Background The Arianism had unified Betic heterogeneous populations, Alans , Goths and Swabians , unity strengthened by the arrival at the head of the people, 428 of Genseric , which is assigned a sovereign great energy and great skill and his kingdom is considered particularly long and prosperous.
Interested in the African provinces, particularly Caesarea , he is informed of what is in the internal crisis of the Roman Empire. The Count of Africa then in place, Boniface , is suspected by Valentinian III , at least by the regent Galla Placidia , a number of misdeeds. In 427 , he is called to Ravenna , and refusing to submit, it is declared a public enemy in 428. The risk of a new civil war is reactivated. Genseric aware of this situation decides to exploit it. A thesis, based on Procopius and Jordanes maintains that Boniface would, in 429 , called the Vandal king to oppose Aetius , some dispute that contention. However, internal divisions in the empire have been highlighted.
Conquest and taking control of the Mediterranean
In 429, 80 000 Vandals, 15 to 20 000 soldiers, landed in Mauritania Tingitana by Victor de Vita and Procopius. Follows a long walk, from 429 to 439, before Saldae (now Bejaia), becoming the capital of the Vandal kingdom and becomes their subsequent military port from where they launch their attacks at sea, particularly against Rome in 455. Hippo , where Augustine died during a siege on 28 August 430 , replaces Saldae the capital in 437. The establishment vandal corresponds to the limits of the ancient Roman province of Numidia , and east of Mauretania Caesarean section and west of Africa proconsul.
In 439, the Vandals took the city of Carthage in present Tunisia, the capital of the Roman province of Africa. They then quickly threaten the Italy after landing in Sicily in 440. Therefore, in 442 , the emperor Valentinian III abandon their new lands in Africa, through a second Foedus , recognizing the constitution of the Vandal kingdom in Africa around Carthage.
Once granted the kingdom, the Vandals are pursuing successive raids from 440. Too few, they never really occupy all the land conquered and abandoned, mainly for demographic reasons, and because of their isolation from the people Berber and Roman. They create a vacuum quickly filled by the Berber tribes nearby, little or no Romanized. Conversely, it is on the territories corresponding to present-day Tunisia and eastern Algeria they are trying to establish their lasting power for the city of Carthage.
For this, they have a policy of land confiscation Roman, unlike other peoples called barbarians who simply share, like the Burgundians. Customs and laws of the Lower Empire Romanized Berber are stored, via said Albertini tablets of 493 - 496 , but the Vandals initially refuse any merger with the Berber population, thereby endangering their future in this region. They reserve military and political functions, but lack of knowledge in the written laws and administration, leaving those tasks to the Berber scholars.
Beyond that, they gradually assoient their control over the southern Mediterranean : they conquered Corsica and Sardinia in 455 , Rome ransom for fifteen days of systematic looting of 2 to 16 June 455 , and take Sicily in 468 , but not without destroyed a large fleet Byzantine sent to meet them. Finally, shortly after the official fall of the Roman Empire in 476 , the Vandal power is recognized by the new ruler of Rome, the barbarian Odoacer.
Only the death of Genseric in January 477 , mark an end to their expansion. From that date, power struggles appear to cause a weakening of the kingdom.
Life in the Vandal period
Politics
From 430 to the seat of Hippo event whose reputation is largely due to the posterior part of St. Augustine in medieval Christian historiography, the Vandals face the Catholic Church. This, as later in many of the barbarian kingdoms, is the refuge of choice for executives of the Roman civilization of the Late Roman Empire.
The enmity is reinforced later, partly because of land grabbing and fiscal measures taken by the rulers against vandals populations. Deprivations are several orders and obey different logics. The first is religious and relates to the temples and their religious furniture (especially the sacred vessels), described by the depredations of the book promises and preaching of God Quodvultdeus of Carthage , the second is political and concerns the public buildings and lands of the aristocracy Roman Berber, a third type of confiscation of land is an economic and serves as the payment of troops and veterans have made allotment of their missio honesta. These are hereditary, a practice inspired by those of the Romans.
The consequences of the relative isolation of power are vandal excluding natural true fusion between Vandals and Berbers. However, the integration of people vandals is something that historians are still struggling to appreciate, especially after 455 and the appearance of internal rivalries.
The systematic pillage of the coasts and islands of the western Mediterranean (Spain, Sicily in 440 , Corsica, Balearic Islands , etc..) by the Vandals, true to their tradition of looting, and willing to use their naval superiority, has the effect of weaken a bit more the Roman Empire and the provinces affected. The Vandal kingdom spanning regions producing cereals , the supply of wheat in Italy is also affected. At the same time, it seems that Africa has retained its vandal economic prosperity, as illustrated as the presence of African shipwrecks dated fifth to sixth centuries , the coast of Gaul or conveyance constant dinner African sites in the major western port, even in troubled times.
