Geiseric the Lame (c. 389 – January 25,
477), also spelled as Gaiseric or Genseric, was the King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477) and was one of the key players in the troubles of the Western Roman
Empire in the 5th century. During his nearly 50 years of rule, he raised a relatively
insignificant Germanic tribe to the status of a major Mediterranean power — which after he died, entered a swift decline and eventual collapse.
Early life and accession
Geiseric, whose name means "spear-king", was an illegitimate son of King Godigisel; he is
assumed to have been born near Lake Balaton around the year 389. After his father's death, Geiseric was the second most powerful man among the Vandals, after the new king, his
half-brother Gunderic.
After Gunderic's death in 428, Geiseric was elected
king. Brilliant and well-versed in the military arts, he immediately began to seek ways of increasing the power and wealth
of his people, who then resided in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica in southern
Spain. The Vandals had suffered greatly from attacks from the more numerous Visigoths, and not
long after taking power, King Geiseric decided to leave Spain to this rival Germanic tribe. In fact, he seems to have started
building a Vandal fleet even before he was raised to kinghood.
Africa
Taking advantage of a dispute between Boniface, Roman governor of North Africa, and the Roman government, Geiseric ferried all 80,000 of his people across to
Africa in 429. Once there, he won
many battles over the weak and divided Roman defenders and quickly overran the territory now comprising modern Morocco and northern Algeria. His Vandal army laid siege to the city of
Hippo Regius (where Augustine had recently been
bishop — he died during the siege), taking it after 14 months of bitter fighting. The next year, Roman Emperor Valentinian III recognized Geiseric as king of the
lands he and his men had conquered.
In 439, after casting a covetous eye on the great city of Carthage for a decade, he took the city, apparently without any fighting. The Romans were caught unaware, and
Geiseric captured a large part of the western Roman navy docked in the port of Carthage. The Catholic bishop of the city, Quodvultdeus, was exiled to Naples, since Gaiseric demanded that all his close advisors follow the non-Catholic Arian form of Christianity. Nevertheless, Geiseric gave freedom of religion to the Catholics, while insisting
that the regime's elite follow Arianism. The common folk had low taxes under his reign, as most of the tax pressure was on the
rich Roman families and the Catholic clergy.
Added to his own burgeoning fleet, the Kingdom of the Vandals now threatened the Empire for mastery of the western
Mediterranean Sea. Carthage, meanwhile, became the new Vandal capital and an enemy of
Rome for the first time since the Punic Wars.
With the help of their fleet, the Vandals soon subdued Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic
Islands. Geiseric strengthened the Vandal defenses and fleet, and regulated the positions of Arians and Catholics. In 442 the Romans
acknowledged the Carthaginian conquests, and recognised the Vandal kingdom as an independent country rather than subsidiary to
Roman rule. The area in Algeria that had remained for the larger part independent of the Vandals turned from a Roman province
into an ally.
For the next 30 years, Geiseric and his soldiers sailed up and down the Mediterranean, living as pirates and raiders. One
legend has it that Geiseric was unable to vault upon a horse because of a fall he had taken as a young man; so he assuaged his
desire for military glory on the sea.
Consolidation and later life
In 455, Roman emperor Valentinian III was
murdered on orders of Petronius Maximus, who usurped the throne. Geiseric was of the
opinion that these acts voided his 442 peace treaty with Valentinian, and within weeks, on
May 31, King Gaiseric and his men landed on Italian soil and marched on Rome, where
Pope Leo I implored him not to destroy the ancient city or murder its inhabitants. Geiseric
agreed and the gates of Rome were thrown open to him and his men.
Maximus, who fled rather than fight the Vandal warlord, was killed by a Roman mob outside the city. Although history remembers
the Vandal sack of Rome as extremely brutal (and their act made the word
vandalism a term for any wantonly destructive act), in actuality Geiseric honored his pledge
not to make war on the people of Rome, and the Vandals did not wreak great destruction (or even any notable destruction) in the
city; they did however take gold, silver and many other things of value away from the city. He also took with him Empress
Licinia Eudoxia, Valentinian's widow, and her daughters, including Eudocia, who married Geiseric's son Huneric after arriving in
Carthage, and many important people were taken hostage for even more riches.
In 468, Geiseric's kingdom was the target of the last concerted effort by the two halves of the
Roman Empire. They wished to subdue the Vandals and end their pirate raids. But the Vandal king, against long odds, defeated the
eastern Roman fleet commanded by Basiliscus off Cape Bon. It has been reported that the total
invasion force on the fleet of 1,100 ships, counted 100,000 soldiers. Geiseric sent a fleet of 500 Vandal ships against the
Romans, losing 340 ships in the first engagement, but succeeded in destroying 600 Roman ships in the second engagement. The
Romans abandoned the campaign and Geiseric remained master of the western Mediterranean until his death, ruling from the
Strait of Gibraltar all the way to Tripolitania.
Following up the Byzantine defeat, the Vandals tried to invade the Peloponnese but were
driven back by the Maniots at Kenipolis with heavy losses.[1] In
retaliation, the Vandals took 500 hostages at Zakynthos, hacked them to pieces, and threw the
pieces over board on the way to Carthage.[1]
In 474, Geiseric made peace with the Eastern Roman
Empire. Finally, on January 25, 477, at the advanced age
of 87 (some sources say 77), King Geiseric died at Carthage.
References
- Diesner, Hans-Joachim (1966). Das Vandalenreich.
Aufstieg und Untergang. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
- (2002–2003) Antiquité Tardive - L'Afrique vandale et byzantine. Turnhout:
Brepols.
Footnotes
- ^ a
b Greenhalgh and Eliopoulos, Deep into Mani:
Journey into the Southern Tip of Greece", 21
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