Vandals

VANDALS. - A people of Germanic stock, according to the earliest mentions (Pliny, Nat. hist., IV, 99; Tacitus, Germania, 2 and 43) settled on the shores of the Baltic between the Elbe and the Vistula. From there, moving upstream, it seems, along the Oder in the 2nd century A.D., they made their way as far as the Danube, that is, into contact with the Roman "limes." When the barbarian pressure against this frontier became tighter and more urgent, the Vandals found themselves neighbors and allies of the Marcomanni and fighting alongside them, and were held in check by Marcus Aurelius, only to return afterward to peace with Rome, which regarded them as its protégés in the peace negotiations of Commodus with the Marcomanni in the year 181.

They were divided into two main groups: the Silingi and the Asdingi, each with its own sovereign. Later they obtained the concession of settling in Dacia in exchange for the obligation to supply two thousand cavalrymen. Under Caracalla they were at war with the Marcomanni (Cassius Dio, LXXVII, 20), and in their restlessness part of them, moving up the Danube, shifted toward the Rhine frontier, where the emperors Probus and Maximian fought them. Constantine assigned them lands in Pannonia, but half a century later, driven on by the Huns, they were still at the Rhine. Favored by Stilicho, who was of their stock, and even more by the near absence of Roman troops called into Italy for the invasion of Radagaisus, they crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul (A.D. 406), which they were able to overrun and plunder with impunity. After a few attempts checked by the mountain populations, they invaded the peaceful, prosperous Spain, which until then had remained almost immune from barbarian devastation. Into Spain came also the Suebi and the Alans, and while the Suebi and the Vandal Asdingi settled in Gallaecia and the Alans in Lusitania, the Vandal Silingi occupied Baetica, to which the name Andalusia has remained from them. And the exhausted Roman Empire accepted the fait accompli in 411, recognizing the invaders of Spain as federates. There was no lack of disputes and struggles among them and with the newly arrived Visigoths; but through these the Vandal State in the south of the peninsula became more consolidated than ever, thanks also to the intelligence, energy and cunning of King Genseric (v.). He turned his eyes to the nearby provinces of Africa, and spurred his people to seafaring, soon giving life to a maritime power that for decades dominated the western Mediterranean.

According to Procopius, the Vandals were said to have been invited to cross into Africa by the Roman governor, the comes domesticorum Boniface, but even without a summons the African prey could not fail to entice the enterprising neighbor. Boniface indeed tried to oppose the invaders, but, defeated twice, he had to let the Vandals plunder the flourishing countryside and storm the cities one after another (St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, died during the siege of his city). When the invaders had occupied Hippo, Cirta, and Carthage, the emperor Valentinian III recognized them as federates in exchange for the obligation of a tribute of grain. The Vandals received assignments of land, but little inclined to a quiet and industrious dwelling, they preferred to find prosperity as plunderers at the expense of the inhabitants of the province, and as pirates along the Spanish, Gallic, Italian, and even Greek coasts. In Africa the Catholics and their institutions especially had to suffer, both because of fanatical religious hatred (the Vandals were Arians like the Goths) and because of the large profits that the confiscations of property belonging to the churches, the bishops, the monasteries, and Catholic personages procured.

When Valentinian III was murdered in 455, Genseric found an excellent occasion to present himself in force at Rome, where he entered without fighting, and he did not spare the city depredations and sackings, especially at the expense of Catholic churches and patrician houses. He departed after fourteen days, leading away with him, besides the bulk of the booty, the widow of Valentinian, Eudoxia, with two of her daughters and many senators and consulars. Repeated Roman embassies obtained the liberation of the Empress and of her daughter Placidia, while the other daughter, Eudocia, was given in marriage to Huneric, son of Genseric, who naturally demanded a huge dowry. Attempts at military expeditions by the emperors Majorian and Leo I of Constantinople against the unbearable arrogance of the Vandals had no happy outcome; and they gave the diabolical Vandal reason to resume in full his ferocious acts of piracy along the Mediterranean coasts, to establish his own dominion over the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica, and part of Sicily, and to return to the policy of persecution against the Catholics, held in suspicion for their feelings of devotion to Rome. Genseric finally succeeded in concluding friendly treaties with the two emperors Zeno of the East and Romulus Augustulus of the West, and with Odoacer, who had put an end to the Western Empire. With his death (477) the power of the Vandals declined. His immediate successors were inept: his son Huneric (477-84) and his grandson Godamund (484-96), who continued the policy of persecution against the Catholics, a policy that weakened their State, while at the same time the ancient vigor of the Vandal people faded, enfeebled by the African climate and by the excesses permitted by undeserved prosperity. Some resurgence of energy came with King Thrasamund (496-523), who kept very close to the Ostrogoths of Italy and to Theodoric, whose daughter he had married. But at the same time the dangers arising from the restlessness of the barbarian tribes of the interior grew worse, and these twice won notable victories. The new king Hilderic tried to reach agreements with the Empire of Constantinople, but found no support among his people and especially in a great-nephew of Genseric, Gelimer, who succeeded in deposing him and holding him prisoner after having blinded him. This fact offered Justinian the desired occasion to intervene. And the enterprise entrusted to Belisarius succeeded happily. Aided by a rebellion of the Sardinians and with the support of the Goths of Sicily, Belisarius landed in Africa with an army that was not numerous, but which immediately found help among the native population. Gelimer, who had sent the best part of his army against the rebellious Sardinians, was defeated and taken prisoner. Vandal resistance collapsed, so that in 536 the region had returned to the Empire, and of the Vandals, who from the decadent Roman civilization had known how to learn only deficiencies and vices, the name disappeared along with the State.

Roberto Paribenj