maurusians

Updated: May 12, 2025

And Procopius, who writes the history of the war which Belisarius conducted against those Vandals who seized on Africa, relates, that on certain pillars standing in places where the Maurusians once dwelt, he had read inscriptions in these words: "We Maurusians who fled before Joshua, the robber, the son of Nun;" giving us to know the cause of their quitting Syria.

Niccolò Machiavelli - Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius

And since I have said above that nations such as those I have been describing, are often driven by wars from their ancestral homes, and forced to seek a new country elsewhere, I shall cite the instance of the Maurusians, a people who anciently dwelt in Syria, but hearing of the inroad of the Hebrews, and thinking themselves unable to resist them, chose rather to seek safety in flight than to perish with their country in a vain effort to defend it.

Niccolò Machiavelli - Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius