Into Africa
A Possible Invitation
We have to turn again to Roman politics to understand why the Vandals decided to leave the land they had fought tooth and nail over to hold against all comers for the past two decades. By this time many of the young warriors filling the Vandal ranks had been born inside the Roman Empire and they had only folk tales to remind them of their forefathers’ ancestral home in the forests of Germania. Yet, unlike the Franks, Alamanni, Burgundians or Goths they had not received any formal settlement with Rome and they remained unwelcome foreigners in the land to which they had been born.
After Honorius’ death, the infant Valentinian III ascended to the Western throne at Ravenna, with his mother Galla Placidia the power behind it. She was propped up by the Eastern Empire but more importantly by three powerful warlords: Aeitus, Felix and Boniface. Each of these men vied to become the pre-eminent general who would rule the Western Empire in all but name. After some initial struggles, Aeitus, backed up by Huns, was given command of the Gallic field army. Felix got the Italian army while Boniface, the same man who had fallen out with Castinus in his campaign against the Vandals in 422, became the Count of Africa.
Galla Placidia did her best to keep a balance between these powerful warlords but conflict was inevitable. In 427, Boniface was accused of disloyalty by Felix and was ordered to return to Italy. When Boniface refused, Ravenna tried to bring him back by force, without much success.
‘By the decision of Felix, war in the public name was declared on Boniface, whose power and glory were growing in Africa, because he refused to return to Italy. The war was prosecuted by Mavortius, Gallio and Sanoex. By the treason of the last of these, Mavortius and Gallio were killed while they were besieging Boniface, and Mavortius himself was soon killed by Boniface when his deceit was uncovered.’ (Prosper of Aquitaine)
In the midst of these Imperial struggles, the Vandals saw their chance. They may even have been invited into Africa by Boniface when his position was under threat from Felix and Aetius. Even if the invitation was not so direct, then he may well have let it be known that he was in the market for mercenaries to prop up his position in Africa.
According to Procopius, writing in the sixth century, Boniface sent an embassy to the Vandals just after Gunderic’s death (although he confuses Gunderic with Godegisel):
‘Boniface accordingly sent to Spain those who were his most intimate friends and gained the adherence of the sons of Godigiselus on terms of complete equality. It being agreed that each one of the three, holding a third part of Libya, should come to rule over his own subjects but if a foe should come against any one of them to make war that they should in common ward off the aggressors. On the basis of this agreement the Vandals crossed the straits of Gadira [Gibraltar] and came into Libya.’
Historians have debated the validity of Procopius’ account for centuries. Some dismiss the idea that the Vandals were invited into Africa entirely, while others hedge their bets. However, Procopius is not the only source. Jordanes gives a similar account: ‘Geiseric, King of the Vandals, had already been invited into Africa by Boniface, who had fallen into a dispute with the Emperor Valentinian and was able to obtain revenge only by injuring the Empire. So he invited them urgently and brought them across the narrow strait known as the Strait of Gades, scarcely seven miles wide, which divides Africa from Spain and unites the mouth of the Tyrrhenian Sea with the waters of Ocean.’
Finally we have this tantalizing snippet from Prosper as he continues his account of the conflict between Boniface and Felix (quoted above):
‘After that [Boniface’s defeat of Felix’s generals] access to the sea was gained by peoples who were previously unaccustomed with the use of ships, when they were called on to help the rivals. The conduct of the war begun against Boniface was transferred to Count Sigisvult.’
Prosper’s next entry simply reads: ‘The Vandal people crossed from Spain to Africa.’
Sigisvult was a Goth and so Prosper’s passage could easily mean that Goths were transported by sea to aid Felix, but it more likely means that the Vandals were called in by Boniface, particularly in light of the follow-on entry. As Prosper uses the plural he could well be reporting that barbarians were called in to support both factions.
The main argument against Boniface’s invitation is that a year later he was leading the defence of Africa against them. However, by 429 he had been reconciled with Galla Placidia. By then, if he had previously sought Vandal help, it would have been too late for him to say that he no longer needed it even if he had ‘repented of his act’, as Procopius says.
Despite the tendency of many modern historians to try to rehabilitate Boniface’s reputation, for me the stories ring true. Although they had survived against all odds for two decades, the one thing the Vandals had failed to achieve was a permanent accommodation within the Roman Empire where they could be left alone to enjoy the fruits of their victory rather than having to constantly look over their shoulders to the next attack.
