Vandals

The people whose name became a word for destruction, largely because of one fortnight in 455 and a great deal of hostile writing afterwards. The Vandals were a Germanic group who crossed the frozen Rhine at the end of 406, moved through Gaul into Spain, and then in 429 did something no other barbarian people managed: they crossed to North Africa with an entire population, reportedly 80 thousand people, and took the richest provinces of the western empire. Carthage fell in 439. Holding Africa meant holding Rome's grain supply and, uniquely, a fleet - the Vandals were the only Germanic successor state to become a naval power, raiding Sicily, Sardinia and the Italian coast at will. They sacked Rome in 455 over fourteen days; contemporary accounts suggest systematic looting rather than massacre, and the modern sense of vandalism dates from a French bishop's coinage in 1794, not from antiquity. The kingdom was Arian and persecuted its Catholic subjects, which shaped how Roman writers described it. A joint eastern and western expedition to destroy it failed disastrously in 468. Justinian's general Belisarius took the kingdom in a single campaign in 533 to 534. The last king was paraded through Constantinople and pensioned off. The Vandals disappeared as a distinct people within a generation. The kingdom ruled North Africa, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearics from 439 to 534. Its capital was Carthage. Vandal rule lasted ninety-five years. Genseric reigned for nearly fifty of them. Andalusia may preserve their name, though the etymology is disputed.

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