Chapter 1

Germania

The Vandals

The very name conjures up violent images of wanton destruction. It is the label given to those that deliberately destroy or damage property and it is the lasting epithet of the ancient Germanic tribe that carved a kingdom out of Roman Africa in the fifth century AD.

Of all the conquerors of the Roman Empire the Vandals surely have had the worst press. The Greeks and Romans called anyone living beyond the bounds of their Mediterranean civilization a ‘barbarian’. This pejorative term has also found its way into modern usage implying, as it did in ancient times, someone who is uncouth, uneducated and uncivilized. A ‘vandal’ seems to be one step further beyond the pale.

Who then were these people whose name has been preserved for nearly 1,700 years as the epitome of barbaric savagery? Do they deserve their reputation or is there more to their story?

The original Vandals sacked Rome in 455 but they were not the first to do so. Alaric’s Goths captured the eternal city forty years earlier, spending three days looting, pillaging and plundering. St Augustine was living in Hippo Regius as the Vandals were besieging that city, which they later sacked. For many early Christians the horrors of barbarian invasion was seen as God’s righteous wrath and punishment for their sins. The Vandals, although Christians themselves by this time, followed the teachings of the Bishop Arius and vigorously persecuted the Romans who believed that the Arian version of Christianity was heresy. All of this added up to an impression that the Vandals were bent on the destruction of all that was good and civilized.

As far as it is possible to tell, the term ‘vandalism’ first came to be equated with wanton destruction in the eighteenth century. In 1794, Henri Grégoire, the bishop of Blois, described the destruction of artwork in the French Revolution as ‘vandalisme’. The term stuck, even if the original Vandals were perhaps no more or less destructive than any of the other conquerors of ancient Rome. The Vandals are credited with defacing Roman monuments but in truth, much of the destruction of classical architecture was carried out by local inhabitants re-using building materials along with pious Christians taking offence at nudity and pagan symbolism.

Despite the real horrors of invasion by a foreign people who then become unsympathetic overlords, there is indeed much more to the narrative of the Vandals. Their story is actually quite remarkable. After very little contact with the Greco-Roman world, they emerged from the forests of central Europe in the early fifth century. They crossed the Rhine in midwinter, ravaged Gaul (modern France and Belgium) then passed through the Pyrenees. They briefly ruled over parts of Spain but in 429 they were on the move again. They crossed from Spain into Africa and took the Roman province for themselves.

It may be that the name of the Vandals comes from the same root as the modern German ‘wandeln’ (in German the letter ‘w’ is pronounced as the English ‘v’). From this we get the English word ‘wanderer’. If so it is an apt name. The Vandals were indeed wanderers, moving from Scandinavia to central Europe, then down to the Danube before crossing the Rhine, passing through France into Spain, and finally ending up in Africa.

Once established in Africa, these people from the land-locked forests of central Europe ruled the Mediterranean with their fleets, defying both the West and East Roman Empires. From a small insignificant tribe amongst many, they had emerged as one of the most powerful kingdoms of the fifth century. Their moment in the African sun was, however, very short lived. In 533 the East Romans, under the inspired leadership of Belisarius, crushed the Vandals and wiped out all traces of their kingdom except for the memory of their name as destroyers of civilization.

This book will examine how the Vandals managed to achieve such stunning success and then lose it all in a brief campaign. It will focus on the military aspects: how their armies were formed, their tactics, equipment and how they compared with their opponents. As a consequence the book will concentrate primarily on the great migration that led to the foundation of their African kingdom and its reconquest by Justinian’s East Romans. All of this will be placed in the political, religious and social context of the times.

Our Sources

The Vandals left very little archeological record. Therefore in reconstructing their story we have to rely primarily on literary sources. Unfortunately, unlike many of the other conquerors of the Roman Empire such as the Goths, Franks, Lombards and Saxons, the Vandals had no one to write their history from their point of view. The only contemporary records that we have, were written by their Roman enemies.

The end of the Vandal kingdom is very well documented by Procopius, secretary to the Roman general Belisarius who led the campaign which defeated the Vandals. Procopius was actually present at many of the incidents he recounted and took an active part in the campaign. As a result we have detailed accounts of the battles and skirmishes that took place between the Roman invasion of Africa in 533 and the end of the last free Vandals in 546. Although obviously biased, Procopius’s history is reasonably balanced. His descriptions of the battles, the numbers of troops involved and the various political machinations are both realistic and reliable.

The same cannot be said about any of the sources prior to this. Before their crossing of the Rhine in the early-fifth century, the Vandals were a relatively minor Germanic people and are only mentioned in passing by various Roman authors. Once they moved into Roman territory their story is recounted in horror by several chroniclers, all of whom were churchmen who took great exception to the Vandals’ heretical beliefs.

After crossing the Rhine on the last day of 406, the Vandals spent three years ravaging France. Yet the sum total of what contemporary chroniclers have to say about this amounts to no more than a few hundred words. Other than listing the cities that fell to the Vandals and some hints of other actions, Saint Jerome, Prosper of Aquitaine and others do not tell us how they did it, what sort of defence the Romans conducted nor any detail of the many skirmishes, sieges and battles that must have taken place between 406 and 409.

Once the Vandals crossed into Spain, the Spanish Bishop Hydatius gives us a little more detail. Hydatius lived through the Vandal occupation of Spain and spent several months as a prisoner of the Suevi who had accompanied the Vandals from Germany into Spain. Even though Hydatius tells us something about the events that took place in his country between 409 and 429, he is terribly short on detail. For example he says: ‘the barbarians ran wild through the Spanish provinces’, but does not say anything about how they managed to take most of the peninsular for themselves.