In 428/29, the situation in Spain was perhaps not great but the Vandals did not have an immediate threat to their position. With Boniface, Felix and Aetius facing each other off in Africa, Italy and Gaul, then the Vandals could perhaps have anticipated a few uninterrupted years of peace in Spain, just as the Suevi did, who decided to remain behind. Furthermore, with Aetius trying to build a power base in Gaul, the Goths’ attention was drawn towards the north and west rather than to Spain. In order to spark off yet another migration, the motivation had to be more than a yet unplundered province across the Straits of Gibraltar. The one thing that the Vandals lacked and which they needed more than anything was legitimacy. In the end they never really got it because they backed the losing side. However, an offer of land in return for backing one or another of the rival Roman factions seems to me to be the only reasonable explanation for the Vandals picking up sticks once again and heading off into a new and uncertain future.
In all likelihood there was no formal treaty, just as there had been none in 406 if Stilicho’s ambassadors had been speaking smooth words around the council fires back then, nor in 411 when Gerontius’ men no doubt gave assurances they could never hope to keep. In all likelihood the Vandals would have received embassies from all the competing Roman generals, if only to sound them out. Possibly, if Gunderic had remained king he would have thought twice about jumping on empty promises offered by Roman diplomats from yet another faction. But Gunderic died in 428 and his half-brother Geiseric took over.
New King of a New Nation
Although Geiseric was made King of the Vandals and Alans over Gunderic’s two young sons, there is no evidence to suggest that this was a palace coup. Later, when Geiseric’s power was greater, he still had to defer at times to the wishes of the other powerful Vandal leaders. Quite probably he was elected to the kingship in the old fashioned Germanic way by acclamation of the nobles. On taking the leadership he had the backing of the most important warriors, who would not have wanted to confer kingship on a minor. Later, however, Geiseric did away with the two inconvenient princes to secure the succession for his own son.
Geiseric (also variously spelled Gaiseric, Gizeric and Genseric) was Gunderic’s half-brother, son of Godegisel and a Roman concubine. As he lived until 477 he must have been a fairly young man in 428 and was probably only an infant when the Vandals crossed the Rhine with his brother already king. If the story of his later conversion to Arianism is true, it may be that his mother had brought him up as a Catholic but that he adopted the Arian religion of his people as an adult.
Writing a century later, Jordanes paints a brief pen picture of the man:
‘Geiseric, still famous in the City for the disaster of the Romans, was a man of moderate height and lame in consequence of a fall from his horse. He was a man of deep thought and few words, holding luxury in disdain, furious in his anger, greedy for gain, shrewd in winning over the barbarians and skilled in sowing the seeds of dissension to arouse enmity. Such was he who, as we have said, came at the solicitous invitation of Boniface to the country of Africa. There he reigned for a long time, receiving authority, as they say, from God Himself.’
Procopius says that: ‘Geiseric had been excellently trained in warfare and was the cleverest of all men.’
Geiseric would have wanted to make a mark to differentiate him from his brother who had led the Asdings from the Rhine to the Mediterranean. Just as a politician being elected today needs to offer the people a vision of a new and better future, the recently-appointed king of the remaining Vandals and Alans had to do much the same thing. If he had some form of agreement with Boniface, no matter how vague, it would have been something he could have held up to his people of a promise of a better life under a new regime. So it was in May 429 Geiseric gathered his people at Mellaria (modern Tarifa, near Gibraltar) to make the crossing into Africa.
Who were these people, whom from this point onwards I will generically refer to as ‘Vandals’? Clearly many were the descendants and survivors of the Asdings, Silings and Alans who had moved into Spain in 411. Yet everyone over the age of 23 had been born inside the Roman Empire and many of these, like Geiseric himself, to Roman mothers. On the long road to the south coast of Spain they had suffered many casualties, with the Silings being more or less wiped out and the Alans decimated. The survivors of both these previously separate groups were now integrated under Asding leadership. Escaped slaves, brigands and deserters from various Roman armies no doubt also swelled their ranks, as did a band of Goths who had ended up on the wrong end of a Gothic power struggle, remaining in Spain when their compatriots moved back to Aquitaine. Although the spilt with the Suevi had been violent, there may well have been some Suevi who threw their lot in with the Vandals. A tombstone of a Suevic woman, Ermengon, wife of Ingomar, who died in 474 was found at Hippo Regius (Annaba in modern Algeria), giving some evidence that this may have been the case.
