Quarrels between
Vandals and Romans were of course settled only in the Vandal court of
justice according to the law of the victor.
Vandals and Romans were of course settled only in the Vandal court of
justice according to the law of the victor.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
Moreover Gaiseric
made an alliance with the Spanish Sueves who had invaded and
plundered the province of Tarraconensis (456) which belonged to the
Roman Empire. At the same time a Vandal fleet laid waste Sicily and
the bordering coast territory of South Italy. It is true that on land the
Romans succeeded, under Ricimer, in defeating a hostile division at
Agrigentum, as well as one at sea in Corsican waters, but these successes
had no lasting effect, for the Vandals still commanded the Mediterranean
as before. The populace, furious from the continued famine, compelled
Avitus to fly to Gaul, where he died at the end of the year 456.
His successor on the imperial throne, Majorian (from 1 April 457),
at once began in real earnest to consider schemes for the destruction of
the Vandal Empire. It might be looked upon as auspicious that not
long after his accession a body of Roman troops succeeded in defeating
a band of Vandals and Moors, led by Gaiseric's brother-in-law, who were
engaged in desultory plunder in South Italy. The Emperor himself
marched with a large army, which he had not got together without
difficulty, from Italy to Gaul, in November 458, in order to exact
recognition of his authority from the Visigoths and Burgundians who
had seceded from Rome, and his success in this task at once rendered
nugatory Gaiseric's conclusion of a Visigoth, Suevian and Vandal alliance.
In May 460 Majorian crossed the Pyrenees and moved upon Zaragoza
to Carthagena in order to cross from thence to Africa. The force that
had been raised was so impressive that the king of the Vandals did not
feel himself a match for it and sent messengers to sue for peace. When
peace was refused he laid waste Mauretania and poisoned the wells in
order to delay the advance of the enemy as much as possible. The
01. A.
## p. 310 (#340) ############################################
310
Majorian
[460–468
Roman attack, however, could not be carried out, for the Vandals
managed by means of treachery to seize a great number of the Roman
ships which were lying outside the naval harbour near the modern Elche.
Majorian had no alternative but to make peace with Gaiseric; his
authority, however, was so shaken by this failure that he was divested
of his dignity by Ricimer in August 461.
The result of the elevation of a new Emperor, Libius Severus, was that
Gaiseric once more declared the agreement he had but just made to be at
an end. He again began his naval attacks on Italy and Sicily. The
embassies sent to him by the West-Roman as well as by the Byzantine
Emperor Leo had no further result than the deliverance of Valentinian's
widow and her daughter Placidia, for he had previously given the elder
princess Eudoxia to his son Huneric in marriage. The king received
as ransom a part of the treasure of Valentinian. It also seems that an
agreement was come to with the East-Roman Empire. On the other
hand the hostile relations with West-Rome continued, for Ricimer
refused to comply with Gaiseric's principal demand, the bestowal of the
imperial throne of the West upon Olybrius, Huneric's brother-in-law.
Every year in the beginning of spring detachments of the Vandal fleet
left the African harbours to infest the Mediterranean coasts. Unpro-
tected places were plundered and destroyed, while the garrisoned places
were carefully avoided.
The danger threatening the Western Empire reached its height
when the commander Aegidius, who maintained an independent position
in Gaul, made an alliance with Gaiseric and prepared to attack Italy in
conjunction with him. This scheme was not carried out, for Aegidius
died prematurely (464), but the situation still remained dangerous.
These miserable conditions lasted until the end of 467. The
energetic Emperor Leo had by this time succeeded in overcoming the
influence of Aspar, who had always been a hindrance to hostile measures
against the Vandals. He despatched a fleet under the command of
Marcellinus to convey the newly-created Western Emperor Anthemius
to Italy and afterwards proceed to Africa. But first he sent an embassy
to Gaiseric to inform him of the accession of Anthemius and to threaten
him with war unless he would relinquish his marauding expeditions.
The king instantly refused the demand and declared the agreements
made with Byzantium at an end. His ships no longer sought Italy, but
the coasts of the Eastern Empire: Illyria, the Peloponnesus and all
the rest of Greece felt his powerful arm, and even Alexandria felt
itself menaced. But when the attempt of Marcellinus to advance
against Africa miscarried on account of contrary winds, Leo determined
to make great warlike preparations and to destroy his terrible opponent
at one blow. Eleven hundred ships were got together and an army
of 100,000 men raised. The plan of campaign was to attack the Vandal
Empire on three sides. The main army was to march under Basiliscus
## p. 311 (#341) ############################################
468—477]
Last years of Gaiseric
311
direct to Carthage, another body under Heraclius and Marsus was to
advance overland from Egypt to the West, while Marcellinus with his
fleet was to strike at the Vandal centre in the Mediterranean. But
once more fortune favoured the Vandals. They succeeded under cover
of night in surprising Basiliscus' fleet, which was already anchored at
the Promontorium Mercurii (now Cape Bon), and destroyed a part
of it by fire. The rest took to flight and scarcely one-half of the fine
armada managed to escape to Sicily (468). The not unimportant
successes which the other Byzantine generals had in the meantime
achieved could not balance this catastrophe, and as a crowning mis-
fortune the able Marcellinus when on the point of sailing for Carthage
was murdered (August 468). Leo was therefore obliged to relinquish
further undertakings and make peace once more with Gaiseric.
The peace, however, only lasted a few years. After Leo's death
(Jan. 474) the Vandals again devastated the coast of Greece in frequent
expeditions. The Emperor Zeno, who was not prepared to punish the
marauders, was obliged to sue for peace, and sent the Senator Severus
to Carthage to superintend negotiations. It was agreed that the two
empires from that time should not be hostile to each other. The king
promised to guarantee freedom of worship to the Catholics in Carthage
and to permit the return of the clergy who had been banished for
political intrigues, although he could not be prevailed upon to allow
new appointment to the Carthaginian bishopric, vacant since
Deogratias' death (457). Besides this he restored without ransom the
Roman prisoners who had been allotted to him and his family, and gave
Severus permission to buy back the slaves allotted as booty among the
Vandals with the goodwill of their owners. In return the Byzantine
Emperor, as the overlord of both halves of the Empire, no doubt formally
recognised the Vandal kingdom in its then extent-it comprised the
entire Roman province of Africa, the Balearic Isles, Pithyusae, Corsica,
Sardinia and Sicily (autumn 476). Gaiseric soon afterwards made
.
over Sicily to Odovacar in return for the payment of a yearly tribute,
only reserving for himself the town of Lilybaeum, which had a strategical
importance as a starting-point for Africa.
On 25 January 477, Gaiseric died at a very great age after he
had raised the Vandal Empire to the height of its power. What he
accomplished, as general and politician, in his active life is beyond praise
and is unreservedly acknowledged by contemporaries. On the other
hand, a less favourable verdict must be pronounced on his statesmanship.