The story of the Vandals’ early years in Africa suffers from the same problem. Several bishops, Victor of Vita being the most notable, wrote about the suffering of Roman orthodox Christians at the hands of the Vandals. We hear how the Vandals ‘set to work on (Africa) with their wicked forces, laying it waste by devastation and bringing everything to ruin with fire and murders.’ Once again we do not learn how they did it, nor how they managed to defeat the Roman armies sent against them.

Therefore, in telling the Vandals’ fascinating story, I have had to frequently fall back on conjecture. I have tried to piece together the frustratingly sparse contemporary evidence, match it with other original sources that tell us something about the politics and military actions of the age and come up with conclusions that seem right, even if we are unlikely to ever know for certain. In this regard there are a couple of other invaluable contemporary sources. The first of these is the history of Ammianus Marcellinus – a fourth century Roman officer turned historian. Although his history ends a couple of decades before the Vandals crossed the Rhine, he does give first hand accounts of late Roman and barbarian warfare as well as observations on many of the peoples who played into the Vandal story. The second is the Notitia Dignitatum, a list of offices and army units from the end of fourth and early-fifth centuries. This tells us the official orders of battle of the Roman Army at the time of the Vandal invasion. While it needs to be treated with a fair degree of caution it is invaluable in building a picture of the Roman Army at the time of the Vandals. The histories and letters of Zosimus, Priscus, Saint Augustine, Olympiodorus, Jordanes, Sidonius Apollinaris and other chroniclers help to fill in some of the blanks.

I have quite deliberately relied on contemporary accounts rather than more recent histories or interpretations. In fact there are very few modern accounts of the Vandal story. The definitive modern study of the Vandals was written by Christian Courtois in 1955 and since then there have only been a couple of new books about them. There have, of course, been many new investigations of the fall of the West Roman Empire and late Roman warfare. Many of these have been very helpful in placing the story of the Vandals in a wider political, military and economic context. I have listed the most useful ones in the bibliography.

The Origins of the Vandals

The Vandals were an east Germanic people who crossed the Rhine in the early fifth century and ended up in Africa. This much is certain. Tracing back their origins and forming any idea of what their ancestors were like is much less so.

Tacitus, in his first century work Germania, recounts oral German tradition in which three groups of tribes – the Ingaevones; the Hermiones and the Istaevones were descended from the son of the earth-born god Tuisto. He then goes on to say:

‘Some authorities, with the freedom of conjecture permitted by remote antiquity, assert that Tuisto had more numerous descendants and mention more tribal groups such as Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi and Vandillii – names which they affirm to be both genuine and ancient.’

It would seem that Tacitus is sceptical of this claim, even though he is quite tactful in the way he expresses his doubt. Unfortunately, after this brief introduction, Tactius does not mention the Vandals again. When he goes through his descriptions of each of the Germanic tribes he says nothing about the Vandals or Vandillii.

Pliny the Elder also mentions the Vandilii in his Natural History, written in AD 77. He lists them as one of the five most important German tribes alongside the Burgundians, Goths, Varini and Charini. Interestingly, Pliny adds that the Burgundians were a part of the Vandal people. Close cooperation between the later Siling Vandals and Burgundians may lend some credence to this claim.

Norse and Germanic legends recount stories of migrations from Scandinavia into central Europe in which the Germanic peoples displaced or absorbed the earlier Celtic inhabitants. This is certainly the Gothic tradition and it is backed up with some archeological and etymological evidence. The same may be true of the Vandals. However, Tacitus’ story and Jordanes, history of the Goths may indicate that the Vandals were already living in central Europe when the Goths and others moved south.

Jordanes wrote in the sixth century for a Gothic audience. As such he glorifies the deeds of that people at the expense of others. In the fifth century the Goths and Vandals were bitter enemies. Jordanes traces this enmity back in the mists of time when the Goths first moved from Scandinavia to Germany, ‘subdued their neighbours, the Vandals, and thus added to their victories.’ By the third century the Goths were settled north of the Black Sea ‘holding undisputed sway over great stretches of country, many arms of the sea and many river courses. By their strong right arm the Vandals were often laid low.’

We have to take Jordanes’ stories with a grain of salt. A bit like Geoffrey of Monmouth rewriting Arthurian legends for the benefit of King Stephen, he re-interprets ancient histories for his Gothic readers to give them legitimacy. The Vandals are always cast in a bad light while the deeds of the Goths are glorified.

The seventh century Origin of the Lombard People recounts a legend in which the Lombards also defeated the Vandals early in their history:

‘There is an island that is called Scadanan… where many people dwell. Among these there was a small people that was called the Vinniles. And with them was a woman, Gambara by name, and she had two sons. Ybor and Agio. They, with their mother, Gambara, held the sovereignty over the Vinniles.

‘Then the leaders of the Vandals, that is, Ambri and Assi, moved with their army, and said to the Vinniles: “Either pay us tribute or prepare yourselves for battle and fight with us.”

‘Then answered Ybor and Agio, with their mother Gambara: “It is better for us to make ready the battle than to pay tributes to the Vandals.”

‘Then Ambri and Assi, that is, the leaders of the Vandals, asked Wodan that he should give them the victory over the Vinniles. Wodan answered, saying: “Whom I shall first see at sunrise, to them will I give the victory.”