So they were a pretty mixed bunch. The Asdings, Silings, Suevi and Goths would all originally have had a Germanic mother tongue (although probably ‘father tongue’ would be a more accurate term) but the Alans spoke an entirely different language and also had very different customs. How these various peoples managed to integrate can only be guessed at, as they left little or no archaeological or literary traces behind. Later mosaics from North Africa show that they had adopted Roman dress but that their horses had large cruciform tagma brands often associated with Sarmatian peoples such as the Alans. Although individual families probably retained their own original dialects for a generation or two, Latin would have been the only practical language of communication across groups. Increasingly, the Vandals would have adopted customs and practices that suited their current situation rather than clinging on to what had been appropriate for their Alan and German forefathers beyond the Rhine and Danube. What held them together and set them apart was recognition of the Asding dynasty as Reges Vandalorum et Alanorum and a fierce adherence to the Arian form of Christianity.
Across the Sea
Before actually moving into Africa, there was one last Spanish drama to play out. Hydatius reports that on learning that the Suevi, under their new King Heremigarius, were plundering the nearby provinces, Geiseric turned back inland to attack them:
‘And so Geiseric returned with some of his men and pursued the looter into Lusitania. Heremigarius had previously inflicted harm on Emerita Augusta [Mérida] and the blessed martyr Eulalia; and not far from that city, after the accursed among his company had been killed by Geiseric … he [Heremigarius] was cast down into the River Ana by the arm of God and died. After Heremigarius had thus been destroyed, Geiseric sailed away as he had begun to do so.’
It seems rather unlikely that once in the throes of his amphibious preparations Geiseric would have decided to march inland to the further reaches of his domains to defend territory he had already decided to abandon. More likely this engagement took place before the decision to move into Africa had been taken. Perhaps, although victorious, this new bout of Suevic aggression helped to convince any waverers amongst the Vandal nobles that leaving Spain was the best plan.
The number of 80,000 Vandals is generally accepted as a reliable figure for the entire Vandal nation that moved into Africa. Procopius says that there were 80,000 warriors, but even he doubts they could have had that many fighting men:
‘The Vandals and the Alans he [Geiseric] arranged in companies, appointing over them no less than 80 leaders whom he called Chillarchs (leaders of 1,000), making it appear that his host of fighting men in active service amounted to 80,000. And yet the number of the Vandals and Alans was said in former times to amount to no more than 50,000.’
Victor of Vita tells us that before embarking, Geiseric carried out a full enumeration of the entire population, presumably so that he could organize transport and supplies. This census counted all the males ‘old men, young men and children, slaves and masters’. Although Victor seems to discount the female population, a figure of 80,000 souls giving a potential fighting force of 15-20,000 men seems reasonable. An average of 20,000 men seems to be the size of most large Roman era armies and was probably the most that could be sustained on campaign without a Herculean effort. It equates to the two-legion Consular armies of the Republic as well as the field armies of the later Empire. With a highly-organized commissariat and with pre-positioning supplies, the Romans could temporarily combine larger numbers for a limited period for a specific campaign. Neither the Vandals nor any other barbarian force could possibly manage to do this. If the Vandals could muster close to 20,000 warriors, then it would have put them on a par with the larger Roman field forces sent against them while seriously outnumbering the dispersed garrisons of limitanei.
Moving an entire population of 80,000 people would have been an incredibly difficult and dangerous undertaking. First there was the matter of transport. It has been suggested by some historians that the Vandals could have sailed from Tarifa along the coast of Africa to land somewhere in modern Algeria. With the number of people, animals and supplies they had to carry, this would have been an impossible task. From Procopius we learn that the ships of the East Roman invasion fleet of 533 could each carry about seventy men plus horses and supplies. There is no chance that Geiseric could have had a fleet of over 1,000 ships capable of a long voyage. Therefore it is certain that they took the short route across the Straits of Gibraltar, probably heading for Septem (modern Ceuta).
This amphibious operation probably resembled something like the British retreat from Dunkirk in 1940, with an unlikely conglomeration of boats ferrying groups of people, animals and supplies over a protracted period. Unlike the British, however, there is no indication that the Vandals had any enemy action to contend with. Mauretania Tingitana, the name of the province which is now northern Morocco, was on the fringes of the Roman world and it was only lightly held by eight dispersed detachments of limitanei and a small field force of four infantry and three cavalry units. These troops would have been more used to regulating trade and keeping order than standing up to a major invasion. Two of the Count of Tingitania’s infantry units were Legiones Comitatenses, which probably had a paper strength of 1,000 men each. The other two were Moorish Auxilia Palatina, probably up to 500 men each, with the same number for each of the three cavalry units. In the unlikely event that these units were at full strength, then the Count had at most 4,500 field army troops under his command and probably far less. Furthermore, if there was any confusion over the status of the Vandals resulting from the politicking of Boniface, Felix and Aeitus it would have taken a very brave man to make the unilateral decision to resist the Vandals without waiting for further instructions and reinforcements.
