2100 YEARS OR TRIBAL INVASION
400BC TO 1700AD
(See maps below how to use and where)
VANDALS
Evidence indicates that those tribes now call Vandals arose out of the cultural confederation of Slavic tribes and eastern Germanic tribes.
The Vandals were divided into two tribal groups, the Silingi and the Hasdingi. At the time of the Marcomannic Wars (166 – 180 AD), the Silingi lived in an area called Magna Germania. In the 2nd century, the Hasdingi led by Kings Raus and Rapt moved south and first attacked the Romans in the lower Danube area. Emperor Aurelian to protect the middle course of the Danube made peace and the Hasdingi settled in western Dacia and Pannonia.
The Hasdingi came into conflict with the Goths around the time of Constantine the Great. The Vandals were living in lands surrounded by the Goths, the Marcomanni, the Hermandunri and the Hister. The Vandals were attacked by the Gothic King Geberic and their King Visimar was killed. The Vandals then migrated to Pannonia where Constantine the Great (330 AD) gave them some lands and they lived there for the next 60 years.
401 AD Under attack by the Huns, the Vandals led by King Godigisel along with their allies (the Darmtian, Alans and Germanic Suebians) moved west into Roman territory. 406 AD, the Vandals advanced from Pannonia to the west along the Danube, but when they reached the Rhine they met resistance from the Franks, who had populated and controlled the” Romanized” regions of north Gaul. Twenty thousand Vandals, including Godigisel himself died in battle, but then with the help of the Alans, they managed to defeat the Franks.
In 409, the Vandals attacking crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula (Spain). There, the Hasdingi received land in the northwest from the Romans as compensation, and the Silingi, in the South, while the Alans got lands in the west and the region around Cartago Nova.
The Visigoths, who invaded Iberia before receiving lands in south France, crushed the Alans in 426, killing western Alans King Atgrtaces. The remainder of his people appealed to the Vandal King Gunderic to accept the Alan crown. The Vandals settled in the south of Spain until they advanced into North Africa.
429AD, Political maneuvering in Rome was to change the landscape forever. Roman Generals Boniface and Aetius were plotting for power. The intrigue got out of hand and Vandal King Geiseric (Gunderic’s half brother) was leading an unauthorized invasion of North Africa. He crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with his entire tribe of 80,000 and moved east, pillaging and looting as they drove the refugees toward the walled city of Hippo Regius. Peace was made in 435 AD by the Romans who granted them some territory in North Africa, but the agreement was broken by Geiseric who in 439 took the African province, Carthaginia and made Carthage his capital.
Geiseric then built the Kingdom of the Vandals and the Alans into a powerful city-state with the capital at Saldae. He conquered Sicily, Sardina, Corasica and the Balearic Islands.
After Attila the Hun’s death (453 AD), the Romans could afford to turn their attention to the Vandals, who now were in control of some of the richest lands of the former Empire.
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