Conquerors of the Roman Empire: The Vandals Page 2
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 sta
yed 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 th
e 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.