The ferrying back and forth between Spain and Africa must have gone on for weeks or even months. Many of the transports would have been relatively small craft commandeered from local fishermen and merchants rather than purpose-built transports. Ferrying 80,000 people would have been a monumental undertaking, but adding in all the wagons, supplies and livestock needed to support the Vandals would have made it even more difficult. No doubt Geiseric fully expected to be able to commandeer supplies and transport once he got to the other side, but keeping 80,000 people fed while they had to remain in a relatively small area as the amphibious operation was still going on would have been a Herculean task.
This brings us to the matter of horses and the nature of the Vandal army at this point in their history. Transporting horses by sea is far from impossible. In 533, Belisarius transported several thousand cavalrymen from Constantinople to Africa but this would have been done in purpose-built ships, few of which were likely to have been in Vandal possession in 429. By 533, the Vandal army was an entirely mounted force and seems to have lost the art of fighting on foot. If this was already the case in 429, then Geiseric would have had to transport around 20,000 cavalry mounts in addition to 80,000 people and all the livestock needed to haul the baggage wagons.
We have already seen how the Alans had a tradition of mounted warfare but that most of the Vandals probably fought on foot in their early days. Any ability to keep a decent stock of cavalry mounts probably took a beating in the winter of 406/7, and while the Vandals and Alans would no doubt have been able to round up replacement horses from the countryside these would have been a motley collection of nags rather than fine cavalry chargers. In Spain they may have had time to build up a decent horse herd, and certainly the Alans would have done their best to do so. They would, however, have been dependent on an initial breeding stock and the Roman field army in Spain was an entirely infantry force. Therefore, the number of good replacement war horses available to them would have been quite limited.
My conclusion is that a large proportion of the Vandal warriors probably crossed the Straits of Gibraltar without mounts. It was only later, once they had settled down in North Africa, that they were able to raise and maintain the number of trained horses needed to fight exclusively on horseback.
Across the Desert
Despite monumental difficulties the Vandals made it into Africa, apparently without serious mishap. However, their challenge was not yet over. In order to reach the more prosperous eastern provinces of Roman Africa, which were their target, they had a march of nearly 2,000km ahead of them.
With thousands of migrants risking their lives to cross in rickety boats from Africa to Europe in modern times, it is perhaps difficult for us to understand how the traffic was in the other direction a millennia and a half ago.
Back in the fifth century, Africa was the most prosperous region of the West Roman Empire. For years African agricultural surpluses were exported to Europe, and in particular fed the population of the city of Rome. In the nineteenth century, many historians concluded that the climate must have been different, but modern investigations do not bear this out. The climate was more or less as it is now, although there would have been more trees and therefore less desertification. The relatively fertile coastal strip along the Mediterranean has always been able to produce grain, olives, fruit and pasture. The big advantage Africa had before the arrival of the Vandals was that it had enjoyed many centuries of relative peace and stability since the end of the Punic and Numidian Wars.
While Italy, Gaul, Britain, and later Spain, endured the ravages of civil wars and barbarian invasions, Africa was largely spared. There had been a few conflicts with the Moors and the odd usurpation, but recent archeological discoveries show that the scattered Roman fortresses along the long desert frontier were more like customs posts than the defensive bastions of the French Foreign Legion which took their place in modern times.
Tingitana (modern northern Morocco), where the Vandals landed, was not the best part of Africa back then. Although fertile, it was on the very edge of civilization and was actually considered part of Spain rather than Africa. Had they been only seeking a safe haven to settle, then perhaps they could have done worse than to take it for themselves, but the Vandals were playing for higher stakes and the rich easterly provinces of Numidia, Byzacena and Africa Proconsularis drew them onwards. If there had been an earlier understanding with Boniface, these were the lands he controlled and perhaps his ambassadors had led the Vandals to believe that they could legally have a third of it for themselves. These regions contained the great cities of Hippo Regius (Annaba in modern Algeria) and Carthage (now a suburb of Tunis), not to mention many smaller towns and hugely prosperous farming estates. To get there, the Vandals had to cross 250km of desert and then move through the relatively poor province of Mauretania Caesariensis. So that is precisely what what they did.
We know very little about their route or what happened along the way, but it must have been a very arduous journey, with many people and animals failing to make it to the end. They no doubt followed the coastal road and may well have been supported by supply ships following along out to sea, but there is no hard evidence to prove this one way or another. The only clue comes from Altava (Ouloud Mimoun in modern Algeria), 500km east of where the Vandals first landed. Here an inscription records the death of a provincial official who died ‘by barbarian sword’ in late summer 429 – four months after the start of this last Vandal migration.