‘At that time Gambara with her two sons… appealed to Frea, the wife of Wodan, to help the Vinniles. Frea gave counsel that at sunrise the Vinniles should come, and that their women, with their hair let down around the face in the likeness of a beard, should also come with their husbands. Then when it became bright, while the sun was rising, Frea, the wife of Wodan, turned around the bed where her husband was lying and put his face towards the east and awakened him. And he, looking at them, saw the Vinniles and their women having their hair let down around their faces. And he says, “Who are these Long-beards?” And Frea said to Wodan, “As you have given them a name, give them also the victory.” And he gave them the victory, so that they should defend themselves according to his counsel and obtain the victory. From that time the Vinniles were called Langobards (long-beards).’

It is possible that the Vandals were previous migrants who had to defend their territories from new arrivals such as the Goths and Lombards, although the Lombard history places their conflict with the Vandals in Scandinavia. There are links with the Vandal name to Scandinavia. Vendel in Sweden, called Vaendil in old Swedish, may indicate an original homeland of the Vandals. The northern tip of the Jutland peninsular of Denmark is called Vendsyssel, which may also have a Vandal connection. ‘Syssel’ is an ancient administrative area similar to the English ‘shire’, and ancient Danish names for the area include Wendila and Wændil. The ancestors of the Vandals may have migrated from northern Denmark in the second century BC. The archeological record shows that the Jutland peninsular was heavily settled at that time and then shortly afterwards was largely abandoned.

It is probable that the ancestors of the Vandals were living in modern Silesia, which is now part of Poland, at the time that Tacitus wrote his Germania. The archeological record shows a common culture over a wide but sparsely-populated area of small settlements where the dead were mostly cremated but notable warriors were interred together with horse gear and spurs.

Unfortunately the links between the literary and archeological records for the early Vandals are tenuous at best. After the brief mention of the Vandals in his introduction, Tacitus says that a confederation of tribes called the Lugi were living in the region where the Vandals are presumed to have settled. The Lugi are also located by other Greek and Roman writers as settled between the Oder and Vistula rivers but their name drops out of the historical record by the second century as that of the Vandals comes into greater prominence. Some historians have concluded that the Lugi and Vandals were one and the same, others think that the Vandals may have absorbed the Lugi in the second century and still others believe that there is no link at all. We will never really know for certain.

Ancient Germanic tribes were not like modern nation-states nor were they necessarily people who shared a common ancestry and heritage. The Vandals who moved into Africa in the fifth century included Alans, a Sarmatian people, and many others who were not descended from the original Vandals of central Europe. Ethnicity amongst the ancient German tribes was more about shared attitudes than ancestry or race. You were a Vandal if you were bound by oaths of loyalty to a Vandal leader and followed the norms and customs of Vandal society. Therefore the early Vandals could be thought of as a constantly shifting community, with various groups joining and leaving over the centuries before the crossing into Africa. This makes tracing their early history a very difficult proposition indeed.

First Contact with Rome

By the second century the story of the Vandals starts to become a little clearer. There are two main groupings: the Asdings (also variously written as Hasdings or Astings) and the Silings. The Silings continued to live in the area between the Oder and Vistula, possibly lending their name to modern Silesia. The Asdings, meanwhile, moved further south into modern Bohemia eventually settling in the Tisza Valley just north of the Roman Danube frontier. It may be that Asding expansion, up against the territories of the Marcomanni and Quadi, was one of the causes that sparked off the Marcomannic wars with Rome (AD 166-180). These were the pre-cursors to the great barbarian migrations of the fourth and fifth centuries. Although the Romans defeated the invaders, the fragility of the Imperial frontier was laid bare. The pattern of tribes beyond Rome’s borders being displaced by the aggressive movements of others, then spilling over the Imperial frontier, would be repeated many times in the years that followed.

Other than exerting pressure on the tribes living along the Danube frontier, the role of the Vandals in the Marcomannic wars is not entirely clear. Some Roman sources have the Vandals as allies of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, while another says that they were defeated by him. Cassius Dio, who is one of the historians who asserts that the Asding Vandals were Roman allies, also tells of a further expansion into Dacia (modern Romania):

‘The Astingi, led by their chieftains Raus and Raptus, came into Dacia with their entire households, hoping to secure both money and land in return for their alliance. But failing of their purpose, they left their wives and children under the protection of Clemens [Sextus Cornelius Clemens, Governor of Dacia], until they should acquire the land of the Costoboci by their arms; but upon conquering that people, they proceeded to injure Dacia no less than before. The Lacringi, fearing that Clemens in his dread of them might lead these newcomers into the land which they themselves were inhabiting, attacked them while off their guard and won a decisive victory. As a result, the Astingi committed no further acts of hostility against the Romans, but in response to urgent supplications addressed to Marcus [Aurelius] they received from him both money and the privilege of asking for land in case they should inflict some injury upon those who were then fighting against him. Now this tribe really did fulfil some of its promises.’

