Laguatan (Libyan tribal confederation)

Laguatan is the name Roman authors use to refer to a nomadic confederation in the Cyrenaica area.

They are described as primarily raiders and nomadic, but others consider them a settled group who also raids.

They emerge in the late thirdrd century, when the first groups start a westward migration from their original homes in the Libyan Desert.

Under the label of Austuriani (probably reflecting a then-dominant sub-tribe) they are recorded as raiding the Cyrenaica and Tripolitania in the fourth century, and in the 520s, under their leader Cabaon, they score a major victory over the Vandals, gaining effective independence from them.

In the 540s, they play a major role in the tribal wars against the Byzantines, until finally defeated by John Troglita.

Procopius of Caesarea (Vandalic War II.21.2 & II.28.47) calls them the Leuathae (Greek: Λευάθαι), while Flavius Cresconius Corippus calls them Ilaguas and Laguantan.

According to Corippus, they were still pagan, and worshipped Gurzil, who is identified as the son of Amun and of a cow (Iohannis II.109–110).

During the Islamic Middle Ages, Ibn Khaldun records that this tribal group is known as the Lawata or Louata, and is spread from the oases of Egypt's Western Desert through Cyrenaica, Tripolitania to south and central Tunisia and eastern Algeria.

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