The Empire he established was a hybrid State and therefore bore from
the beginning the seeds of decay in itself. The nations under his rule
were kept strictly separate from each other, and the possibility of an
amalgamation, which might have been the foundation of a new political
organisation, was thus prevented. Herein is seen the truth found
by experience, that the existence of all kingdoms erected by conquest is
a
CB, XI.
## p. 312 (#342) ############################################
312
Huneric and Gunthamund
[477–487
bound
up
with the life of their creator unless the latter can succeed
in creating a united organism on a national, constitutional or economic
basis.
The decline was already noticeable under Gaiseric's eldest son and
successor, Huneric, the husband of the imperial princess Eudoxia. The
Moorish tribes living in the Aures mountains, after fighting for some
time with varying fortune, succeeded at last in shaking off the Vandal
rule. In a quarrel with the Eastern Empire over the surrender of
Eudoxia's fortune, Huneric early gave in; he was even willing to
permit the episcopal see at Carthage to be filled again (481) and grant
the Catholics in his Empire still greater freedom of movement. Only
when he learned that he had not to fear hostilities from Byzantium did
he shew himself in his true colours, a tyrant of the worst, most blood-
thirsty type. Then he raged against the members of his own house
and against his father's friends. Some of them he banished, others he
murdered in a horrible manner in order to secure the succession to his
son Hilderic. When nothing more remained for him to do in this
direction he proceeded to oppress his Catholic subjects. Among some
of the measures taken by him the most important is the notorious
Edict of 24 January 484, in which the king ordered that the edicts
made by the Roman Emperors against heresy should be applied to all
his Catholic subjects unless they adopted Arianism by 1 June in
that year. Next, orthodox priests were forbidden to hold religious
services, to possess churches or build new ones, to baptise, consecrate
and so forth, and they were especially forbidden to reside in any towns
or villages. The property of all Catholic churches and the churches
themselves were bestowed on the Arian clergy. Laymen were disabled
from making or receiving gifts or legacies ; court officials of the Catholic
creed were deprived of their dignity and declared infamous. For the
several classes of the people graduated money-fines were established
according to rank; but in case of persistence all were condemned to
transportation and confiscation of property. Huneric gave the execution
of these provisions into the hands of the Arian clergy, who carried out
the punishments threatened with the most revolting cruelty, and even
went beyond them. Repeated intervention on the part of the Emperor
and the Pope remained quite ineffectual, for they confined themselves
to representations. Perhaps Catholicism might have been quite rooted
out in Africa if the king had not died prematurely on 23 December 484.
Under his successor Gunthamund, better times began for the oppressed
orthodox Church. As early as the year 487 most of the Catholic
churches were opened again and the banished priests recalled. The
reason for these changed circumstances lay partly in the personal
character of the king, partly in the Emperor's separation from the Roman
Church which appeared to debar Gunthamund's Catholic subjects from
conspiring with Byzantium, and partly in the now ever-increasing
## p. 313 (#343) ############################################
484-523
Thrasamund
313
dimensions of Moorish rebellion. Gunthamund was very fortunate in
driving back these last to their haunts, but he did not succeed in com-
pletely defeating them. He absolutely failed when he attempted to
regain possession of Sicily during the struggle between Odovacar and
Theodoric the Great. The expedition sent thither was expelled by the
Ostrogoths, and the king was compelled even to relinquish the tribute
which had hitherto been paid to him (491).
Gunthamund died 3 September 496; Thrasamund, his brother,
distinguished for his beauty, amiability, wisdom and general culture,
succeeded him on the throne. He pursued yet a different course
from that of his predecessors with regard to the Catholics. He tried,
like Huneric, to spread Arianism in his kingdom, yet as a rule he avoided
the violent measures to which that king had recourse. Thus several
bishops, among whom was the bishop of Carthage, were once more
banished, but they were well treated in their exile. His action was
mainly due to religious fanaticism, for there was no ground for political
suspicion, at least during the greater part of his reign; the king was
on friendly terms with the schismatical Emperor Anastasius. After
the accession of the orthodox Emperor Justin (518) Thrasamund's
aversion to the Catholics is easier to understand, especially when
the Emperor took steps to improve the position of the orthodox
episcopate in Africa. The Vandal kingdom found a real support in
the alliance with the Ostrogoths in Italy. Theodoric the Great, swayed
by the desire to bring about an alliance of all German princes of the
Arian faith, wedded his widowed sister Amalafrida to Thrasamund,
whose first wife had died childless ; she came to Carthage with a retinue
of 1000 distinguished Goths as her body-guard as well as 5000 slaves
capable of bearing arms, and brought her royal husband a dowry of the
part of the island of Sicily round Lilybaeum (500). A temporary
interruption occurred in the alliance between the two States in 510-511,
because Thrasamund gave pecuniary support to Gesalech the pretender
to the Visigothic throne, who was not recognised by Theodoric; but on
the representation of his brother-in-law he repented and apologised.
Serious difficulties occurred in the Vandal kingdom once more through
the Moors. The tribes of Tripolis really succeeded in making them-
selves independent. At the end of his reign the king himself took the
field against them, but suffered defeat.
Thrasamund died on 6 May 523; he was succeeded by the al-
ready aged, utterly effeminate son of Huneric and Eudoxia, Hilderic,
who was averse from warfare. Thrasamund, having a presentiment of
future events, had exacted an oath from him not to restore to the
banished Catholics either their churches or their privileges, but Hilderic
evaded his pledge, for even before his formal accession, he recalled the
exiled clergy and ordered fresh elections in the place of those who had
died. In foreign politics also the new king turned entirely from the system
а
6. A.
## p. 314 (#344) ############################################
314
Hilderic
[ 523–530
hitherto followed, of alliance with the Ostrogoth kingdom, and entered
into a close connexion with the Byzantine Empire where Justinian, the
nephew of the ageing Emperor Justin, already practically wielded the
sceptre. Inasmuch as he had coins struck bearing the effigy of Justin I,
Hilderic formally gave the impression of recognising a kind of suzerainty
of the Byzantine Empire. To the opposition of Amalafrida and her
following he replied by slaughtering the Goths and Ainging the sister
of Theodoric into prison. To avenge this insult the Gothic king fitted
out a strong fleet, but his death (526) prevented the despatch of the
expedition, which would probably have been fatal to the Vandal kingdom.
Theodoric's grandson and successor Athalarich, or rather his mother
Amalasuntha, was content with making remonstrances, which of course
received no attention.
Though there was nothing to fear from the Ostrogoths, the danger
from the Moors waxed ever greater. After the year
525 it
appears
that
they had acquired control over Mauretania Caesariensis with the exception
of its capital city, of the Sitifensis Province and of southern Numidia
as well—Mauretania Tingitana had already been given up. But especially
momentous in its widespread results was the rise of Antalas who at the
head of some tribes in the southern part of Byzacene infested this
province more and more, and at last severely defeated the relieving
Vandal troops commanded by Oamer, a cousin of Hilderic. The dislike
of the Vandals to their king, which had been existent long before this
event, shewed itself fully at this failure. Hilderic was deposed by the
defeated army on its return home and was imprisoned together with his
followers, and in his stead the next heir to the throne Gelimer', a great-
grandson of Gaiseric, was called upon to rule (19 May 530). Doubtless
this usurpation was mainly the result of Gelimer's ambition and love of
power, but on the whole it was sustained by the will of the people.