The Asding Vandals seem to have profited from the Marcomannic wars. In the peace settlement that followed, they were placed under Roman protection, the Marcomanni were forbidden to make war on them and their newly-won territories along the Dacian border were confirmed. Despite this, another source tells us that the Romans played the Vandals and Marcomanni off against each other in order to weaken them both. At this time the Vandals were still bit players in the drama that was unfolding beyond the Roman frontier. The Sarmatians, Goths, Alamanni, Franks, Suevi Marcomanni and Quadi were the leading actors

Over the next century the historical record goes quiet. Presumably the Vandals settled down for a while. Although they no doubt fought minor actions agains their Germanic and Sarmatian neighbours, relations with Rome remained distant and peaceful. In the mid-third century a series of Gothic invasions devastated the Balkans. The Goths sacked Athens and raided throughout the Aegean. In 248 some Asding Vandals joined the Goths for a raid into Moesia but other than that they seemed to have stayed out of the bitter conflict that followed.

In 270, after the defeat of the Goths at the Battle of Naissus, two Vandal kings apparently joined up with some Sarmatians to invade Pannonia. It is not clear why they chose this moment to invade rather than striking while the Romans were still engaged with the Goths. A plague had just broken out and the Emperor Claudius Gothicus died of it. Perhaps the Vandals and Sarmatians decided to take advantage of the Emperor’s death or perhaps they were set on the move by devastation caused by the plague.

It is likely that the Vandals were the junior partners in this expedition as Sarmatians feature most prominently in the original sources. The Vandals, or Vandeloi as he calls them, are only mentioned by Publius Herennius Dexippus, a contemporary Athenian historian whose reliability is questionable. The Sarmatians and Vandals were defeated by the new Emperor Aurelian, who took the title of ‘Sarmaticus’ after his victory. This confirms that the Sarmatians were the main antagonists. Aurelian held a triumph in 274 and Vandal prisoners were apparently paraded before the Roman populace. The defeated barbarians also had to provide 2,000 horsemen to serve in the Roman Army as part of the peace settlement. It is possible that some of these may have been Vandals, although it is highly unlikely that any Vandal band at that time could muster so many warriors. Most probably the vast majority of these men would have been Sarmatians.

At this point in their history the Vandals were still a conglomeration of relatively minor clans rather than a strong cohesive grouping. Bands of them seemed to have operated more or less independently of each other and there was no sense of a Vandal nation beyond the Rhine and Danube frontiers. While bands of Asdings were cooperating with the Sarmatians or fighting their neighbours in the Tisza Valley beyond the Danube, the Silings were pushing up against the Rhine. In the 270s the Emperor Probus defended the Rhine-Danube frontier against a combined force of Siling Vandals and Burgundians. In an engagement on the Lech River in modern Bavaria, Probus is said to have defeated the more numerous Germans by luring them over the river.

‘He (Probus) made war on the Burgundi and the Vandili. But seeing that his forces were too weak, he endeavoured to separate those of his enemies, and engage only with part of them. His design was favoured by fortune; for the armies lying on both sides of the river, the Romans challenged the Barbarians that were on the further side to fight. This so incensed them, that many of them crossed over, and fought until the Barbarians were all either slain or taken by the Romans; except a few that remained behind, who sued for peace, on condition of giving up their captives and plunder; which was acceded to. But as they did not restore all that they had taken, the Emperor was so enraged, that he fell on them as they were retiring, killed many of them, and took prisoner their general Igillus. All of them that were taken alive were sent to Britain, where they settled, and were subsequently very serviceable to the Emperor when any insurrection broke out.’ (Zosimus)

For the most part of the third and fourth centuries the Vandals were not at war with Rome. Instead their conflicts were primarily with their Sarmatian and Germanic neighbours. A panegyric to the Emperor Maximian in the late third century tells of a victory by the Tervingi and Taifali over the Vandals and Gepids. No doubt there were many similar unrecorded wars as the relatively weak and independent Vandal groups tried to hold onto their lands in face of expansion by their stronger and more cohesive neighbours.

Jordanes gives a detailed account of a war between the Goths and Vandals during the reign of Constantine (306-337):

‘Geberich (a Gothic king) … sought to enlarge his country’s narrow bounds at the expense of the race of the Vandals and Visimar, their king. This Visimar was of the stock of the Asdingi, which is eminent among them and indicates a most warlike descent … The battle raged for a little while on equal terms [by the Maros River in Modern Hungary]. But soon Visimar himself, the King of the Vandals, was overthrown, together with the greater part of his people. When Geberich, the famous leader of the Goths, had conquered and spoiled the Vandals, he returned to his own place whence he had come. Then the remnant of the Vandals who had escaped, collecting a band of their unwarlike folk, left their ill-fated country and asked the Emperor Constantine for Pannonia. Here they made their home for about sixty years and obeyed the commands of the emperors like subjects.’

This is one of the most detailed and seemingly definitive stories we have of early Vandal history by an ancient writer. However, Jordanes wrote his history 200 years after the events he is recounting and he was doing so with hindsight of the Gothic-Vandal enmity of the fifth century. If Constantine had given the Vandals land in Pannonia it would be reasonable to assume that there would be some Roman record of this. Unfortunately there is none, nor is there any mention of this settlement in any other sources, nor archaeological evidence to support it. Quite probably this is an apocryphal story, which may give some indication of the ongoing conflicts between the Vandals and their neighbours rather than fact. Maybe there was a Vandal leader called Visimar, maybe he did fight the Goths and was defeated by them, but it is less likely that any Vandals were given Roman land to settle by Constantine.

Vandals in the Roman Army

For the most part of the second to the fourth centuries the Vandals were a relatively weak conglomeration of groups living beyond the Roman frontiers. Occasionally bands of them fought against Rome and sometimes others were allies. They did not feature prominently in Roman histories and there was no indication that they would become such formidable foes in the future. It is easy to assume that if anyone in the fourth century predicted that these people would soon overrun France, Spain and Africa, they would have been dismissed out of hand.

