Vandals

The Vandals were an East Germanic people who emerged in late ancient Europe and spoke a Vandalic language, a branch of East Germanic. Their origins are thought to lie in northern Europe, with later movements through the Roman world leading to their establishment as a distinct group in the western Mediterranean.

In the early 5th century, the Vandals joined other Germanic groups in crossing the Rhine and moving through Gaul and into the Iberian Peninsula. By the early 420s they had settled in parts of Hispania, and under King Genseric (Gaiseric) they crossed into North Africa by the end of the 430s. In 439 they seized Carthage, founding the Vandal Kingdom, a major maritime power with its heart in the provinces of North Africa and control of important western Mediterranean routes.

One of the most famous episodes associated with the Vandals is the sack of Rome in 455, conducted under Gaiseric. The event damaged Roman prestige and helped to symbolize the volatility of the declining Western Roman Empire, although contemporary assessments of the destruction vary.

The Vandal Kingdom persisted for about a century more, but it eventually fell under pressure from the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Belisarius reconquered North Africa during 533–534, and Carthage and the Vandal leadership were subdued. By the end of the 6th century the Vandals as a distinct political and cultural entity had largely dissolved, with the population absorbed into the broader North African and Mediterranean milieu.

The name “vandal” has persisted in language as a generic term for deliberate destruction, reflecting the long-standing association with the sacking of Rome. The Vandals left scant surviving material culture, but their history is a key chapter in the broader narrative of the late ancient world and the transformations of the western Mediterranean.