They were discontented with the policy hitherto pursued towards the
Catholics and Byzantium as well as with the unwarlike, inconsistent
character of Hilderic, who was to Teutonic ideas utterly unworthy of
royalty.
This course of events was most welcome to the Byzantine Emperor,
who in any case had for some time past harboured some idea of the
plan which later he definitely announced for joining all the lands
belonging to the old Roman Empire under his own sceptre. Just as
he afterwards posed as the avenger of Amalasuntha, so he now became
the official protector of the rights of the deposed king of the Vandals.
He asked Gelimer in the most courteous manner not openly to violate
the law regarding the succession to the throne, which had been decreed
by Gaiseric and had been always hitherto respected, but to be satisfied
with the actual exercise of power and to let the old king, whose death
1 More correctly Geilamir as the name reads in inscriptions and on coins.
## p. 315 (#345) ############################################
530-533]
Gelimer
315
might shortly be expected, remain as nominal ruler. Gelimer did not
deign at first to answer the Emperor; when, however, the latter took
a sharper tone and demanded the surrender of the prisoners he haughtily
rejected the interference, emphatically claimed validity for his own
succession and declared that he was ready to oppose with the utmost
vigour any attack which might occur. Justinian was now firmly resolved
to bring matters to an armed decision, but first took steps to end the
war which had been begun against the Persians. In the year
532
peace
was concluded with them.
The scheme directed against the Vandal kingdom found no approval
from the body of crown councillors before whom Justinian laid it for an
opinion. They objected to the chronic want of money in the state
treasury and that the same fate might easily be prepared for the
Byzantines as had befallen Basiliscus under Gaiseric. The troops, too,
which had just sustained the fatigues of the Persian campaign, were little
fit to be again sent to an uncertain conflict against a powerful and
famous kingdom on the other side of the sea. Justinian was almost
persuaded to give up the undertaking when a fresh impulse, that of
religion, made itself felt. An oriental bishop appeared at Court and
declared that God himself had, in a dream, commanded him to reproach
the Emperor on account of his indecision and to tell him that he might
count on the support of Heaven if he would march forth to liberate the
Christian (that is, the orthodox) people of Africa from the dominion of
the heretics.
Through this kind of influence on the part of the Catholic clergy, and
through the endeavours of the Roman nobility who had been reinstated
by Hilderic but driven forth again by Gelimer, Justinian was entirely
brought round. Belisarius, previously commander-in-chief in the Persian
war, was placed at the head of the expedition with unlimited authority.
It was very fortunate for the Emperor that, in the first place, the Ostro-
goth queen Amalasuntha declared for him and held out prospects of
supplying provisions and horses in Sicily, and, further, that the Vandal
governor of Sardinia, Godas, rose against Gelimer and asked for troops
to enable him to hold his own, and finally that the population of
Tripolis, led by a distinguished Roman, Prudentius, declared itself in
favour of union with Byzantium.
In June 533 the preparations for war were completed. The army
mustered reckoned 10,000 infantry under Johannes of Epidamnus and
about 5000 cavalry, also the 5000 men of Belisarius' powerfully mounted
guard, 400 Heruls and 600 Huns. The fleet was composed of 500
transport vessels and 92 battleships under the command of Kalonymus.
Among Belisarius' attendants was the historian Procopius of Caesarea,
to whom we owe the vivid and trustworthy description of the campaign.
The departure of the ships took place at the end of July, and the last
hour of the kingdom which was once so powerful had struck.
CH, XI.
## p. 316 (#346) ############################################
316
Vandals and Romans
It is only in Africa that we are well acquainted with the internal
circumstances of the Vandal kingdom ; for of the parallel conditions in
the Spanish communities of the Sueves, Alans and the Silingian and
Asdingian Vandals we only know, at the present time, that they were
under monarchical rule. The centre of Vandal rule in Africa was Carthage;
here all the threads of the government converged, here the king also
held court. The Roman division of the land into provinces (Mauretania :
Tingitana, Caesariensis, Sitifensis ; Numidia ; Proconsularis or Zeugitana;
Byzacene; Tripolitana) remained the same. The districts assigned to
the Vandals, the so-called “Sortes Vandalorum,” were separated as
especial commands. The governing people were the Vandals of the
Asdingian branch which now alone survived, with whom were joined the
Alans and contingents from different peoples, among whom in particular
were Goths. The Alans, who probably were already Germanised at the
time of the transference to Africa, seem to have maintained a kind of
independence for a while, but in Procopius' time these foreign elements
had become completely merged in the Vandals. The Romans were by
far more numerous. These were by no means looked upon as having
equal privileges, but were treated as conquered subjects according to the
usages of war. Marriages between them and the Vandals were forbidden,
as they were in all the German States founded on Roman soil except
among the Franks. If, however, the hitherto existing arrangements
outside the Vandal settlements remained the same in the main and
indeed even the high offices were left in the hands of the Romans—this
only happened because the Vandal kings proved themselves incapable of
providing a fresh political organisation. On the other hand, the numerous
Moorish tribes were to a great extent held in only slight subjection.
They retained their autonomy, as they did in the time of the Romans,
but their princes received from the hands of the Vandal kings the
insignia of their dignity. Under Gaiseric's stern government they
conducted themselves quietly and completely left off their raids into
civilised districts, which had occurred so frequently in the last years of the
Roman rule, but even under Huneric they began with ever-increasing
success to struggle for their independence. The destruction which befell
the works of ancient civilisation in Africa must be placed to the account
of the Moors, not of the Vandals.
The first settlement of the Vandals in Africa was on the basis of a
treaty with the Roman Empire, when the people were settled among the
Roman landowners and as an equivalent became liable to land tax and
military service. The land settlement which took place after the
recognition of the Vandal sovereignty was carried out as by right of
conquest; the largest and most valuable estates of the country land-
owners in the province of Zeugitana were taken possession of and given
to individual Vandal households. Further particulars of the details are
wanting, yet it is certain that the Roman organisation arranged on the
## p. 317 (#347) ############################################
The Sortes Vandalorum
317
basis of landed property grants was not disturbed. The property only
changed hands, otherwise the conditions were the same as they had been
under Roman government. Of the villa, the manor house on the
Roman estate, a Vandal with his family now took possession, and the
coloni had to pay the necessary dues to the landed proprietor or his
representative and render the usual compulsory service. The profits of
the single estates were in any case on an average not insignificant, for
they made the development of a luxurious mode of life possible even
after an increase in the number of the population. The management of
the estate was, as formerly, directed only in a minority of cases by the
new masters themselves, for they lacked the necessary knowledge, and
service in the Court and in the army compelled them to be absent
frequently from their property. More often the management was
entrusted to stewards or farmers (conductores) who were survivals from
the earlier state of things. Nevertheless the position of the dependents
of the manor, wherever they were directly under the Vandal rule, must
have been materially improved in comparison with what it had been
forinerly, for we know from various authorities that the country people
were in no way content with the reintroduction of the old system of
oppression by the Byzantines after the fall of the Vandal kingdom.