If the Goths, Sarmatians and Alamanni were the main barbarian threats to the Roman Empire in the third-fourth centuries, the Vandals were seen as a source of likely recruits for the army – the most famous being Flavius Stilicho (360-408). His father was a Vandal cavalry officer who served the Emperor Valens (364-378), rose to high rank and married a Roman noblewoman. Since the reign of Diocletian (245–311), sons were obliged to follow their fathers’ professions and so the young Stilicho joined the Roman Army, entering the elite protectores domestici – a sort of combination bodyguard and staff officer cadre. By the time the Vandals crossed the Rhine in the early-fifth century, Stilicho had married into the Imperial family and held supreme military power in the Western Empire. Although he was half-Vandal in origin it is unlikely that Stilicho ever saw himself as anything other than Roman.

Vandal Settlements in Germania (after Jacobsen). This map shows the gradual southern movements of the Vandals’ ancestors from Scandinavia to the first homeland between the Oder and Vistula rivers and the subsequent migration of the Asdings into the Tisza basin. The other named tribes show their approximate location in the second-third centuries.

Other individual Vandals certainly filled the ranks of the Roman Army and fought faithfully for their new masters. It is difficult for us in the twenty-first century to understand the concepts of loyalty and nationality as they were understood 1,700 years ago. Then the nation state did not exist, nor did the concept of nationality as we now know it. Today, if a modern German goes off and fights for another nation or cause, he would be labelled as a mercenary or foreign fighter at best; terrorist at worst. In the early centuries AD there was no concept of a German or even a Vandal nation. Loyalty was personal and not based on nationality or race. A Vandal who swore allegiance to a Roman emperor, governor or centurion would see himself bound by sacred oaths to serve his leader faithfully without modern contradictions of nationality.

There is no recorded incident of a Vandal in the Roman Army betraying his new masters to the tribe he had come from. Since the time of Augustus the Romans had valued Germans for their personal loyalty. Emperors generally preferred to keep bodyguards of Germans rather than Romans. The latter might be tempted to switch allegiance while the former could still be relied on even when the political balance began to change.

Over the third and fourth centuries most Vandals in the Roman Army were probably individual recruits who served alongside others of different origins. There are, however, some indications that larger groups of Vandals may have been incorporated into the Roman Army to form distinct units.

The Siling Vandals and Burgundians who survived their defeat by Probus in 278 were conscripted into the Roman Army and sent to serve in Britain. Gervaisus of Tibury, who wrote the Otia Imperialia in 1214, says that there was a fortress called Wandlebria near modern Cambridge:

‘In England, on the borders of the diocese of Ely, there is a town called Cantabrica, just outside of which is a place known as Wandlebria, from the fact that the Wandeli, when ravaging Britain and savagely putting to death the Christians, placed their camp there.’

There is indeed an ancient hill fort at Wandlebury Hill near Ely in Cambridgeshire which had been in use since the early Iron Age. There is archeological evidence that it was also occupied by the Romans. Given the name (and the fact that the German ‘w’ is pronounced as an English ‘v’) it could be that this fort was taken over by the Vandal soldiers serving in the Roman Army who later suppressed a local rebellion as recounted by Zosimus (quoted above). However, it is too far of a stretch to draw any firm conclusions from the name alone or from an unreliable thirteenth century account.

The Notitia Dignitatum, a list of offices and army units from the late-fourth/early-fifth century, records the Ala VIII Vandilorum serving in Egypt. An Ala was a cavalry unit of around 500 men at full strength. Given their name, it is most likely that they were originally made up by a majority of Vandals, even if later recruits may have been drawn from other sources. The fact that this was a cavalry unit may indicate an increasing preference for mounted warfare amongst some Vandals, if not all.

Early Vandal Warfare

By the time they had settled down as a warrior aristocracy in Roman Africa, the Vandals fought on horseback. Many of the eastern Germanic tribes who took up lands on the Eurasian steppe also, quite sensibly, became primarily mounted warriors. Being classed amongst the eastern Germanic peoples, it is usually assumed that the early Vandals had always tended to fight mounted rather than on foot.

Debating the ethnicity of a tribe he calls the ‘Venedi’, Tacitus says that they had adopted many Sarmatian habits. He then goes on to conclude that they were Germans because they ‘carry shields and are fond of travelling fast on foot, differing in all these respects from the Sarmatians who live in wagons and on horseback.’ For Tacitus, fighting on foot, as opposed to the mounted warfare of the nomadic Sarmatians, seems to have been a hallmark of the Germanic warrior in the early years of their contact with Rome. However, this was not absolute. Describing the Tencteri, whom he says lived by the Rhine, Tacitus asserts that they ‘excel in skilful horsemanship’, adding that even children and old men compete in riding and that horses are passed on to the most skilful warriors when a horse owner dies.

Mounted warfare naturally develops in open areas such as plains and steppes. Here a horse warrior has a natural advantage by being able to traverse greater distances at greater speed. Open plains also make raising and maintaining a substantial horse herd a relatively easy business. Neither the Vandals’ original Scandinavian homeland, nor the mountainous, forested terrain of their new home in central Europe, would have been particularly suited to developing a horse culture. It is true that early Vandal burials contain horse furniture, but then most of the dead were cremated. Presumably only notable men were interred and the fact that they were the elite does not necessarily mean that all Vandal warriors were horsemen before their entry into the Roman Empire.

