Sixth installment of “Archienemies of Rome “. Collaboration of Gabriel Castelló.
Geiserish , better known as Genseric , was a long-lived Germanic king whose deeds and exploits helped the word vandalism to have such pejorative connotations that it has. In the nearly fifty years that he held his leadership over the asdingo and silingo vandals He transformed his people from a wandering tribe in southern Hispania to an undisputed Mediterranean power in North Africa.
Illegitimate son of the king Godegisilio (which means "the scourge of God") and of a non-German mother, probably a Roman or Alan slave, her date of birth is not known with certainty, perhaps around 389 on the shores of Lake Batalon (100 km from Budapest). , Hungary) The Vandals were originally from the shores of the Baltic and, together with other Germanic peoples, migrated towards warmer lands until they came across the imperial limes. His hybrid origin meant that Genseric was not the typical German, tall and blond, but rather Mediterranean features, dark hair and skin and not very tall, something that was always criticized by the Vandal nobility of pure Germanic lineage.
His life passed without pain or glory, despite being a brilliant man and skilled in matters of arms, until in 428 he was elected king on the death of his brother Gunderic . The Silingo Vandals – one of the two branches into which the ethnic group had fragmented – had been settled in Baetica for years and the forced balance based on looting, violence and tension with native Romans and Visigoths (federates of Rome and directly commissioned by the emperor to get them out of Hispania) was broken for the benefit of the latter. Genseric didn't think twice . The future of his people was not in fighting against the Visigoths in the devastated and impoverished south of Hispania, but in Africa and its immense and fertile farmland, the pantry of Rome at that time. The vandals had already devastated Cartago Nova in their raids. (Cartagena), Hispalis (Seville) and other important cities and territories of the Hispanic south.
The excuse for this movement was provided by Comes Bonifacio , the governor of the Diocese of Africa, in those years at odds with the real regent of the empire, Gala Placidia , the mother of the weak emperor Valentinian III . It seems that Boniface fell out of favor with the Ravenna court and the empress even demanded his execution. The Comes, fearful of an imperial intervention on African soil, asked Genseric for protection, facilitating access to the territory he controlled.
As a curiosity, almost three hundred years later, the Muslim Tariq and his men would land in Hispania in aid of a Gothic aristocrat immersed in a succession conflict, carrying out this same action in reverse... and with a similar result:staying. For them, ancient Betica was the land of the Vandals, “La Vandalucía”, or “Al-Andalus” , since v has no sound in Arabic. That's where the name may come from.
Thus, in the spring of 429, Genseric organized the largest non-Roman naval operation of late antiquity, embarking 80,000 people – of whom only 15,000 were warriors – off the coast of Carteia (Algeciras) and transferring them to the beaches of Ceuta . Upon his arrival, Boniface indicated to the German king that his help was no longer needed after having regained the favor of the empress. The Vandals did not take this unexpected change of plans very well. They ignored Bonifacio's missive. In a very short time they occupied Roman Mauritania (present-day Morocco) until they reached the strong walls of Hippo Regius (Hippo, now Annaba, Algeria), a city that withstood the Vandal siege for fourteen months. During this siege, the bishop of the city, Aurelio Augustino (San Agustín) died
A year after taking the city, the emperor recognized Genseric as regent of the Diocese and granted him the title of Rex Vandalorum et Alanorum . The reality is that the population was tired of their Roman masters whom they did not know and of the riots of the barbari of the desert (from which the word Berber derives) who plundered their lands. The Africans did not find it difficult to accept new strong and bellicose masters living in such a precarious situation.
Gaiseric's ambition was not dampened by this show of Imperial weakness. In 435 the king reached an agreement with the court of Ravenna to include Numidia in his territory and later to be recognized as foederati (federate) of Rome in Africa. It was not enough. In 439 Genseric took Carthage without any reason or prior notice and seized the imperial fleet that remained moored there. This was a serious setback to the deteriorated Roman navy and upset the balance of power in the Western Mediterranean. In a short time the Vandals learned the trade of the sea and snatched from Rome the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and the Balearic Islands. In addition, this meant the cut of the supply of African cereal to the City, which from 439 had to buy it from the new lord of the fertile province of Africa.
But Genseric's audacity had no limit. In 455 Valentinian III was assassinated. With said assassination, the Vandal king considered his pact with the deceased expired and chartered his ships to Rome . The new emperor, a usurping aristocrat named Petronius Maximus , he was lynched by the people as he fled from the Palatine laden with treasures before the Vandal attack was imminent. Three days after this event, on April 22, 455, the Vandals entered Rome. The city was plundered for two weeks. The looting was such that they came to dismantle the golden roof of the temple of Jupiter and did not leave a single work of art standing (note, they did not destroy them as Alaric's Goths did years ago, they took them to Carthage as a gift for the bishop)
In a display of arrogance, Pope Leo I , the same one who had already mediated years before with Attila, went out to meet the Vandals, unarmed and surrounded by his entourage, with the intention of negotiating an armistice with Genseric that would prevent him from entering Rome; The Supreme Pontiff could not avoid the inevitable. Leon failed in his attempt to intimidate the Vandal king and only managed to prevent the town from being excessively violent or the city and its basilicas from being set on fire. Perhaps in this pontifical disaster the black legend of the Vandals begins, promoted since then by the Church. Only a few citizens were deported to Africa, curiously among them many of the maintainers of the aqueducts were included (Genseric well knew that the correct use of water was vital in his new and arid lands)
The loot was large and, again, part of the imperial family was part of it. The empress mother, Licinia Eudoxia the Elder , the widow of Valentinian, and her two daughters, Placidia and Eudoxia the Younger, were taken as hostages to Africa. The latter was chosen to be married to the king's son and successor, Huneric .
That second and conscientious looting of the eternal city was a new affront to the dying Western Empire and its new universal religion. Genseric had just entered through the front door on the list of undesirables of the Roman Catholic world.
The Eastern Empire set out to avenge this affront in the year 468. The lack of foresight of the Byzantine general Basiliscus added to a brilliant ruse by Genseric using incendiary boats scuttled the army off Cape Bon (very close to present-day Tunis). , in one of the greatest Roman naval disasters in history. This new imperial humiliation led to one of the most notorious diplomatic successes of the Vandal king:the signing in the summer of 474 of the Perpetual Peace with the court of Constantinople , by which the Eastern Empire recognized Vandal sovereignty over the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and North Africa.
Thanks to the frequent purges he made during his reign among the fractious Vandal nobility, Gaiseric reached his eighth year. A confessed Arian, from 442 he eliminated from his court any Christian or pagan who did not profess his Christian current, but always respecting his Catholic subjects or other Christian minorities. He confiscated much of the Church's property as he saw in it a threat to his kingdom. He died on January 25, 477. he was succeeded by his son Huneric .
The Vandals in general, and Genseric in particular, have been very badly treated by history. The term vandalism, associated with senseless violence and brutality, is not contemporary with Imperial Rome. It came into use after the French revolution, since the gothic was epic and the wild vandal. This name is not fair:Goths, Huns or even the refined Persians were much more cruel and ruthless with their Roman enemies. But as we say today… “we have come up against the Church”