The Vandals like the other German races were divided into three
classes slaves, freemen and nobles. The nobleman as he now appears
is a noble by service who derives his privileged position from serving the
king, not as earlier from birth. The freemen comprised the bulk of
the people, nevertheless they had, in comparison with earlier times, lost
considerably in political importance while the rights of the popular
assembly had devolved in the strengthened monarchy. The slaves were
entirely without rights, they were reckoned not as persons but as
alienable chattels. The position of the coloni who were taken over
from the Roman settlement was wholly foreign to the Vandals ; they
remained tied to the soil but were personally free peasants who kept
their former constitutional status.
At the head of the State was the King, whose power had gradually
become unlimited and differed but little from that of the Byzantine
Roman Emperor. His full official title was Rex Vandalorum et Alanorum.
His mark of distinction and that of his kindred was, as with the
Merwings, long hair falling to the shoulders. While the earlier rulers
dressed in the customary Vandal costume, Gelimer wore the purple
mantle, like the Emperor.
The succession to the throne was legally settled by Gaiseric's so-called
testament. Gaiseric, who himself had obtained the throne through the
choice of the people, ignoring probably the sons of his predecessor
Gunderic, who were still minors, considered himself after he had fully
grasped monarchical power as the new founder of the Vandal kingship,
as the originator of a dynasty. The sovereignty was looked upon as an
CH. XI.
## p. 318 (#348) ############################################
318
The King
inheritance for his family over which no right of disposal belonged to
the people. As however the existence of several heirs threatened the by
no means solidly established kingdom with the risk of subdivision into
several portions, Gaiseric established the principle of individual succession;
moreover he provided that the crown should pass to the eldest of his
male issue at the time being. By this last provision the government of
a minor, unable to bear arms, was made, humanly speaking, impossible.
The Vandal kingdom was the first and for a long time the only State in
which the idea of a permanent rule of succession came to be realised -
and rightly is Gaiseric's family statute reckoned in history among the
most remarkable facts relating to public law. It remained valid until
the end of the kingdom. Gaiseric himself was succeeded by his eldest
son Huneric who was succeeded in turns by two of his nephews
Gunthamund and Thrasamund, and only after the death of the latter
came Huneric's son Hilderic. Gelimer obtained the throne, on the
other hand, in a direct and irregular way, and his endeavours to represent
a
himself to Justinian as a legitimate ruler did not succeed.
The scope of the royal power comprised the national army, the
convening of the assembly, justice, legislation and executive, the appoint-
ments to the praefecture, the supreme control of finance, of police and of
the Church. Of any co-operation in the government by the people-
by the Vandals (not of course by the Romans) such as obtained in
olden times, there is no sign whatever.
The development of absolute government seems to have been com-
pleted in the year 442; according to the brief but significant statements
of our authorities several nobles, who had twice risen against the king
because he had overstepped the limits of his authority, were put to
death with a good many of the people. The origin of the royal power
is traceable to God; the dominant centre of the State is the king and
his court.
In war the king is in chief command over the troops and issues the
summons to the weapon-bearing freemen. The arrangement of the
army was, like that of the nation, by thousands and hundreds. Larger
divisions of troops were placed under commanders appointed especially
by the monarch and generally selected from the royal family. The
Vandals had been even in their settlements in Hungary a nation of
horsemen, and they remained so in Africa. They were chiefly armed
with long spears and swords, and were little suited to long campaigns.
Their principal strength lay in their feet. The ships they commanded
were usually small, lightly built, fast sailing cruisers which did not hold
more than about 40 persons. In the great mobility of the army as well
as of the navy lay the secret of the surprising successes which the
Vandals achieved.
But immediately after Gaiseric's death, a general
military decline began. Enervated by the hot climate and the luxury
into which they had been allured by the produce of a rich country,
## p. 319 (#349) ############################################
The Law
319
they lost their warlike capacity more and more, and thus sank before
the attack of the Byzantines in a manner almost unique in history.
The king is the director of the whole external polity. He sends
forth and receives envoys, concludes alliances, decides war and peace.
On single and peculiarly important questions he may take counsel
beforehand with the chiefs of his following, but the royal will alone is
absolute.
The Vandals were judged according to their national principles of
jurisprudence in the separate hundred districts by the leaders of the
thousands. Sentences for political offences were reserved for the king
as executor of justice in the national assembly. Legal procedure for the
Romans remained the same as before. Judgment was passed on trivial
matters by the town magistrates, on greater by provincial governors
according to Roman law but in the name of the king.
Quarrels between
Vandals and Romans were of course settled only in the Vandal court of
justice according to the law of the victor. That the king often inter-
fered arbitrarily in the regular legal proceedings of the Romans is not
surprising, considering the state of affairs, but a similar arbitrary inter-
ference among the Vandals is a circumstance of political importance :
treason, treachery against the person of the king and his house, apostasy
from the Arian Church come into prominence, so that the life and
freedom of individuals were almost at the mercy of the monarch's
will.
The laws which the Vandal kings enacted were, as far as we know,
for the most part directed against the Romans and the Catholics. In
addition to the numerous edicts concerning religion the regulations
issued against the immorality so widespread in Africa are especially
worthy of remark, but like all regulations of the kind only possessed a
temporary efficiency. On the other hand, the law of royal succession
which we have already alluded to possessed universal validity.
The officials in the service of the Court and State as also those in
the Church are all subject to the royal power; they are nominated by
the monarch or at least confirmed by him, and can be deprived of their
functions by peremptory royal decree. The members belonging to the
household of the king represent different elements, spiritual and lay,
German and Roman, free and unfree together. The highest official in
the Vandal Court was the praepositus regni, whose importance lay entirely
in the sphere of the government of the kingdom; his position corresponded
to that of a prime minister. As holders of this office appear, so far as
is known, only persons of Teutonic nationality. An important post was
also that of head of the Chancery of the Cabinet, who had to draw up
the king's written edicts and was besides frequently entrusted with
different missions of especial political importance. The existence of a
special Arian court clergy is to be inferred from the fact that at the
princely courts house chaplains are mentioned. Besides these there
H. XI.
## p. 320 (#350) ############################################
320
The Officials
lived permanently at the Vandal Court a supernumerary class of men
who without holding any definite office enjoyed the favour of the king
and were employed by him in different ways. A number of them seem
to have borne the title comes as among the Franks, Ostrogoths and
others; from among them were taken, for example, the envoys sent to
foreign nations. Together with the provincial officials, who might be
temporarily present at the Court, and the Arian bishops, the persons of
principal position in the king's circle frequently co-operated in the
decision of important questions of state affairs. As a general designation
for these persons when they belonged to the laity the expression domestici
appears. Admittance into the royal household required an oath of
fealty.