Fine distinctions between cavalry and infantry did not exist amongst the Germanic tribes. Warriors who had horses might fight mounted or dismount to fight on foot. Most of those who lived out on the steppes probably had horses. For others, like the early Vandals who lived in closer terrain, a horse would not have given the same tactical advantage and maintaining a suitable herd would have been much more difficult. Therefore, in the early days of Vandal history it is likely that only the richest men rode into battle and most probably even then dismounted to fight rather than forming a distinct cavalry force.

There are, however, several sources which seem to indicate a preference for mounted combat by the early Vandals. After their defeat by Aurelian in the 270s, the vanquished Sarmatians and Vandals were to provide 2,000 horsemen to the Roman Army. Probably most of these were Sarmatians but Vandals may have contributed. The Ala VIII Vandilorum previously mentioned was definitely a cavalry unit, which also supports the idea of a Vandal preference for mounted combat.

The terrain of the Vandal heartland in central Europe argues against the full development of mounted warfare in the early days of their history. Given the archeological evidence, it is likely that those who could afford it did own horses and most likely rode them into battle. The Asdings, who moved south into the Tisza basin, were clearly influenced by the Sarmatians, who were mounted nomads. Fighting alongside the Sarmatians, they would have come to value the strategic advantage that mounted action gave them for hit and run raids into enemy territory. The Hungarian plain would also have allowed them to build up larger horse herds than their Siling cousins to the north. Even if the Asdings had a greater number of mounted warriors than the Silings, it would probably be a mistake to imagine them as fighting exclusively on horseback as their descendants did in Africa several generations later.

Tacitus gives us some detailed descriptions of how the early Germans may have fought. Although these accounts contain a healthy dollop of poetic licence, they would have been based on first hand accounts of Roman officers who had fought against the Germans:

‘Generally speaking, their strength lies in infantry rather than cavalry. So foot soldiers accompany the cavalry into action, their speed on foot being such that they can easily keep up with charging horsemen. The best men are chosen from the whole body of young warriors and placed with the cavalry in front of the main battle line…The battle line is made up of wedge shaped formations. To give ground, provided that you return to the attack, is considered good tactics rather than cowardice.’

The wedge shaped formations should not be taken too literally. The wedge, or cuneus, as it was called by the Romans, was more like an attack column with the leader front and centre surrounded by his household warriors. As the column surged forward, the leader and his best men would have advanced more quickly while those on the vulnerable flanks held back. By the time they reached the enemy, the formation would have resembled a rough wedge.

Tacitus says that the main weapons were short, handy spears called frameae. These have ‘short and narrow blades which are sharp and easy to handle so that they can be used, as required, either at close quarters or in long range fighting. Their horsemen are content with a shield and a spear; but the foot soldiers also rain javelins on their foes. Each of them carries several and they hurl them to immense distances.’

When describing mounted action Tacitus says: ‘Their horses are not remarkable for either their beauty or speed and are not trained to execute various evolutions as ours are. They ride them straight ahead, or with just a single wheel to the right (so the man’s shielded side faces the enemy), keeping their line so well that not a man falls behind the rest.’

We have no way of knowing how much of this may have been applicable to the ancestors of the Vandals, of whom Tacitus had no knowledge. He does tell of tactical variations between certain tribes, one of whom were the Harii. This people were a sub-group of the Lugi who may have been later absorbed by the Vandals:

‘The Harii are not only superior in strength to the other peoples I have mentioned, but they minister to their savage instincts by trickery and clever timing. They black their shields, dye their bodies, and choose pitch dark nights for their battles. The shadowy, awe-inspiring appearance of such a ghoulish army inspires mortal panic, for no enemy can endure a sight so strange and hellish. Defeat in battle starts always with the eyes.’

We cannot make any firm conclusions about the composition of early Vandal armies or their tactics. Probably they started off as mainly foot warriors like other Germans, but as terrain and circumstances permitted they increasingly mounted up. Notable warriors probably always rode into battle, even if they dismounted to fight on foot. As their wealth and power grew, Vandal warriors increasingly took to fighting on horseback, but at the time of the Rhine crossing many or most probably still fought on foot.

Whether on foot or mounted, the early Vandal warriors were much more likely to be involved in raids and skirmishes against their neighbours than large set piece battles. Most warbands would have numbered in the hundreds rather than thousands, and the objectives of a campaign would be to increase prestige and material wealth of that particular band as they jostled and competed for resources with other similar bands. If we were to take a modern comparison, it would be closer to rival street gangs fighting continuous turf wars rather than life or death conflicts between competing nations or ideologies.

Those warriors who fought dismounted may well have used a looser formation than the tight shieldwall typical of later Germanic warriors and the Romans. If hit-and-run raids were the most usual form of combat, relatively lightly-equipped men with the short handy spears and javelins described by Tacitus would have been most suited for it. Such men would have been able to operate easily in the close terrain of the Vandal homelands as well as keeping up with mounted warriors in the open. There is some archeological evidence to suggest that the Germans of the early migration period may have had a looser fighting style than their later descendants. Shields were small, round and with prominent central bosses. This seems to indicate that the warrior’s shield was used offensively and for parrying blows. Roman shields, and those of later Germans, were larger and better designed for defence in a close formation.