The tale of the Vandal trek across Africa is recounted in lurid detail by Victor of Vita (Victor Vitensis), a fifth century African bishop, in his not so subtlety named book History of the Persecutions of the African Provinces at the time of the Vandal Kings. He seems to almost relish the tales of death, mayhem and destruction as the Vandals laid waste to the countryside, despoiling virgins and torturing pious Catholic bishops: ‘So it was that no place remained safe from being contaminated by them as they raged with great cruelty, unchanging and relentless.’
As in Gaul, the Vandals seem to have taken the cities and towns of Mauretania Caesariensis with relative ease. After pausing briefly to replenish supplies and wreak a little havoc on the Catholic population, the Vandals continued to push relentlessly eastward.
In their terror at the Vandal advance, the good bishops of Africa wrote to Saint Augustine in Hippo Regius asking him if it were permissible to flee and leave their flocks to their fate or if they were expected to ‘reap the fruit of martyrdom’. When Augustine helpfully told them; ‘Christ laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,’ Bishop Honoratus of Thiabe took issue: ‘I do not see what good we can do to ourselves or to the people by continuing to remain in the churches, except to see before our eyes men slain, women outraged, churches burned, ourselves expiring amid torments applied in order to extort from us what we do not possess?’
If the Vandal depredations were indeed as horrific as the early church fathers say they were, how was it that the towns along the way fell so easily? Supplies would have been the Vandals’ most important goal. While they could ravage the countryside more or less at will, their main purpose in capturing a town would have been to gain access to the grain stores. The Vandals had neither the time nor the inclination to conduct a protracted siege before they reached the more prosperous provinces further on. Therefore, they would have depended on the inhabitants throwing their gates open to them or at least not offering a stubborn resistance. If the defenders knew that the result of surrender would be torture, death and violent destruction, they would have held out at all costs. Even if the dispersed detachments of limitanei under the Duke of Mauretania Caesariensis’ command were not top notch troops, any sort of determined resistance would have inflicted unacceptable delays on the Vandal advance. In another of Victor’s grisly accounts he says that the Vandals piled bodies against the walls to force surrender through fear of disease – a most unlikely tactic!
Of course not all towns would have had good walls, and those could have been taken by storm. It is also likely that the Vandal depredations hit the Catholic clergy and the nobility much harder than the poor, and that the horror expressed in contemporary writings reflect this. Throwing open the gates, therefore, may not have necessarily led to a general massacre. Various heretical Christian sects had sprung up in North Africa, and amongst them were the Agonistici, who were opposed to slavery and private property. They saw themselves as fighters for Christ and deliberately sought martyrdom, often through committing violent acts like modern suicide bombers. Men such as these would probably have had a very different take on the Vandals, as would the vast armies of slaves and poor farmers who toiled on the large estates to feed the mob in Rome. Unfortunately, their views and those of the Vandals themselves have gone unrecorded.
That said, the real horror felt by the Catholic clergy who wrote about the Vandal invasion should not be dismissed. The impact of the swift and unexpected advance of the Vandals and their vigorous persecution of those who held different religious views must have been similar to the impact felt today by many people in Syria and Iraq as their homelands are overrun by the so-called Islamic State.
Showdown with Boniface
By early 430 the Vandals had reached Numidia and Africa Proconsularis. Hippo Regius held against them, so many of the Vandals spread out over the provinces, probably in small groups of mounted warriors, now well supplied with horses rounded up from countryside.
An attempt to surprise the garrison and take Carthage in a coup de main failed and then Vandal bands pulled back to concentrate near Hippo Regius as the Romans were on the move. Whether or not Boniface’s ambassadors had egged the Vandals on when he was in conflict with Ravenna, Boniface certainly did not want them on his patch now that he was back in Galla Placidia’s good books. After marshalling his forces, he marched on Hippo Regius to stop the Vandal advance.
