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Vandal conquest of Roman Africa

Gaiseric led the Vandals and Alans from Spain into Africa in 429 and in 439 seized Carthage, founding a kingdom that deprived the Western Empire of its richest provinces.

Date
May 429 – 442start: month known; end: year known · duration: ≈ 13 years
Place
Carthagetoday: Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia · Africa
Participants
Vandals, Gaiseric, Western Roman Empire
Threads
Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
Also known as
Fall of Carthage 439; Vandal Kingdom; Захват Карфагена вандалами; Королевство вандалов

In May 429 some 80,000 people — the whole Vandal and Alan host with their families — crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. Moving east, they besieged Hippo Regius for fourteen months (430–431); its bishop, Augustine, died during the siege. A treaty of 435 made them federates in Numidia and Mauretania, but on 19 October 439 Gaiseric seized Carthage by surprise, without resistance.

The treaty of 442 recognised the Vandal kingdom in Africa Proconsularis and Byzacena. The loss of Africa’s grain and taxes was a heavy blow to the West; from Carthage the Vandal fleet raided the Mediterranean and in 455 sacked Rome. The kingdom lasted until the Byzantine reconquest of 533–534.

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Causes and preconditions

Consequences

Related events

  • Vandalic WarJune 533 – March 534 · AfricaJustinian destroyed the kingdom that the Vandals had founded a century earlier

Same participants

Meanwhile in the world

Other regions, within 25 years of this event

Western and Central Europe

Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

The same period

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Vandal conquest of Roman Africa
  2. Wikipedia (Russian): Королевство вандалов и аланов
  3. Merrills A., Miles R. The Vandals. — Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
  4. Wikidata: Q11789247