Search Results - Berber people

Many Berbers call themselves some variant of the word Imazighen (singular Amazigh), possibly meaning "free people" (the word has probably an ancient parallel in the Roman name for some of the Berbers, "Mazices").

The best known of the ancient Berbers were the Roman author Apuleius, and Saint Augustine of Hippo. The Roman emperor Septimius Severus was reportedly of mixed Italian, Punic and "Libyan" descent. Since the Greeks knew the Berbers as the "Libyans", Severus was probably therefore one-quarter Berber.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]} Famous Berbers of the Middle Ages included Tariq ibn Ziyad, a general who conquered Hispania; Abd ar-Rahman I, the founder of the Caliphate of Córdoba; Abbas Ibn Firnas, a prolific inventor and early pioneer in aviation; Ibn Battuta, a medieval explorer who traveled the longest known distances in pre-modern times; and Estevanico, an early explorer of the Americas. Well known modern Berbers include Zinedine Zidane, a French citizen and international football star, considered one of the greatest players of his generation.

Because "Berber" appeared for the first time after the end of the Roman Empire, the relevance of its use for the previous period is not accepted by all historians of antiquity ^[14], and is still considered wrong.