Video: Barbarians - The Vandals

Summary:

This installment of ‘Barbarians’ tells the vicious story of the Vandals – an East Germanic tribe who were related to the Goths. Their name has long been synonymous with lawless destruction, looting and terror.

Our story begins in the fifth century, when the Vandals invaded Roman Gaul. Their formidable force overcame resistance from the Franks, who populated and controlled Romanised regions in northern Gaul at the time. Twenty thousand Vandals died in the battle, but the Vandals triumphed, and continued to plunder their way westward and southward through Aquitane.

In 409, they crossed the Pyrenees and swept into the Iberian Peninsula, leaving a trail of havoc and destruction in their wake. Many of them settled in Andalusia (formerly Vandalitia). In 429, under the leadership of the brutal and fearless King Geiseric, a sizeable Vandal fleet crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and moved east towards Carthage. The Vandals faced only token resistance; they took and plundered the city while most of the inhabitants were attending the races at the hippodrome. Geiseric then built a powerful state with the capital at Saldae; he conquered Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic islands.

For the next three decades, Geiseric and his enormous fleet looted the coasts of the Eastern and Western Empires. In 455, the Vandals committed the act which cemented their vicious reputation: they took Rome and plundered the city for two weeks.

We reveal how the Vandals faced the crushing military might of the Roman Empire, the devious trickery of Roman General Aetius, and the devout beliefs of the Holy Roman Church. Through a complex strategy of sneak attacks and cunning naval warfare, they succeed in carving a place for themselves in the Mediterranean, far from their roots in Germany.