If Tacitus is correct, mounted action by the early Germans seems to have been rather unsophisticated. Romans, Sarmatians and Huns used a mix of skirmish and shock tactics. They would harass their opponents with missile weapons, avoiding contact until their enemy was worn down and then close in for the kill. Tacitus’ statements that the Germans were ‘not trained to execute various evolutions as ours are’, and that, ‘their horsemen are content with a shield and a spear (without javelins)’, indicates a preference for close combat only. Later, when the Vandals fought the Moors and Romans in Africa, they seem to have been hampered by an inability to skirmish as well as fight hand-to-hand. It may be that Vandal mounted tactics did not evolve much over the centuries that followed.

Although there is a popular view that Germanic warriors shunned the use of missile weapons in favour of hand-to-hand combat only, there is plenty of evidence that this was not the case. Tacitus speaks of javelins being used by men on foot, their ability to fight at both close quarters or long range and the fact that a tactical withdrawal was not regarded as a sign of cowardice. The later Ostrogoths and Lombards fielded a large number of bow-armed men and several excavated Alamannic graves reveal that poorer warriors were buried with bows while richer ones had spears, swords and throwing axes.

As less prominent men amongst the early Vandals were cremated, we cannot know if the same was true for them. There is, however, no evidence for long-range missile weapons being used by the later Vandals, despite the influence of the Alans and Sarmatians who generally carried bows as well as lances. It may be that the Vandals never adopted archery. Perhaps, as they were so suddenly propelled from relatively minor tribes to a powerful warrior aristocracy, there was never a time when they had any significant number of less well-off men who had to make do with bows rather than the full panoply of the archetypical Germanic hand-to-hand fighter.

Amongst the early Germans, most free men carried arms and were able to fight. Even women and children might pitch in, taking care of the wounded and encouraging their menfolk:

‘Close by them are their nearest and dearest, so that they can hear the shrieks of their women and the wailing of their children. These are the witnesses whom each man reverences most highly, whose praise he most desires. It is to their mothers and wives that they go to have their wounds treated and the women are not afraid to compare gashes. They also carry supplies of food to the combatants and encourage them.’ (Tacitus)

Culture, Leadership and Society

Procopius, who wrote in the sixth century and was familiar with the later African Kingdom, tells us that the Vandals were closely related in language and laws to the Goths and Gepids:

‘There were many Gothic nations in earlier times, just as also at the present, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepids. In ancient times, however, they were named Sarmatians and Melanchlaeni [black cloaks – possibly a reference to Tacitus’ Harii] and there were some too who called these nations Getic. All these, while they are distinguished from one another by their names, as has been said, do not differ in anything else at all. For they all have white bodies and fair hair, and are tall and handsome to look upon, and they use the same laws and practise a common religion. For they are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic; and, as it seems to me, they all came originally from one tribe, and were distinguished later by the names of those who led each group.’

Given the paucity of evidence it is difficult to identify any unique characteristics of early Vandal society beyond that which they shared with other German tribes. Archeology has identified cultural similarities amongst the peoples who lived in central Europe which differed from the Goths to the east, Marcomanni and Quadi to the south, and the Franks and Alamanni to the west. Although the early Vandals lived in central Europe, it is likely that their culture (known as ‘Przeworsk’ from the town in modern Poland where the first discoveries were made) was shared by several similar groups which included the Vandals. It was not necessarily exclusively theirs, and the fact that a common way of life extended over a wide area does not mean that the early Vandals were already a powerful confederacy in the years before the Rhine crossing.

What the archeology tells us is that the ancestors of the Vandals lived in small, highly-dispersed, short-lived communities based on subsistence farming. Their houses, made of wood, wicker and mud, were simple structures with one or two rooms. In contrast, those areas dominated by the Goths and Alamanni show signs of much larger permanent settlements with more advanced agricultural techniques and greater material wealth. This was no doubt a direct result of war and trade with Rome.

Trade with Rome would have been vitally important to the Vandals as it provided them with better quality goods and gave local leaders the ability to increase their power and influence. Although the Vandals were one step removed from the Imperial frontiers, their settlements straddled the so-called ‘amber trail’ so the Vandals did have something to offer in exchange for Roman luxury goods. Living deep in central Europe, most trade with Rome in the early years probably went through Marcomannic, Sarmatian or Gothic middlemen. As a result, the Vandals remained relatively poor and weak compared to their neighbours who bordered the Rhine and Danube.

Pre-migration Germanic leadership was fragile and fragmented. A successful warrior would offer material wealth and protection to his extended household and therefore attract more followers. Such Germanic leaders are usually called ‘kings’ by the Romans but they were not kings as we now understand the term. At best, such men were probably village headmen who, through prowess in war, were able to maintain a small number of household warriors and extend their influence over neighbouring settlements. There was no sense of a Vandal nation, nor even a Siling or Asding nation. In the same way that various South London gangs today can all be called Londoners, this does not mean that they automatically have some kind of greater allegiance to an overall London gang leader. Later, larger more coherent political groupings came about through military and economic interaction with Rome, but this did not come to pass for the Vandals until well after the Rhine crossing.