From among the king's circle were drawn the greater part of the
higher officials in the provincial government, especially over the Vandals.
The most important officers of the Vandals were the heads of the
thousands (the chiliarchs, millenarii), on whom devolved the management
of the districts, i. e. the settlements of a thousand heads of families, in
judicial, military, administrative and fiscal respects. Outside the Vandal
allotments the organisation of the Roman system in Africa still remained,
with the exception of the military, and the duties of the separate offices
were discharged by the Romans themselves. The only exceptions were
the islands in the Mediterranean; Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic
Isles were united into one province and placed under a governor of
German nationality who resided in Sardinia and exercised both military
and civil functions.
The ruler has by virtue of his position absolute right over the
revenue of the State; state property and royal private property are
identical. A principal source of revenue is provided by the produce of
royal domains, which in Roman Africa occupy a particularly important
place. To this was added the taxes paid by the provincials, from which
the Vandals themselves were entirely exempt. The burdens, however,
cannot as a rule have been so oppressive as they were under the Roman
rule, for later on, under the government of the Byzantines, the former
more lenient conditions were regretted. Besides the taxes were to be taken
into account the proceeds from the tolls, the right of coinage, fines, dues
from mines and manufactures, and other unusual receipts.
The Arian as well as the Catholic Church is subject to the royal
power; the appointment of bishops is dependent on the consent of the
sovereign, the synods are convoked by the king and can only meet with
his permission. The Asdingian Vandals in their seats in Hungary had
clearly been already converted to Arianism, while the Silingians, Alans,
and Sueves in the first phase of their Spanish career were still adherents
of paganism. After the occupation of Africa the Catholic clergy were
entirely expelled from the country districts in the province of Zeugitana
as well as from Carthage, and the vacant places were given over to the
## p. 321 (#351) ############################################
Religion
321
Arian clergy with the whole of the church property. In the other
parts of the kingdom few or no Arian priests were to be found; only
under Huneric who presented the whole of the Catholic churches to the
Arians (a measure which certainly was never wholly carried out) were
they installed in greater numbers. The bishop residing in Carthage
bore the title of Patriarch and exercised as metropolitan a supreme
power over the whole of the Arian clergy. Since the Arian church-
service was held in the vernacular as among the other Germans, the
clergy were mostly of German nationality.
The position of the Catholic Church was, as has been already remarked,
very varied under the different rulers and very largely dependent on the
state of foreign politics. In Africa, after the tumult of the conquest
had passed over and the endowment of the Arian Established Church
was put into effect, Gaiseric only proceeded against those adherents of
orthodoxy from whom danger to the State was to be feared. The clergy
beyond the Vandal allotment were closely supervised, but they were not
molested if they did not oppose the royal will but confined themselves
to the execution of their pastoral duties. The real persecutions began
first under Huneric and were continued, after an interval of peace, by
Gunthamund and Thrasamund, though in a milder form. Hilderic
gave the Catholic Church its complete freedom again ; his successor
Gelimer, an ardent Arian, was too much occupied with political com-
plications to be able to be active in that sphere. Ecclesiastical conditions
suffered therefore only temporary not permanent disturbance and
sustained no material hurt; rather, the persecutions contributed largely
to temper the inner strength of the African Church.
When the Vandals occupied Africa they were undoubtedly still in
the same primitive stage of civilisation in which they had lived in
their homes in Hungary. Their political position as conquerors, the
settlement in an enclosed district, the sharp religious opposition must
certainly have hindered a rapid acceptance of the Roman influence.
But under Gelimer they quite adopted the luxurious mode of life of
the Romans, i. e. of the rich nobility; they lived in magnificent palaces,
wore fine clothes, visited theatres, gave themselves up to the pleasures
of an excellent table and did homage with great passion to Aphrodite.
Roman literary culture had just made its appearance in the royal
Court and among the nobility. Gaiseric was himself certainly, at least
at first, not skilled in Latin, but one of his grandsons was famous
for having distinguished himself in the acquisition of manifold know-
ledge. The same is said of Thrasamund, and we may assume it of
Hilderic.
Latin was the language of diplomatic intercourse and legislation, as
it was in the other German kingdoms; the Vandal language was quite
supplanted, and only remained in use in popular intercourse and in
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XI.
21
## p. 322 (#352) ############################################
322
Literature and Architecture
the church-service. So in the last years of the Vandal dominion
Roman literature in Africa produced a tiny harvest. The poet Dracontius
is to be remembered in this connexion, and the poets preserved in the
anthology of the Codex Salmasianus, and Bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe.
The art of architecture found in Thrasamund an eager patron; mention
is made of splendid buildings which were raised under this king. There
is certainly no authentic trace extant of any artistic capacity among the
Vandals themselves.
## p. 323 (#353) ############################################
996
323
323
43
CHAPTER XII.
(A)
THE ASIATIC BACKGROUND.
a
The Asiatic background has its basis in the immense zone of steppes
and deserts which stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Khin-gan
Mountains, and is divided into two regions by the Pamir and the Thian
Shan ranges. The western region, like the whole lowland district of
West Asia, even to the extreme north, is a deserted sea-bed; the eastern
(Tarim basin and Gobi) seems formerly to have been covered with great
fresh-water lakes. The water-basins began to evaporate and to shrink to
inland seas, while the intervening country became a desert. The largest
remains of former enormous water-basins are the salt Caspian Sea and
the sweet-water Aral Sea. In both regions all the moisture that falls
evaporates, so that no rivers reach the open sea; most of them ooze away
in the sand, and only the greatest, such as the Syr, Amu, Ili, Chu,
Tarim, flow into large inland seas. The fact that the evaporation is
greater than the fall of moisture, and that the latter takes place chiefly
in the cold season, has important consequences, which account for the
desert nature of the land. All the salt which is released by the
weathering and decomposition of the soil remains in the ground, and
only in the higher regions with greater falls of moisture, and by the
banks of rivers is the soil-sufficiently lixiviated to be fit for cultivation.
Everywhere else is steppe and desert absolutely uncultivable. The surface
of the land can be divided into six categories : sand-deserts, gravel-
deserts, salt-steppes, loam-steppes, loess-land, and rocky_mountains.
Of these the sand-deserts form by far the greatest part. They
consist of fine drift-sand, which the driving storm wind forms into sickle-
shaped shifting dunes (barkhans). The loose drift-sand is waterless, and
for the most part without vegetation ; the barkhans, however, here and
there display a few poor saxaul and other shrubs; human life is impossible.
The gravel-deserts, also very extensive, which form the transition between
the sand-deserts and the steppes, have a sparse vegetation and serve the
nomads as grazing-grounds in their wanderings to and from winter
CH. XII.
