Gaiseric (Geiseric)

Gaiseric ruled the Vandals for nearly fifty years, took Roman Africa, and sacked Rome. Born around 389, the illegitimate son of a Vandal king, he succeeded his half-brother in 428 and was described as lame from a fall from a horse, of few words, and possessed of a talent for setting his enemies against each other. In 429 he moved his entire people — some eighty thousand including women and children by the sources' count — across the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa. The reasons were the pressure of the Visigoths in Spain and the wealth of the African provinces. He took Hippo Regius after a fourteen-month siege in 431, during which Augustine died inside it, and Carthage by surprise in 439 while its inhabitants were at the races. That capture was the decisive event in the fall of the western empire. Africa supplied Rome's grain and a large share of its tax revenue, and losing it removed the west's capacity to pay armies. He built a fleet, which no other Germanic people did, and used it to take Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearics and to raid the Mediterranean coasts at will. He was an Arian Christian and persecuted the Catholic clergy of Africa, exiling and confiscating. In 455 he sailed to Ostia and entered Rome, having promised Pope Leo I not to burn or kill. His men stripped the city methodically over fourteen days, taking the gilded roof tiles of the temple of Jupiter and the Temple treasures Titus had brought from Jerusalem. He destroyed a great eastern invasion fleet in 468 with fireships. He died in 477.

• Lived: 389 CE – 477 CE
• Nationality: Tunisian
• Roles: military_leader, king