The Kingdom of the Aurès (Latin: Regnum Aurasium) was an independent Christian Berber kingdom primarily located in the Aurès Mountains of present-day north-eastern Algeria. Established in the 480s by King Masties following a series of Berber revolts against the Vandalic Kingdom, which had conquered the Roman province of Africa in 435 AD, with a small interruption of Byzantine occupation from 539 to 544 AD during the Moorish wars and the Aurès campaign, the kingdom would last as an independent realm until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in 703 AD when its last monarch, Queen Dihya, was slain in battle.
Much like the larger Mauro-Roman Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Aurès combined aspects of Roman and Berber culture in order to efficiently rule over a population composed of both Roman provincials and Berber tribespeople. For instance, King Masties used the title of Dux and later Imperator to legitimize his rule and openly declared himself a Christian. Despite this, Aurès would not recognize the suzerainty of the remaining Roman Empire in the East (often called the Byzantine Empire by modern historians) and King Iabdas unsuccessfully invaded the Praetorian prefecture of Africa, established after the Byzantines had defeated the Vandals. One possible reason towards why the Berbers could not be integrated as successfully into the Byzantine Empire as they had been before was the Byzantine shift in language from Latin to Greek, the Berbers were thus no longer bilingual with the language of their nominal rulers.