The Vandals were at this time in the prosperous heartland of Roman Africa, which was also the best defended. As Count of Africa, Boniface had a good-sized field army under his command in addition to his sixteen detachments of limitanei. Again falling back on the Notitia Dignitatum, the theoretical order of battle for the African field army included the following units:
Senior Palatine Legions (legiones palatinae). The most best regular heavy infantry – probably around 1,000 men at full strength:
Armigeri Propugnatores Seniores
Armigeri Propugnatores Iuniores
Secundani Italiciani
Cimbriani
Palatine Auxiliaries (auxilia platinae). Elite infantry capable of mobile operations as well as standing firm in line of battle – probably about 500 men at full strength:
Celtae Iuniores
Legions of the Comitatus (legiones comitatenses). Good line heavy infantry – probably around 1,000 men at full strength:
Prima Flavia Pacis
Secunda Flavia Virtutis
Tertiani (Tertia Flavia Salutis)
Constantiniani (Secunda Flavia Constantiniana)
Constantici (Flavia Victrix Constantina)
Tertio Augustani
Fortenses
Cavalry of the Comitatus (vexillationes comitatenses). Good line cavalry - probably around 500 men each at full strength:
Equites Stablesiani Italiciani (heavy cavalry)
Equites Scutarii Seniores (heavy cavalry)
Equites Stablesiani Africani (heavy cavalry)
Equites Marcomanni (heavy cavalry)
Equites Armigeri Seniores (heavy cavalry)
Equites Sagittarii Clibanarii (armoured horse archers)
Equites Sagittarii Parthi Seniores (horse archers)
Equites Cetrati Seniores (possibly light cavalry)
Equites Primo Sagittarii (horse archers)
Equites Secundo Sagittarii (horse archers)
Equites Tertio Sagittarii (horse archers)
Equites Quarto Sagittarii (horse archers)
Equites Sagittarii Parthi Iuniores (horse archers)
Equites Cetrati Iuniores (possibly light cavalry)
Equites Promoti Iuniores (heavy cavalry)
Equites Sagittarii Iuniores (horse archers)
Equites Honoriani Iuniores (heavy cavalry)
Equites Secundi Scutarii Iuniores (heavy cavalry)
Equites Armigeri Iuniores (heavy cavalry)
In the unlikely event that these units were anything like at full strength, this would have given Boniface an army of 11,500 infantry and 9,500 cavalry. This was more or less the same number of troops as the Vandals could have called on, if they had indeed crossed into Africa with 80,000 people. The actual number of soldiers that could be fielded by the Count of Africa was probably much less. Some of the units listed above are also doubly accounted for in the Notitia, serving under other commands. For example, the Equites Scutarii Seniores is also listed as serving under the Count of Tingitania. Furthermore, none of the units would have been at full strength. Even at the best of times, sickness, death, desertion and recruitment difficulties would deplete the ranks, and these were not the best of times. Probably a number closer to 15,000 or less is a more likely estimate for the number of good Roman troops Boniface could hope to field.
The writings of St Augustine and Olympiodorus indicate that Boniface relied heavily on Gothic troops to fill out the ranks of his army. With the Goths now tucked away in western France, it is highly unlikely he could have called on large numbers of them, unless they had been picked up earlier in Italy. At this time most Roman warlords surrounded themselves with a personal bodyguard of barbarian warriors who swore loyalty to the commander himself. Known as bucellarii, these personal troops could be fairly large contingents – almost private armies. In the next century Belisarius, for example, had several thousand such bucellarii. We have no idea of the number of personal troops Boniface had been able to surround himself with, but it is likely to have been in the hundreds rather than thousands. Back in 427-8, when Boniface was out of favour at court, one of the delegations sent by Ravenna to bring him to heel was led by Sigisvult, who was backed up by a number of Gothic troops. Possibly some of Sigisvult’s men remained behind after their leader went back to Italy just to keep an eye on things. If so, their loyalty to Boniface would have been doubtful and there is some evidence to suggest that they let him down in the battle that followed.
It would be wonderful to have a similar wealth of information to draw on for the Vandal army, but we do not. Numbers and composition can only be guessed at. With nothing better to go on than the original 80,000 people, we can only assume that Geiseric was able to command 15-20,000 warriors. There would certainly have been many casualties in the year that had passed since the Vandals crossed into Africa, and some of his troops may have been dispersed to garrison captured towns. It is also possible that he had been able to gather new recruits along the way. Some of these could have been disaffected Romans and deserters from the Roman Army, and it is also possible that bands of Moors, ancestors of today’s Berbers, joined up along the way.
Procopius says: ‘The names of the Alans and all the other barbarians, except the Moors, were united in the name of the Vandals. At that time, after the death of Valentinian, Geiseric gained the support of the Moors.’
Valentinian died in 455, so we cannot assume that Geiseric was already able to field Moorish auxiliaries in 430, but it is more than likely that at least some bands of them had thrown in their lot with the Vandals, just as others would have opposed them. No doubt the support of these light skirmishers would have been welcomed, even if not relied on.
So what of the Vandal warriors themselves? How would they have been equipped and how would they have fought? Unfortunately, the migrating Vandals have left no record to help us. Unlike the Franks and Alamanni who remained on the Rhine, there are no warrior graves stocked with weapons and equipment to help us draw any firm conclusions so, once again, any reconstruction of Geiseric’s army has to be conjectural.