Interestingly, most primary sources mention two leaders when they describe the early Vandals. We have already heard how Ybor and Agio of the Lombards fought against Ambri and Assi of the Vandals; and how Raus and Raptus led their Asding followers into Dacia. This has led some historians to conclude that there was some kind of ‘twin kingship’ amongst the early Vandals and many other Germans. Tacitus seems to imply that this dual leadership was quite common, with one giving spiritual guidance while the other led warriors into battle. Dual leadership is also found in other cultures. After the death of King Rua, Attila and Bleda ruled the Huns jointly for several years until Attila did away with his brother to assume sole command. Given the fragmented nature of early Vandal political structures, it is probably wrong to assume that just because two leaders are often mentioned that this was always some sort of formal arrangement. It may well be that the two names were more symbolic than accurate. Tacitus, for example, links the dual kingship to the Roman divinities of Castor and Pollux, and the names ‘Raus’ and ‘Raptus’ may mean ‘pole’ and ‘beam’.

As a single Vandal leader could probably only muster a few hundred men, only by joining up with another they could have had an impact that made a difference. As these ‘kings’ acquired greater wealth, often through their dealings with Rome, they were able to maintain larger groups of full-time retainers who were bound by formal oaths of loyalty and a code of honour. They fought for him to increase his power while he provided them with gifts, prestige and high standing within the community. In order to take on the might of Rome, several such leaders and their followings had to band together, at least temporarily, if they were to have any chance of success.

The Wrong Sort of Christians

If much of the early history of the Vandals will always remain shrouded in the mists of time, one event that is certain and had a lasting impact on their later history was their conversion to Christianity. This was significant less for the fact that they became Christians than that they adopted the Arian version of Christianity that was later deemed heretical by the Roman Church.

In 341 a Goth by the name of Ulfilas (Little Wolf) was consecrated Bishop at the Council of Antioch and was sent north of the Danube to bring his people around to Christianity. To say he was a Goth is true, but he is a good example of how ethnicity amongst the Germans was not necessarily based on race. He was descended from Roman captives taken by the Gothic Tervingi clan in the late-third century. He grew up as a Goth, had a Gothic name and spoke Gothic as his first language, but he was also fluent in Latin and Greek, and he retained his parents’ Christian beliefs.

Ulfilas translated the Bible into Gothic and gradually converted his people to Christianity. His work, and that of his followers, influenced other Germanic tribes as the word spread beyond Gothic territory. As neighbours of the Goths, the Vandals probably converted to Christianity towards the end of the fourth century as an indirect result of Ulfilas’ mission.

The fifth-century Spanish chronicler Orosius says that the Vandals were still heathens when they crossed the Rhine in 406-7, but this is highly unlikely. By the time they arrived in Spain, the Vandals were almost certainly Christians. Conversion needs time to contemplate spiritual matters and this is not easily done while you are marauding through enemy territory. Given their proximity to the Goths and similar dialect, it is far more likely that the Vandals became Christians before the Rhine crossing. Had it happened later they would have taken on the Catholic version of Christianity of the Hispano-Romans rather than following the Arian teachings of Ulfilas.

Today, in the West, we tend to think of religion as a personal matter where each individual makes up his or her own mind independently. In late antiquity this was not the case. Shared beliefs were then an important part of the tribe’s identity. If your leaders decided that Christianity was the way of the future, then you would follow suit. In post-Reformation Germany, small principalities and even clusters of villages often switched between Catholicism and Protestantism in accordance with their leaders’ decisions. The same was probably true of the Vandals. If Ulfilas’ priests could convince the elite, then the rest of the people would convert alongside them. Early Germanic leaders were not autocrats, so they would need to take their followers’ views into consideration. It helped greatly that the early Christians were quite happy to adopt pagan festivals and practices by giving them a patron saint or a Christian gloss so that life could go on more or less as it had in the past. Once the Vandals converted to Christianity, this belief became part of what made up the Vandal identity. This should have made integration with the Christian Roman world easier, but there was a problem.

Ulfilas followed the teachings of the Bishop Arius (250-336), which in the early part of the fourth century were fairly widely accepted. In simple layman’s terms, Arius believed that Jesus was a man created by God the Father. He was from God but Jesus and the Father were not the same being. Others held that the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost were one and the same with no differentiation or hierarchy between them. This is necessarily a very simplistic interpretation. The subtle nuances surrounding the nature of the Trinity resulted in the deaths of thousands of believers on both sides as the various adherents of one idea or the other persecuted their opponents with fanatical fervour. The Council of Nicaea in 325 attempted to draw a line under the controversy, defining the relationship of the Son and Father as ‘of the same substance’. As a result the idea that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost were the same being became known as the Nicene Belief, and from this we get the Nicene Creed which is today still the official doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The Nicaean Council did not settle the matter. Furious, frequently deadly debates continued as the East Roman Empire became consumed with the relationship between Jesus and God. At a second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381, the Arian version that the Son and Father were similar, but not the same, was finally declared heretical. The Nicene Creed became the only acceptable interpretation of Christianity and the matter was finally settled.

Or was it?

No one bothered to invite the Vandals to the councils at Nicaea or Constantinople. While a new orthodoxy had been accepted by Christians within the Roman Empire, those beyond the frontiers still held firm to the Arian version as preached by Ulfilas and his followers. In the years that followed, integration between Nicene Romans and Arian Germans was problematic to say the least. In the case of the Vandals these difficulties were even more pronounced.

The Vandal Migration in the fifth century (after Jacobsen). Under pressure from the Huns, the Vandals moved west at the beginning of the fifth century. A group of Asdings moved into Raetia in 401 but were defeated by Stilicho. In 406 the Asdings and Silings moved into Frankish territory, joined by groups of Suevi and Alans along the way. After a battle with the Franks, the migrants crossed the Rhine on 31 December 406.