21-2
## p. 324 (#354) ############################################
324
Nature of the Soil. Vegetation. Climate
quarters and summer pastures. The adjoining salt-steppes, consisting
of loam and sand, are so impregnated with salt that the latter
settles down on the surface like rime. In spring they bear a scanty
vegetation, which, on account of its saline nature, affords excellent pasture
for numerous flocks of sheep. During the rain of autumn and spring
the loam-steppes, consisting of loess-soil mixed with much sand, are
covered with luxuriant verdure and myriads of wild flowers, especially
tulips, and, on the drier ground, with camel-thorn (Alhagi camelorum),
without which the camel could not exist for any length of time. These
steppes form the real pastures of the nomads. In the loess-land
agriculture and gardening are only possible where the soil has been
sufficiently softened by rainfall and artificial canals, and is constantly
irrigated. It forms the sub-soil of all cultivable oases. Without irri-
gation the soil becomes in summer as hard as concrete, and its vegetation
dies completely. The oases comprise only two per cent. of the total area
of Turkestan. As a rule the rocky mountains are quite bare; they consist
of black gleaming stone cracked by frost and heat, and are waterless.
Roughly speaking these differences of vegetation follow one another
from south to north, viz. the salt-, the sand- and the grass-steppes. A little
below 50° N. latitude the landscape of West Asia changes in consequence
of a greater fall of moisture. The undrained lakes become less frequent,
the rivers reach the sea (Ishim, Tobol, etc. ), and trees appear. Here begins,
as a transition to the compact forest-land, the tree-steppe on the very
fertile “black earth. ” On the Yenisei are park-like districts with splendid
grass plains, and luxuriant trees. Northward come endless pine-forests,
and beyond them, towards the Arctic Sea, is the moss-steppe or
tundra.
The climate is typically continental, with icy cold winters, hot
summers, cold nights, and hot days with enormous fluctuations of
temperature. The warmth increases quickly from winter to spring and
decreases just as quickly from summer to autumn. In West Turkestan,
the summer is almost cloudless and rainless, and at this time the steppes
become deserts. On account of the dryness little snow falls; as a rule it
remains loose and is whirled aloft by the north-east storm wind (buran).
These storm burans are just as terrible as the summer storms of salt-dust
in Trans-Caspia at a temperature of 104° to 113° Fahr. Considering
that in summer the temperature sometimes reaches 118° in the shade,
exceeding body-heat by 20°, and that in winter it sinks below - 31,
and further that the heat, especially in the sand-deserts, reaches a
degree at which the white of egg coagulates, the climate, even if
not deadly, should be very injurious to man; Hindustan, which is
far less hot, enervates the European on account of the greater
moisture, and has changed the Aryan, once so energetic, to the weak
and cowardly Hindu. Nevertheless the contrary is the case.
The
climate of Turkestan is wholesome, and its people are long-lived and
>
>
## p. 325 (#355) ############################################
Use of the Soil.
Mounted Nomadism
325
healthy, and that especially in the hot summer, on account of the un-
paralleled dryness of the air. Once acclimatised, one bears the heat very
well, and likewise the extreme cold of winter. The climate of Central
Asia furthers a rapid bodily and mental development and premature
ageing, as well as corpulence, especially among the Altaians. Obesity
is even regarded as a distinction, and it became so native to the mounted
nomads that it accompanied them to Europe; it is characteristic of all
the nomads who have invaded Europe; and Hippocrates mentions it
expressly as a characteristic of the Scythians. The climate of Turkestan
also influences the character, leading to an apathy which creates indiffer-
ence to the heaviest blows of fate, and even accompanies the condemned
to the scaffold.
The entire West Asiatic region from the salt-steppes to the compact
forest-land forms one economic whole. The well-watered northern part,
which remains green throughout the summer, feeds countless herds in
the warm season, but affords no pasturage in winter owing to the
deep snow. On the other hand, the southern part, which is poor in
water-the grass-, sand-, and salt-steppes—is uninhabitable in summer.
Thus the northern part provides summer pastures, the southern-the
Aral-Caspian basin-winter pastures to one and the same nomad
people.
The nomad then is the son and product of the peculiar and variable
constitution which nevertheless is an indivisible economic whole-of the
Asiatic background. Any agriculture, worthy of the name, is impossible
in the steppes and deserts--the few oases excepted—on account of the
—
dryness of the summer, when animals also find no food. Life on the
steppes and deserts is only possible in connexion either with the
Siberian grass-region or with the mountains. This life is necessarily
extremely hard and restless for man and beast and it creates a condition
of nomadism, which must at the same time be a mounted nomadism,
seeing that a wagon would be an impossibility in the long trackless
wanderings over mountain and valley, river and swamp, and that goods
and chattels, together with the disjoinable dwellings, can only be carried
on the backs of beasts of burden.
Setting aside the Glacial Period and the small Brückner cycle of
35 years or so, the climatic changes of Central Asia, according to
Huntington', fall into cycles of several hundred years' duration within
which the aridity rises and sinks considerably. “All Central Asia
has undergone a series of climatic pulsations during historic times.
There seems to be strong evidence that at the time of Christ or
earlier the climate was much moister and more propitious than it now
is. Then during the first few centuries of the Christian era there
appears to have been an epoch of increasing aridity. It culminated
| Huntington, Pulse, p. 359.
CH. XII.
## p. 326 (#356) ############################################
326
Ruins in the Wastes
about A. D. 500, at which time the climate appears to have been drier
than at present. Next came an epoch of more propitious climate which
reached its acme about A. D. 900. There is a little evidence of a second
epoch of aridity which was especially marked in the twelfth century.
Finally, in the later Middle Ages, a rise in the level of the Caspian Sea and
the condition of certain ruins render it probable that climatic conditions
once again became somewhat favorable, only to give place ere long to
the present aridity? "
But Central Asia has not been, since the beginning of historic
records, in a state of desiccation. The process of “geological” desic-
cation was already ended in prehistoric times, and even the oldest
historic accounts testify to the same climatic conditions as those of
to-day. The earliest Babylonian kings maintained irrigation works, and
Hammurabi (23rd cent. B. c. ) had canals made through the land, one
of which bore his name. Thus, as at present, without artificial irriga-
tion agriculture was not possible there 4200 years ago. Palestine's
climate too has not changed in the least since Biblical times : its present
waste condition is the result of Turkish mismanagement, and Biot has
proved from the cultivated plants grown in the earliest times that the
temperature of China has remained the same for 3300 years. Curtius
Rufus and Arrian give similar accounts of Bactria.
>
Amid the enormous wastes there are countless sand-buried ruins of
populous cities, monasteries and villages and choked-up canals standing
on ground won from the waste by systematic canalisation; where the
system of irrigation was destroyed, the earlier natural state, the desert,
returned. The causes of such destruction are manifold? . 1. Earth-
quake. 2. Violent rain-spouts after which the river does not find its
former bed, and the canals receive no more water from it. 3. On the
highest edge of the steppe, at the foot of the glacier, lie enormous flat
heaps of débris, and here the canalisation begins. If one side of this heap
rises higher than the other, the direction of the current is shifted, and
the oases nurtured by the now forsaken stream become derelict. But the
habitable ground simply migrates with the river. If, for example, a
river altered its course four times in historic times, three series of ruins
remain behind ; but it is erroneous simply to add these ruins together,
and to conclude from them that the whole once formed a flourishing
land which has become waste, when in reality the three series of settle-
ments did not flourish side by side but consecutively. This fallacy
vitiates all accounts which assume a progressive or periodic desiccation
as the chief cause of the abandonment of oases.
