VANDALS. - A Germanic people, 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 Vistola. From there, it seems, they ascended the Oder in the 2nd century AD and reached the Danube, coming into contact with the Roman *limes*. When the barbarian pressure against this frontier became more intense and urgent, the Vandals found themselves near and allied with the Marcomanni, fighting alongside them and being contained by Marcus Aurelius, only later to return to peace with Rome, which considered them 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 king. Later, they were granted lands in Dacia in exchange for providing two thousand horsemen. Under Caracalla, they were at war with the Marcomanni (Dio Cassius, LXXVII, 20), and in their renewed incursions, some of them ascended the Danube and moved toward the Rhine frontier, where they were fought by the emperors Probus and Maximian. Constantine assigned them lands in Pannonia, but half a century later, driven by the Huns, they were again at the Rhine. Favored by Stilicho, who was of their stock, and even more by the near absence of Roman troops called to Italy for the invasion of Radagaisus, they crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul (AD 406), which they were able to ravage and plunder with impunity. After some attempts halted by the mountain populations, they invaded the peaceful and prosperous Spain, which until then had remained almost untouched by barbarian devastations. In Spain, the Suebi and Alans also descended, and while the Suebi and Vandal Asdingi settled in Gallaecia and the Alans in Lusitania, the Vandal Silingi occupied Baetica, from which they left the name of Andalusia. And the exhausted Roman Empire accepted the fait accompli in 411, recognizing the invaders of Spain as federates. Disputes and conflicts did not fail to arise among them and with the Visigoths who followed, but these only served to consolidate all the more the state of the Vandals in the south of the peninsula; thanks also to the intelligence, energy, and cunning of King Gaiseric (v.).
He turned his eyes to the nearby provinces of Africa and spurred his people to take to the sea, soon giving life to a naval power that for decades dominated the western Mediterranean.
According to Procopius, the Vandals would have been invited to cross into Africa by the Roman governor, the *comes domesticus* Boniface, but even without an invitation, the African prey could not fail to tempt the enterprising neighbor. Boniface indeed tried to oppose the invaders, but after being defeated twice, he had to allow the Vandals to plunder the flourishing countryside and capture one city after another (St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, died during the siege of his city). When the invaders had occupied Hippo, Cirta, and Carthage, Emperor Valentinian III recognized them as federates in exchange for an annual tribute of grain. The Vandals were assigned lands, but little inclined to a quiet and industrious life, they preferred to find prosperity as plunderers at the expense of the province's inhabitants and as pirates along the Spanish, Gallic, Italian, and even Greek coasts. In Africa, the Catholics and their institutions suffered especially, both because of fanatical religious hatred (the Vandals were Arians like the Goths) and because the confiscation of goods belonging to churches, bishops, monasteries, and Catholic notables brought in large profits.
After the assassination of Valentinian III in 455, Gaiseric found an excellent opportunity to present himself in force at Rome, where he entered without resistance and did not spare the city from plunder and sack, especially targeting Catholic churches and patrician houses. He left after fourteen days, taking with him, besides a vast booty, the widow of Valentinian, Eudoxia, with her two daughters and many senators and consuls. Repeated Roman embassies obtained the release of the Empress and her daughter Placidia, while the other daughter, Eudocia, was given in marriage to Gaiseric’s son Huneric, who naturally demanded a substantial dowry. Attempts at military expeditions by the emperors Majorian and Leo I of Constantinople against the insufferable arrogance of the Vandals were unsuccessful and gave the diabolical Vandal occasion to resume his fierce acts of piracy along the Mediterranean coasts, to establish his dominion over the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica, part of Sicily, and to return to a policy of persecution against Catholics, suspected of loyalty to Rome. Gaiseric 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 in 477, the power of the Vandals declined. His immediate successors, his son Huneric (477–84) and his grandson Godamund (484–96), continued the policy of persecution against Catholics, a policy that weakened their state while at the same time the ancient vigor of the Vandal people declined, enervated by the African climate and the excesses permitted by their undeserved prosperity. Some revival of energy occurred under King Thrasamund (496–523), who remained 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 unrest of the barbarian tribes of the interior increased, which twice achieved notable victories. The new king, Hilderic, attempted agreements with the Byzantine Empire, but found no favor with his people, especially with a great-nephew of Gaiseric, Gelimer, who succeeded in deposing and imprisoning him after blinding him. This act provided Justinian with the desired pretext for intervention. And the enterprise entrusted to Belisarius succeeded happily. Assisted by a rebellion of the Sardinians