THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 162

The Vandals in Spain

11-1. The Vandals in Spain

THANKS to its geographically strong position, the Iberian peninsula had up till now escaped barbarian invasions; when however the Roman troops stationed to protect the passes of the Pyrenees gave way to negligence, the Asdingian and Silingian Vandals, the (non-German) Alans, and the Sueves availed themselves of the favourable opportunity to cross the mountains (autumn 409). For two whole years the four peoples wandered about devastating the flourishing country, especially the western and southern provinces, without settling anywhere; it was only when famine and disease broke out and menaced their own existence that they were persuaded to more peaceful relations. They concluded a treaty in the year 411 with the Emperor, according to which they received land to settle on as foederati, i.e. as subjects of the Empire with the duty of defending Spain against attacks from without. The assignment of the provinces in which the different peoples should settle was decided by lot; Galicia fell to the Asdingians and the Sueves, while the Silingians received Baetica (southern Spain), and the Alans, numerically the strongest people, Lusitania (Portugal) and Carthaginensis (capital Carthagena).

Probably they divided the land with the Roman proprietors. The peace brought about in this way did not however last long; the Imperial Government had professed only to regard the arrangement as a temporary expedient. As early as the year 416 the Visigoth king, Wallia, appeared in Spain with a considerable army to free the land from the barbarians in the name of the Emperor. First of all the Silingians were attacked and, after repeated combats, completely destroyed (418), their king, Fredbal, being carried to Italy as prisoner. As a tribal name the name of Asdingians disappears: it only survived as the appellation of members of the royal family. The Alans also, against whom Wallia next marched, were severely beaten and so much weakened that after the death of King Addac the people decided not to choose another head but to join the Asdingian Vandals, whose kings from that time bore the title Reges Vandalorum et Alanorum (418).

Only the recall of Wallia (end of 418) saved the Asdingians and the Sueves from the extermination which menaced them. The former rallied wonderfully: they first of all turned against their Suevian neighbours, then under the rule of Hermeric, who had once more made overtures to the Emperor, and pressed them back into the Cantabrian Mountains from which they were only extricated by a Roman army which hurriedly came to their assistance (419). Obliged to retreat to Baetica, the Vandals encountered in 421 or 422 a strong Roman army under Castinus, but owing to the treachery of the Visigoth troops who were fighting on the Roman side they gained a brilliant victory. This success immensely stimulated the power of the Vandals and their desire for expansion.

They then laid the foundation of their maritime power, afterwards so formidable; we understand that they infested the Balearic Isles and the coast of Mauretania in the year 425. At that time Carthagena and Seville, the last bulwarks of the Romans in southern Spain, also fell into their power.

Three years later died Gunderic who had ruled over the Vandals since 406. He was succeeded on the throne by his brother Gaiseric1 (born about 400), one of the most famous figures in the Wandering of the Nations (428). A year after his accession Gaiseric led his people over to Africa. This undertaking sprang from the same political considerations as had earlier moved the Visigoth kings, Alaric and Wallia: the rulers of that province, whose main function it was to supply Italy with corn, had the fate of the Roman Empire in their hands, but they were themselves in an almost unassailable position so long as a good navy was at their disposal. The immediate occasion was furnished by the confusion which then reigned in Africa — the revolt of the Moors, the revolutionary upheaval of the severely oppressed peasantry, the revolt of the ecclesiastical sects, particularly the Donatists (Circumcelliones), the manifest weakness of the Roman system of defence everywhere, and, finally, a quarrel between the military governor of Africa, Bonifacius, and the Imperial Government.

The well-known story that Bonifacius himself had called the Vandals into the land to revenge the wrongs he had suffered is a fable, which first appeared in Roman authorities of a later time and was invented to veil the real reason. The crossing took place at Julia Traducta, now Tarifa, in May 429. Shortly before embarking the Vandal king turned back with a division of his army and totally defeated the Sueves in a bloody fight near Merida. The Sueves had taken advantage of the departure of their enemies to invade Lusitania. According to a trustworthy account, Gaiseric's people numbered at that time about 80,000 souls, i.e. about 15,000 armed men; their numbers were made up of Vandals, Alans, and Visigoth stragglers who had remained behind in Spain.

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