A 16-year-old, taking up arms for the first time to fight the Franks and then cross the Rhine in 406, would now be 40. If he had survived the long, arduous trek through Gaul, Spain and Africa, he would have fought against Constantine’s Romans, Wallia’s Goths, Heremigarius’ Suevi and no doubt had an encounter or two with the Moors along the way. There would have been very few like him left. Geiseric was a child when he came across the Rhine and most of his chillarchs had no memory of life in Germania. However the original Vandals and Alans may have fought before they came into the Roman Empire, their tactics and fighting style would have adapted to huge changes in circumstances since then.
With such short periods of settled peace, most of their equipment would have been begged, borrowed or stolen along the way, with Roman armourers providing as much or more of it than Vandal smiths. There does not seem to have been any sort of division of troops according to fighting style or social class. A warrior was a warrior and as such he fought hand-to-hand, either on foot or horseback depending on the circumstances. We have already seen how a steady supply of trained horses able to stand up to the rigors of battle would have been quite problematic for the Vandals. Even if we accept that they had now been able to round up a good number of horses from the African countryside, the quality would have been quite variable and there would have been no time to train horse and rider together. As the Vandals ranged over the African provinces, the majority would have remained mounted. To assault a town, they would have done so on foot. What they would have done up against Boniface’s army, with almost half of the Romans mounted on good, well-trained horses, can only be guessed at. I am inclined to think that many, especially those with inferior mounts, would still have thought it prudent to dismount, form a shieldwall and fight on foot when facing the numerous, well-mounted Roman cavalry.
The most experienced and well equipped men probably formed the front ranks, with lesser warriors falling in behind. Unlike many other Germanic peoples, where the poorer classes were often bow-armed, the Vandals seem never to have taken to using missile weapons. According to Procopius, this caused them some difficulties in later engagements with the Moors (see Chapter 6) where he says that the Vandals ‘were neither good with the javelin nor with the bow.’ This is somewhat surprising considering that the original Alans employed a combination of mounted archers and lancers. It may be that as they moved west the lancers came into increasing prominence and the use of horse archery gradually died out. The Alans that Ammianus knew in the fourth century were ‘light and active in the use of arms… somewhat like the Huns.’ Yet later references emphasise their heavy equipment. For example, Jordanes, in his description of the Battle of Neado in 454, speaks of: ‘Goths fighting with lances, the Gepids raging with the sword, the Rugi breaking off the spears in their own wounds, the Suebi fighting on foot, the Huns with bows, the Alans drawing up a battle-line of heavy-armed and the Heruls of light-armed warriors.’
Horse archery is not an easy skill to master. It takes years of practice to develop and maintain. In the changing circumstances of the long migration, it is most likely that the sons of those men who had been proficient horse archers back on the Danube did not have the time nor inclination to pick up the skill. Increasingly, the Alans in the Vandal coalition became exclusively hand-to-hand fighters, just like the Vandals they merged with. It is more than likely that any previous differences between the fighting styles of their Vandal or Alan ancestors had entirely disappeared by the time they crossed into Africa.
In May 430, the two armies met in battle somewhere near Hippo Regius. Probably the Vandals had the largest force, but the numbers must have been fairly close as otherwise Boniface would not have risked battle. We have no details about what occurred other than the fact that the Vandals won, driving Boniface back into the city.
The victorious Vandals invested Hippo Regius in a siege that lasted fourteen months from May 430 until July 431. Leaving us to wonder at the ease in which the Vandals had taken other towns, Hippo Regius held out, although its most famous citizen, St Augustine, died on 28 August 430 with the Vandals at the walls. The biggest dangers in protracted siege operations come from famine and disease. These are equal threats to both the attackers and defenders. Supplied by sea and with plenty of warning to bring in supplies from the hinterland, the defenders of Hippo Regius seem to have been less affected than the Vandals. By now the surrounding countryside would have been stripped bare of food, so Geiseric would have been forced to leave only minimal troops maintaining the siege lines while the rest of his army and huge train of non-combatants spread out across the province in a neverending search for provisions.
So it was, as Procopius reports:
‘After much time had passed by, since they [the Vandals] were unable to secure Hippo Regius either by force or surrender, and since at the same time they were being pressed by hunger, they raised the siege.’
The situation in Africa was now on a knife edge. The Vandals could not afford to lose because one way or another they had come to the end of their journey. There was simply nowhere else to go. The Romans also could not afford to lose as the province was critical to supplying the West with the food and taxes they needed to keep the Empire afloat.
The situation in Africa is neatly summed up by Bishop Capreolus of Carthage explaining to the Synod of Ephesus in July 431 why the African bishops were unable to attend:
‘The prompt ability of any that could travel is impeded by the excessive multitude of enemies and the huge devastation of the provinces everywhere which presents to eye-witnesses one place where all its inhabitants have been killed, another where they have been driven into flight, and a wretched vista of destruction spreading out far and wide and in every direction.’