4. Continuous drought
in consequence of which the rivers become so waterless that they cannot
1 The view of Huntington (in Explorations in Turkestan, 1904, ed. by Pumpelly,
Washington, 1908, p. 231 note).
2 Cholnoky in Geogr. Zeitschr: xv. pp. 249 ff.
>
## p. 327 (#357) ############################################
Irrigation and the Causes of its Destruction
327
Oases,
feed the canals of the lower river-basin, and thus the oases affected must
become parched, and are not always re-settled in more favourable years.
5. Neglect of the extreme care demanded in the administration of the
canal system. If irrigation is extended in the district next the mountain
from which the water comes, just so much water is taken from the lower
But in this case too nothing is lost which cannot be replaced in
another direction : vice versâ if an oasis on the upper course of the
river disappears through losing its canal system, the lower river course thus
becomes well watered and makes possible the formation of a new oasis.
6. The most terrible mischief is the work of enemies. In order to make
the whole oasis liable to tribute they need only seize the main canal; and
the nomads often blindly plundered and destroyed everything. A single
raid was enough to transform hundreds of oases into ashes and desert.
The nomads moreover not only ruined countless cities and villages of
Central Asia, but they also denuded the steppe itself, and promoted
drift-sand by senseless uprooting of trees and bushes for the sake of
firewood. But for them, according to Berg, there would be little drift-
sand in Central Asia, for, in his opinion, all sand-formations must in
time become firm. All the sand-deserts which he observed on the Aral
Sea and in Semiryechensk were originally firm, and even now most of
them are still kept firm by the vegetation.
With the varied dangers of irrigation systems it is impossible to
decide in the case of each group of ruins what causes have produced
them; it is therefore doubtful whether we can place in the foreground
the secular changes of climate. It is not even true that the cultivation
of the oases throve better in the damper and cooler periods than in the
arid and hot ones. Thus the oases of Turfan in Chinese Turkestan,
which is so extremely arid and so unendurably hot in summer, are
exceptionally fertile. We may therefore conclude that the cultivation
of the oases was considerably more extended in the damper and
cooler periods, but considerably less productive than in the arid and
hot ones of to-day. Changes in the volume of water of single rivers
and lakes are clearly apparent within short periods, and these lead
to frequent local migrations of the peasant population and to new
constructions as well as to the abandonment of irrigation canals. Thus
there is here a continual local fluctuation in the settlements, but history
knows nothing of regular migrations of agriculturists.
Still less is an unfavourable climatic change the cause of the nomad
invasions of Europe. The nomad does not remain at all during the
summer in the parched steppe and desert; and in the periods of increasing
aridity and summer heat South Siberia was warmer and the mountain
glaciers retreated, and hence the pastures in both these directions were
extended. The only consequence of this was that the distance between
summer and winter pastures increased and the nomad had to wander
a
CH. XII.
## p. 328 (#358) ############################################
328
Causes of the Nomad Invasions of Europe
further and quicker. The computation is correct in itself, that the
number of animals that can be reared to the square mile depends on
and varies with the annual rainfall"; but the nomad is not hampered
by square miles ; the poorer or richer the growth of grass the shorter
or longer time he remains, and he is accustomed from year to year to
Aluctuations in the abundance of his flocks. Moreover a shifting of the
winter pastures is not impossible, for their autumn and spring vegetation
is not destroyed by a progressive aridity, and if the water current
changes its bed, the nomad simply follows it. Further, the effect of
a secular progressive aridity is spread over so many generations that it is
not catastrophic for any one of them. The nomad invasions of China
and Europe must therefore have had other causes ; and we know some-
thing about the invasions of several nomad hordes-of the Avars, Turks
(Osmans) and Cumans, for example.
made an alliance with the Spanish Sueves who had invaded and
plundered the province of Tarraconensis (456) which belonged to the
Roman Empire. At the same time a Vandal fleet laid waste Sicily and
the bordering coast territory of South Italy. It is true that on land the
Romans succeeded, under Ricimer, in defeating a hostile division at
Agrigentum, as well as one at sea in Corsican waters, but these successes
had no lasting effect, for the Vandals still commanded the Mediterranean
as before. The populace, furious from the continued famine, compelled
Avitus to fly to Gaul, where he died at the end of the year 456.
His successor on the imperial throne, Majorian (from 1 April 457),
at once began in real earnest to consider schemes for the destruction of
the Vandal Empire. It might be looked upon as auspicious that not
long after his accession a body of Roman troops succeeded in defeating
a band of Vandals and Moors, led by Gaiseric's brother-in-law, who were
engaged in desultory plunder in South Italy. The Emperor himself
marched with a large army, which he had not got together without
difficulty, from Italy to Gaul, in November 458, in order to exact
recognition of his authority from the Visigoths and Burgundians who
had seceded from Rome, and his success in this task at once rendered
nugatory Gaiseric's conclusion of a Visigoth, Suevian and Vandal alliance.
In May 460 Majorian crossed the Pyrenees and moved upon Zaragoza
to Carthagena in order to cross from thence to Africa. The force that
had been raised was so impressive that the king of the Vandals did not
feel himself a match for it and sent messengers to sue for peace. When
peace was refused he laid waste Mauretania and poisoned the wells in
order to delay the advance of the enemy as much as possible. The
01. A.
## p. 310 (#340) ############################################
310
Majorian
[460–468
Roman attack, however, could not be carried out, for the Vandals
managed by means of treachery to seize a great number of the Roman
ships which were lying outside the naval harbour near the modern Elche.
Majorian had no alternative but to make peace with Gaiseric; his
authority, however, was so shaken by this failure that he was divested
of his dignity by Ricimer in August 461.
The result of the elevation of a new Emperor, Libius Severus, was that
Gaiseric once more declared the agreement he had but just made to be at
an end. He again began his naval attacks on Italy and Sicily. The
embassies sent to him by the West-Roman as well as by the Byzantine
Emperor Leo had no further result than the deliverance of Valentinian's
widow and her daughter Placidia, for he had previously given the elder
princess Eudoxia to his son Huneric in marriage. The king received
as ransom a part of the treasure of Valentinian. It also seems that an
agreement was come to with the East-Roman Empire. On the other
hand the hostile relations with West-Rome continued, for Ricimer
refused to comply with Gaiseric's principal demand, the bestowal of the
imperial throne of the West upon Olybrius, Huneric's brother-in-law.
Every year in the beginning of spring detachments of the Vandal fleet
left the African harbours to infest the Mediterranean coasts. Unpro-
tected places were plundered and destroyed, while the garrisoned places
were carefully avoided.
