly Romanized King, would have taken a second wife.

The argument goes that if Juba married Glaphyra before 4 BCE, then his first wife Cleopatra, must have already been dead.

(The counterargument can be made that even contemporary client kings with Roman citizenship, like Herod the Great, took multiple wives and that Juba's father had more than one.)

Glaphyra thus becomes Queen of Mauretania.

Her marriage to Juba II is apparently brief: there is no trace of her name in North African inscriptions.

However, an honorific inscription to her is made in Athens: “The Boule and Demos honors Queen Glaphyra daughter of King Archelaus and wife of King Juba on the account of her virtue.”

Ptolemy, the son of King Juba II and Queen Cleopatra Selene II of Mauretania, has a younger sister called Drusilla of Mauretania.

His father is the son of King Juba I of Numidia, who was descended from the Berber people of North Africa and was an ally to the Roman Triumvir Pompey.

His mother Cleopatra Selene II was the daughter of the Ptolemaic Greek Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman Triumvir Mark Antony.

Ptolemy is of Berber, Greek and Roman ancestry.

Ptolemy and his sister Drusilla are the only grandchildren of Juba I of Numidia and Cleopatra VII of Egypt and are among the younger grandchildren to Mark Antony.

Through his maternal grandfather, Ptolemy is distantly related to Julius Caesar and the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Ptolemy is a first cousin to Germanicus and the Roman Emperor Claudius and a second cousin to the Emperor Caligula, the Empress Agrippina the Younger, the Empress Valeria Messalina and the Emperor Nero.

Ptolemy was most probably born in Caesaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania (modern Cherchell, Algeria) in the Roman Empire.

He was named in honor of his mother’s ancestors, in particular the Ptolemaic dynasty.

He was also named in honor of the memory of Cleopatra VII, the birthplace of his mother and the birthplace of her relatives.

In choosing her son's name, by-passing the ancestral names of her husband, Cleopatra Selene II had created a distinct Greek-Egyptian tone and emphasized her role as the monarch who will continue the Ptolemaic dynasty.

By naming her son Ptolemy instead of a Berber ancestral name, she offers an example rare in ancient history, especially in the case of a son who is the primary male heir, of reaching into the mother's family instead of the father's for a name.

This emphasizes the idea that his mother is the heiress of the Ptolemies and the leader of a Ptolemaic government in exile.

Through his parents, Ptolemy has Roman citizenship, and they sent him to Rome to be educated.

His mother dies in 6 CE and is placed in the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, built by his parents.

Ptolemy of Mauretania has received a good Roman education in Rome and become Romanized.

He is part of the remarkable court of his maternal aunt Antonia Minor, an influential aristocrat who presides over a circle of various princes and princesses that assists in the political preservation of the Roman Empire’s borders and affairs of the client states.

The youngest daughter of Mark Antony and the youngest niece of Emperor Augustus, Antonia Minor is a half-sister of Ptolemy's late mother, also a daughter of Mark Antony.

Antonia Minor's mother was Octavia Minor, Mark Antony's fourth wife and the second sister of Octavian (later Augustus).

Ptolemy lives in Rome until the age of twenty-one, when he returns to the court of his aging father in Mauretania.

When Ptolemy returns to Mauretania, Juba II makes Ptolemy his co-ruler and successor.

Coinage has survived from Juba II’s co-rule with his son.

On coinage, on one side there is a central bust of Juba II with his title in Latin ‘King Juba’.

On the other side there is a central bust of Ptolemy and the inscription stating in Latin ‘King Ptolemy son of Juba’.

Juba II dies in 23 and is placed with Cleopatra Selene II in the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania; Ptolemy becomes the sole ruler of Mauretania.

Ptolemy, like his father, appears to be a patron of art, learning, literature and sports.

In Athens, Greece, statues are erected to Juba II and Ptolemy in a gymnasium in Athens and a statue is erected in Ptolemy’s honor in reference to his taste in literature.

Ptolemy dedicates statues of himself on the Acropolis.

The Athenians honor Ptolemy and his family with inscriptions dedicated to them, which reveals that the Athenians have respect towards the Roman Client Monarchs and their families, a civic practice common in the first century.

The local Berber tribes, the Numidian Tacfarinas and Garamantes, had in 17 begun a revolt against the Kingdom of Mauretania and Rome.

The war has ravaged North Africa; Berbers, including former slaves from Ptolemy’s household, have joined in the revolt.

As Ptolemy’s military campaigns are unsuccessful in ending the revolt, he summons the Roman Governor of Africa, Publius Cornelius Dolobella and his army to assist him.

The war finally ends in 24.

Although Ptolemy’s army and the Romans are the victors, both sides have suffered considerable losses of infantry and cavalry.

The Roman Senate, impressed by Ptolemy’s loyal conduct, sends a Roman Senator, who greets Ptolemy as king, ally and friend and awards him an ivory scepter, and an embroidered triumphal robe, a traditional recognition and reward by Rome to her allies.

Ptolemy of Mauretania has grown popular among the Berbers and has traveled extensively throughout the Roman Empire.

In Caesarea, prayers are offered for the health of Ptolemy at the Temple of Saturn, worshiped in Mauretania as the God of agriculture.

A temple and a sanctuary cult are dedicated to Saturn in Caesaea by 30 and throughout Mauretania various temples are dedicated to Saturn.

The kingdom of Mauretania and its seaport capital, Caesaraea, flourish until 40, when its last monarch, Ptolemy of Mauretania, is murdered under unknown circumstances while on a visit to Rome on the order of his unstable second cousin, the Roman Emperor Caligula.

This incident sparks a Berber rebellion against Roman rule led by Ptolemy’s former freedman Aedemon, who, from outrage and out of loyalty to his former master, wants to take revenge against Caligula.

Details on these events are unclear.

Cassius Dio had written an entire chapter on the annexation of Mauretania by Caligula, but it is now lost.

The revolt in Mauretania ends in 44, after a decisive battle in which the Romans inflict large casualties on the Berbers and offers terms to the survivors.

Geta defeats Sabalus, a chief of the Mauri, twice, and after gathering as much water as can be carried, pursues him into the desert.

Sabalus' forces are more used to the conditions and the legion's water begins to run out.

A native friendly to the Romans persuades Geta to perform a rain ritual used by his people and rain begins to fall.

The Romans' thirst is relieved and the Mauri, seeing the heavens come to their enemies' aid, surrenders.

The fate of Aedemon is unknown.

Claudius decides to divide the kingdom into two Roman provinces, Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis.

Caesaea, supporting a population of about one hundred thousand, becomes the capital of Mauretania Caesariensis.

Claudius gives Caesaria two names: the capital is named Caesariensis while the town becomes a Roman colony, Colonia Claudia Caesarea.

Turbo accompanies Hadrian to Mauretania in North Africa in 123, where they jointly lead a military campaign against local rebels after the Jewish revolt had been quelled elsewhere.

The sources are not clear on the relation of this revolt to that of Jews elsewhere in the Empire, although Caesarea will continue to be a major center of Jewry until the spread of Christianity after 300.

However, the emperor’s visit is to be short, as reports come through that the Eastern nation of Parthia is again preparing for war; as a result, Hadrian quickly heads eastwards.

As another example of how much Hadrian trusts Turbo, he puts him in charge of the two western provinces in North Africa, Mauretania Caesariensis and …