Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

126 5. the western kingdoms
Germanic population on the land. The ill-treatment of the Catholic clergy,
which had begun under Geiseric, intensified under Huneric (477–84). His
brother Gunthamund (484–96) reversed this policy and permitted the
Catholic clergy and others to return from exile. In the reign of Thrasamund
(496–523), another of the sons of Geiseric, bishops once more were exiled,
this time primarily to Sardinia. However, this monarch allowed some of the
exiled bishops to return, and even permitted Arian–Catholic theological
debates. His successor Hilderic (523–30), the son of Huneric, was also,
through his mother Eudocia, a grandson of Valentinian III and perhaps in
consequence the most Romanophile of the Vandal kings. He finally put an
end to the exile of the Catholic bishops, which had been reimposed in the
last years of Thrasamund, and made amicable diplomatic advances to the
empire. This reversed a previous policy of closer ties with the Ostrogothic
kingdom in Italy, symbolized by his predecessor Thrasamund’s marriage to
Amalafrida, the sister of Theoderic.
These moves on the part of Hilderic led to his overthrow by his nephew
Gailamir in 530, and this in turn proved to be the diplomatic casus belli that
led in 533 to the emperor Justinian I sending an expedition, ostensibly to
restore Hilderic. A rebellion was fomented in Sardinia, which led to the
despatch there of an army and fleet under Gailamir’s brother Tzazo, and
this enabled the imperial expedition led by Belisarius to reach Africa and
disembark unchallenged. Landing ten miles from Carthage, Belisarius
advanced on the city and defeated Gailamir and a hastily assembled army.
When Tzazo and his forces had been recalled from Sardinia, Gailaimir
attempted to retake Carthage but was convincingly defeated. His brother
was killed and he and his remaining followers retreated into Numidia. They
were blockaded in the mountains, and forced to surrender in 534. The
remaining Vandals were then shipped back to Constantinople to be
absorbed into the imperial army. As a distinct ethnic unit they disappeared.
vii. ostrogothic italy, 493,535
The Ostrogothic invasion of Italy that followed from the agreement made
in 488 between their king Theoderic and the emperor Zeno helped to give
this people a new identity. For the previous forty years a very mixed
Germanic population had maintained itself precariously in the eastern
Balkans under a variety of rival leaders. In the later historiographical tradition
of the Italian Ostrogothic kingdom, this was presented as a conflict
between a legitimate and supposedly ancient Amal dynasty and such parvenus
as Theoderic Strabo (d. 481) and his son Recitach (d. 484). It was only
on the murder of the latter, which Theoderic the Amal arranged for Zeno,
that the various rival groups were first united under a single leader. Failing
to obtain a secure position in imperial service, Theoderic was persuaded to
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