Huneric

HUNERIC. — King of the Vandals of Africa, son of Genseric (v.), husband of Eudoxia, daughter of Valentinian III.

In the last years of his reign Genseric had sought to secure for his kingdom conditions of peace and stability, thanks to the friendly treaties concluded by the father with the Emperor of the East Zeno and with the new lord of Italy Odoacer. H. was able to show himself peaceful and loyal to those pacts which aimed at freeing the Italian and Greek coasts from piracy and at obtaining religious peace in Africa by "suspending the measures against the Catholics taken with barbaric violence by the Arian Genseric." To this mildness he was advised by the sense of a progressive weakening of the savage vigor of his people and by the anxieties that came to him from the native populations of the interior in perpetual rebellion, and often fortunate in assailing the Vandal territories. That in fact mildness and love of peace were inspired only by a sense of expediency was soon seen in his manner of behaving toward his own relatives and their friends, of whom he rid himself with exiles, death sentences, and assassinations, in order to secure the throne for himself and the succession for his own son Hilderic. And when the progressive, incurable weakness of the Eastern Empire persuaded him that he could with impunity defy its susceptibilities, he did not fail to resume the policy of persecution against the Catholics, to which he was incited by the fanaticism of the Arian clergy and by his own greed for money, which in the confiscations of the goods of the Catholics and of their institutions could find ample satisfaction. Non-Arians were forbidden to hold offices and dignities at court; Catholic officials who refused to pass over to the Arian Church were driven into exile and lost their goods by confiscation; bishops and priests were imprisoned and exiled, some killed. And the interventions of the Emperor Zeno availed nothing, who, urged by the Pope, sent more than one embassy to demand respect for the treaties. In February 484 an edict of the Vandal King applied to the detriment of the Catholics all the provisions that the Roman emperors had issued against heretics. The execution of these orders, however, did not last long, for in December of the same year H. died.

Roberto Paribeni