UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
of foreign conquest or local resistance, post-Roman and pre-Islamic North
Africa experienced one of the most distinctive periods in its history. 43
The regions under foreign occupation
Over a period of close on three centuries, two foreign invaders in turn
took over the tutelage of Rome without ever succeeding in entirely
reconstituting its frontiers.
The Vandal episode
Nothing could have been more unexpected in North Africa than these
conquerors of Germanic origin. No domination was less in keeping with
the actual circumstances of the country. Outstripping the other Germanic
peoples who, like them, had swarmed over western Europe in +406, the
Vandals settled first of all in the south of the Iberian peninsula which
has seemingly perpetuated their name (Vandalusia = Andalusia).
Whether invited or not to intervene in the internal quarrels of Roman
power in North Africa, they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, 80 000 strong,
under the leadership of their king Gaiseric (or Genseric) in +429. Their
advance made lightning progress. In +430 they were already besieging the
town of Hippone and the Romans acknowledged their possession of the
Constantine region in +435. Three years later they took Carthage and, after
a brief withdrawal in +442, commenced three large-scale operations in
+455: the final annexation of all the eastern zone of Roman Africa, the
conquest of the majority of the major islands in the western Mediterranean
- the Balearics, Sardinia and Sicily - and an audacious expedition to sack
Rome itself. The eastern empire, hoping to oust these intruders, suffered a
naval disaster in +468 and acknowledged the fait accompli - a treaty in
+474 finallyestablished good relations between Byzantium and the Vandals
who represented a major maritime power in the western Mediterranean.
Did this Germanic occupation of a part of North Africa over a century
prove beneficial? In reading literary sources of the time, openly hostile
to the usurpers, one is appalled at their brutality. But modern criticism
has succeeded in removing the subject from its inflammatory context. The
term 'vandalism', synonymous with the spirit of destruction, was coined
only at the end of the eighteenth century, and today, in the light of much
archaeological evidence, it seems clear that in their poor management of
the territory, the Vandals sinned more through omission than intention.
We are getting an increasingly clear idea of the legal structure of the
Vandal state: royalty springing from a military aristocracy, both holding
authority over the great public and private domains of the old Roman
43. Our title 'From Rome to Islam' is taken from a study, mainly of a bibliographical
character, by C. Courtois, Revue Africaine, 1942, pp. 24-55.
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