Religion
In terms of religion, the Vandals continue to be followers of Arianism , considered a heretical Christian. It also helps not to facilitate relations between the Romans in Africa, that is to say the majority Catholic community leaders, and their new masters. Kings Genseric and Huneric persecute Catholics who oppose their power, banishing some, and to end the systematic opposition of the bishops (sacerdotes) puts some of them under house arrest in southern Tunisia ( Gafsa ). This exile is described at length by Victor of Vita , which was to accompany his co-religionists in Sicca Veneria Lares and then in the desert Hodna Culture In 442 , after the abortive revolt of optimates vandals, a new aristocracy is taking place at the head of the kingdom, an aristocracy of dignitaries and officials who borrows heavily from the ancient Roman administration. Moreover, administration vandal applying the tax law and the Roman and Roman has a number of senior administrators, such as veredarii (royal messengers). Curial institutions continue to function, as can attest the presence of Flamen vandal as Flavius Geminius Catullinus, owner of the lands mentioned in the tablets said Albertini, described flamen perpetuus. However, it is unclear what their goals and their functions. The new aristocracy vandal gradually adopting the language Latin and from the reign of Genseric lifestyle dignitaries Romanized Berbers. The equipment of the dominant attests to its wealth, as illustrated by the study of Yvon Thbert the baths of Sidi Ghraib (Carthage area). Archaeology confirms the invention of graves with burial objects due to an Eastern Germanic (plaques and belt buckles metal cloisonn fibula in crossbow, etc.). but also jewelry and furniture Mediterranean (rings, bracelets, necklaces and pottery).
The contribution of the Vandals in North Africa has long been assessed as very low, an observation made in the light of the weakness of archaeological evidence and based on the fact that the Vandals moved into an environment already developed by Berbers and Romans.
Vandals have buried their dead with little or no object, which defies analysis, as the extreme scarcity of archaeological evidence due to the Vandals in rural areas. The graves were usually placed in cemeteries suburban, at churches, as Hadra or Tebessa , and help confirm some acculturation or a phenomenon of romanization of the elites. These have been quick to adopt an urban lifestyle like, for example, Ostrogoths in Italy or the Visigoths in Spain in the seventh century. A mosaic found in Tbessa has a child vandal wearing Roman clothes. Even if these testimonies are only valid for the material aspects of life of people in this time and can also be explained by the small number of invaders immersed in an environment alien to their culture and lifestyle of origin. That's why nothing seems to now show that the Vandal period marked the end of urban civilization in Africa, on the contrary as outlined in the work of Claude Lepelley.
Fall
The instability of the Vandal throne on the death of Genseric , due to infighting, weakened Vandals themselves, including the military point of view (taste of luxury, comfort and idleness, lack of training and enemies seriously to fight, decreased morale, difficulty in recruiting for the army, etc..), the political and religious conflicts, the division of the nobility between pro-and anti-Byzantine attacks becoming more frequent Berbers and power of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his general Belisarius , causing the rapid drop Vandal kingdom.
At the end of August 533 , Belisarius landed with 15,000 mercenaries Heruli and 1000 Huns and becomes master of Carthage in just two months after the battles of Tricamron and the Ad Decimum , not far from Carthage. In spring 534 , the last Vandal king Gelimer , who fled for a time with its allies in the Berber mountains of Kabylie and have tried to reach Spain, was taken to Constantinople where it appears in the triumph of Justinian it ends his days in Galatia. After their defeat in Carthage, most of the Vandals and Alans join the Kabylie region where they merge with the Berber population-Roman. Those prisoners in Carthage are enrolled in the Byzantine army or deported.
References
- Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal persecution, II, 27-28
See also
Bibliography
- Audollent Augustus, "The imperial emissaries Veredarii under the late Empire," Mixtures of Archaeology and History, Volume 9, No. 9, 1889, pp. 249-278
- Christian Courtois , The Vandals and Africa, ed. Graphic arts and crafts, Paris, 1955
- Yves Moderan , The Moors and Roman Africa (IV-VII century), al. "Library of the French schools of Athens and Rome, ed. French School of Rome, Rome, 2003
- Lucien Musset , Les Invasions, waves Germanic al. "New Clio: history and its problems", ed. PUF, Paris, 1965 (2nd ed. In 1969)
- Procopius of Caesarea , The war against the Vandals (trans. Denis Roques), coll. "The wheel books," ed. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1990 ( ISBN 2251339051 )
- Victor of Vita , History of the Vandal persecution in Africa (trans. Serge Lancel ), coll. "Collection of universities in France. Latin Series ", ed. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2002
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