So the Romans made another concerted effort to wrest control of Africa back from the Vandals. Ravenna sent reinforcements from Italy to make good Boniface’s losses and Constantinople sent an expeditionary force led by Flavius Ardabur Aspar, who was interestingly both an Arian and of Alan descent. Procopius tells us what happened:
‘A little later [in 432] Boniface and the Romans in Libya; since a numerous army had come from both Rome and Byzantium [Constantinople] and Aspar with them as general; decided to renew the struggle. And a fierce battle was fought in which they were badly beaten by the enemy and they made haste to flee as each one could.’
Unfortunately we have no more detail of what happened in this battle, which may have been fought near Carthage, other than what is in Procopius’ brief passage. Aspar later became the Eastern Empire’s most powerful warlord and was already an experienced military commander. Boniface, despite his defeat at Hippo Regius, also had a very high reputation as a general. So the Roman defeat could not have been down to poor military leadership. Neither could the Romans have been hugely outnumbered, as otherwise they would have avoided battle and waited until the Vandals had been decimated by hunger. The quality of the troops they led must also have been reasonably good, especially those sent from the East which, no doubt, would have been a picked force. Therefore, the Vandal victory must have been down to a combination of Geiseric’s leadership and the quality of the men he led, who had been sharpened and hardened over years of arduous campaigning. Clearly the Vandals had come a long way from their early days, when victory in open battle seemed to have eluded them.
This was the victory the Vandals needed and although they did not yet have peace, they were well on the way to achieving their goal of establishing a new homeland. They took Hippo Regius, the citizens no doubt now feeling further resistance was futile. Geiseric made it his capital. Then once again Roman politics intervened to help them further. Boniface was recalled to Italy by Galla Placidia in order to combat Aeitus’ growing power. Aeitus was now the West’s pre-eminent warlord and an eventual clash between him and Boniface had been brewing for some time. Now, when the Western Romans should have been combining forces to keep Africa, they once again fell to fighting amongst themselves. Boniface defeated Aeitus near Rimini, but was wounded in the battle and later died of his wounds.
Aspar seems to have remained at Carthage for a few more years as, although an Eastern general, he was appointed as the Western Empire’s Consul of Africa in 434. He no longer had sufficient strength to take on the Vandals in the field and the Vandals could not take Carthage while it was well garrisoned. Between 432 and 435 there seems to have been a desultory conflict between Geiseric and Aspar, the former now having a secure capital at Hippo Regius with access to the sea and the latter safe behind Carthage’s fortifications.
By 435 both sides needed a break. Geiseric wanted what his people had been seeking for years, a formal treaty which gave them a place within the Empire which the Roman authorities recognized. Felix and Boniface were both dead and Aetius was now back in Gaul, campaigning to secure his Gallic power base against the Visigoths, Burgundians and Baccaudae. Meanwhile, the Eastern Empire was having serious trouble with the Huns along the Danube frontier and was in no position to continue propping up the West’s hold over Africa. So it was in February 435 (although some sources say 436) that a treaty was concluded.
Procopius tells us that the treaty was very much down to Geiseric’s initiative:
‘After defeating Boniface and Aspar in battle, Geiseric displayed a foresight worth recounting, whereby he made his good fortune thoroughly secure. For fearing lest, if once again an army should come against him from both Rome and Byzantium, the Vandals might not be able to use the same strength and enjoy the same fortune…. He was not lifted up by the good fortune he had enjoyed, but rather became moderate because of what he feared and so he made a treaty with the Emperor Valentinian providing that each year he should pay the Emperor tribute from Libya and he delivered one of his sons, Huneric, as a hostage to make this agreement binding. So Geiseric both showed himself a brave man in battle and guarded the victory as securely as possible.’
This probably mixes up the terms of this treaty with a later one in 442, since Huneric went to Ravenna as a hostage at the later date. Be that as it may, the terms of this treaty recognised the status quo, giving the Vandals official status as foederati within the lands they had taken by force in return for tribute and leaving Carthage free from attack. Technically, foederati, or federate status, meant land in exchange for military service, but neither side would have been under any illusion that this was the case here. As with the Goths in Aquitaine, the Vandals now had a de facto independent kingdom, with Hippo Regius as its capital and most of Numidia and a western sliver of Africa Proconsularis under their jurisdiction. Aspar was then recalled to Constantinople, Aetius was able to focus all his attention on Gaul and the Vandals could recoup their strength, laying the foundations of their new kingdom.