The revenge of the Vandals: Gaiseric sacks Rome

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At the beginning of the 5th Century, the Vandals, a Germanic people, invaded North Africa, putting an end to more than four centuries of Roman domination over the region. In 455, the Vandal King Gaiseric entered Rome, sacked the city, and kidnapped the daughter of Emperor Valentinian III, who became his son’s wife.

Context

In the 5th Century, the Roman Empire was divided between its Eastern and Western parts, and weakened by a long series of wars against new foreign populations – often Germanic – that weakened its territory. One of these tribes, the Goths, sacked Rome in 410. It was the first time that the Imperial capital was taken by a foreign army.

The Vandals settled in Spain, and then crossed the Gibraltar Strait in 429 and invaded North Africa. In 439, they founded a Kingdom, with Carthage as its capital. A peace treaty was concluded in 442, through which Rome recognized the Vandal control over Africa. Roman Emperor Valentinian III promised his daughter Eudocia in marriage to Huneric, the son of the Vandal King Gaiseric.

In 455, Valentinian III was assassinated by Petronius Maximus, who seized the throne. The new Emperor married Licinia Eudoxia, Valentinian III’s widow, and forced their daughter Eudocia to marry his son Palladius. To Gaiseric, the breaking of Eudocia’s engagement to his son Huneric invalidated the peace treaty. When Licinia Eudoxia called on him to avenge her husband, Gaiseric decided to attack Rome.

The Vandals in Rome

The Vandals set sail from Carthage and landed at Ostia, the port city of Rome. Petronius Maximus tried to flee Rome, but he was stoned to death by an angry crowd. The Vandals destroyed the aqueducts that supplied water to Rome.

The bishop of Rome Leo I opened negotiations with Gaiseric, and convinced him to spare the inhabitants who didn’t resist, not to burn the buildings and not to torture prisoners. The Vandals sacked the city for two weeks.

The sack of Rome by the Vandals was even more destructive than the 410 sack by the Goths. The Vandals tore off half the roof of the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline, the largest temple in Rome, to take its gilded bronze tiles. The Vandal tendency to pillage is at the origin of the word “vandalism”, which means the destruction of others’ property. However, there were no exactions against the population: Gaiseric, true to his word given to the bishop of Rome, restrained his troops.

According to certain sources, after the Vandal King Gaiseric pillaged Rome in 455, he took back to Carthage the sacred utensils of the Temple of Jerusalem, that had been kept in the Roman city treasure. After the Byzantines reconquered Carthage in 533, the Roman general Belisarius had them transported to Constantinople, from where they were later send back to Jerusalem. The possession of these sacred objects was believed to be a sign of divine blessing.

Return to Carthage

Two weeks later, the Vandals returned to Carthage. Eudocia, the daughter of Valentinian III, was brought back to Carthage as a prisoner, together with her mother and her sister Placidia. Soon afterwards, Eudocia was married to Huneric. Their marriage was difficult because of their religious difference: Huneric was an Arian, Eudocia a Catholic Christian. Because of the tension between them, Eudocia left Huneric before he became King, and ended her life in Jerusalem. The Vandal King Hilderic (523-530) was the son of Huneric and Eudocia.

Several ships full of captives arrived in Carthage, where the captives were given as slaves to the Vandal warriors. The bishop Deogratias of Carthage sold all Church property to buy back all those he could, and then hosted them in the big churches in Carthage, and sent them back to Rome.

Marcian, the Eastern Emperor, did not react violently after the Vandal attack. He was content with asking for Eudocia and her mother to be freed. Marcian, who served as a soldier in the Vandal-Roman wars in North Africa, had been taken prisoner by the Vandals in 432. A legend told that he was set free when Gaiseric predicted that he would become Emperor, and that in exchange for his freedom, he promised to never attack the Vandals.

Later on

After the Vandals left, Avitus, a Senator of Gaulish origin, was proclaimed Emperor by the Gothic King Theodoric. The last Western Roman Emperors were submitted to the Goths.

The former Empress Licinia Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian III and the mother of Eudocia, was freed in 461, after the Eastern Emperor Leo I paid a ransom for her. She lived the rest of her life in Constantinople.

Olybrius, one of the last Roman Emperors, was married to Placidia, Eudocia’s sister. After Placidia was freed, he tried to take power several times with Vandal support. He finally reigned for a few months in 472.

The sack of Rome by Gaiseric contributed a lot to accelerate the city’s decline, until the final fall of the Roman Empire in 476.