The danger threatening the Western Empire reached its height
when the commander Aegidius, who maintained an independent position
in Gaul, made an alliance with Gaiseric and prepared to attack Italy in
conjunction with him. This scheme was not carried out, for Aegidius
died prematurely (464), but the situation still remained dangerous.
These miserable conditions lasted until the end of 467. The
energetic Emperor Leo had by this time succeeded in overcoming the
influence of Aspar, who had always been a hindrance to hostile measures
against the Vandals. He despatched a fleet under the command of
Marcellinus to convey the newly-created Western Emperor Anthemius
to Italy and afterwards proceed to Africa. But first he sent an embassy
to Gaiseric to inform him of the accession of Anthemius and to threaten
him with war unless he would relinquish his marauding expeditions.
The king instantly refused the demand and declared the agreements
made with Byzantium at an end. His ships no longer sought Italy, but
the coasts of the Eastern Empire: Illyria, the Peloponnesus and all
the rest of Greece felt his powerful arm, and even Alexandria felt
itself menaced. But when the attempt of Marcellinus to advance
against Africa miscarried on account of contrary winds, Leo determined
to make great warlike preparations and to destroy his terrible opponent
at one blow. Eleven hundred ships were got together and an army
of 100,000 men raised. The plan of campaign was to attack the Vandal
Empire on three sides. The main army was to march under Basiliscus
## p. 311 (#341) ############################################
468—477]
Last years of Gaiseric
311
direct to Carthage, another body under Heraclius and Marsus was to
advance overland from Egypt to the West, while Marcellinus with his
fleet was to strike at the Vandal centre in the Mediterranean. But
once more fortune favoured the Vandals. They succeeded under cover
of night in surprising Basiliscus' fleet, which was already anchored at
the Promontorium Mercurii (now Cape Bon), and destroyed a part
of it by fire. The rest took to flight and scarcely one-half of the fine
armada managed to escape to Sicily (468). The not unimportant
successes which the other Byzantine generals had in the meantime
achieved could not balance this catastrophe, and as a crowning mis-
fortune the able Marcellinus when on the point of sailing for Carthage
was murdered (August 468). Leo was therefore obliged to relinquish
further undertakings and make peace once more with Gaiseric.
The peace, however, only lasted a few years. After Leo's death
(Jan. 474) the Vandals again devastated the coast of Greece in frequent
expeditions. The Emperor Zeno, who was not prepared to punish the
marauders, was obliged to sue for peace, and sent the Senator Severus
to Carthage to superintend negotiations. It was agreed that the two
empires from that time should not be hostile to each other. The king
promised to guarantee freedom of worship to the Catholics in Carthage
and to permit the return of the clergy who had been banished for
political intrigues, although he could not be prevailed upon to allow
new appointment to the Carthaginian bishopric, vacant since
Deogratias' death (457). Besides this he restored without ransom the
Roman prisoners who had been allotted to him and his family, and gave
Severus permission to buy back the slaves allotted as booty among the
Vandals with the goodwill of their owners. In return the Byzantine
Emperor, as the overlord of both halves of the Empire, no doubt formally
recognised the Vandal kingdom in its then extent-it comprised the
entire Roman province of Africa, the Balearic Isles, Pithyusae, Corsica,
Sardinia and Sicily (autumn 476). Gaiseric soon afterwards made
.
over Sicily to Odovacar in return for the payment of a yearly tribute,
only reserving for himself the town of Lilybaeum, which had a strategical
importance as a starting-point for Africa.
On 25 January 477, Gaiseric died at a very great age after he
had raised the Vandal Empire to the height of its power. What he
accomplished, as general and politician, in his active life is beyond praise
and is unreservedly acknowledged by contemporaries. On the other
hand, a less favourable verdict must be pronounced on his statesmanship.
The Empire he established was a hybrid State and therefore bore from
the beginning the seeds of decay in itself. The nations under his rule
were kept strictly separate from each other, and the possibility of an
amalgamation, which might have been the foundation of a new political
organisation, was thus prevented. Herein is seen the truth found
by experience, that the existence of all kingdoms erected by conquest is
a
CB, XI.
## p. 312 (#342) ############################################
312
Huneric and Gunthamund
[477–487
bound
up
with the life of their creator unless the latter can succeed
in creating a united organism on a national, constitutional or economic
basis.
The decline was already noticeable under Gaiseric's eldest son and
successor, Huneric, the husband of the imperial princess Eudoxia. The
Moorish tribes living in the Aures mountains, after fighting for some
time with varying fortune, succeeded at last in shaking off the Vandal
rule. In a quarrel with the Eastern Empire over the surrender of
Eudoxia's fortune, Huneric early gave in; he was even willing to
permit the episcopal see at Carthage to be filled again (481) and grant
the Catholics in his Empire still greater freedom of movement. Only
when he learned that he had not to fear hostilities from Byzantium did
he shew himself in his true colours, a tyrant of the worst, most blood-
thirsty type. Then he raged against the members of his own house
and against his father's friends. Some of them he banished, others he
murdered in a horrible manner in order to secure the succession to his
son Hilderic. When nothing more remained for him to do in this
direction he proceeded to oppress his Catholic subjects. Among some
of the measures taken by him the most important is the notorious
Edict of 24 January 484, in which the king ordered that the edicts
made by the Roman Emperors against heresy should be applied to all
his Catholic subjects unless they adopted Arianism by 1 June in
that year. Next, orthodox priests were forbidden to hold religious
services, to possess churches or build new ones, to baptise, consecrate
and so forth, and they were especially forbidden to reside in any towns
or villages. The property of all Catholic churches and the churches
themselves were bestowed on the Arian clergy. Laymen were disabled
from making or receiving gifts or legacies ; court officials of the Catholic
creed were deprived of their dignity and declared infamous. For the
several classes of the people graduated money-fines were established
according to rank; but in case of persistence all were condemned to
transportation and confiscation of property. Huneric gave the execution
of these provisions into the hands of the Arian clergy, who carried out
the punishments threatened with the most revolting cruelty, and even
went beyond them. Repeated intervention on the part of the Emperor
and the Pope remained quite ineffectual, for they confined themselves
to representations. Perhaps Catholicism might have been quite rooted
out in Africa if the king had not died prematurely on 23 December 484.
Under his successor Gunthamund, better times began for the oppressed
orthodox Church. As early as the year 487 most of the Catholic
churches were opened again and the banished priests recalled. The
reason for these changed circumstances lay partly in the personal
character of the king, partly in the Emperor's separation from the Roman
Church which appeared to debar Gunthamund's Catholic subjects from
conspiring with Byzantium, and partly in the now ever-increasing
## p. 313 (#343) ############################################
484-523
Thrasamund
313
dimensions of Moorish rebellion. Gunthamund was very fortunate in
driving back these last to their haunts, but he did not succeed in com-
pletely defeating them. He absolutely failed when he attempted to
regain possession of Sicily during the struggle between Odovacar and
Theodoric the Great. The expedition sent thither was expelled by the
Ostrogoths, and the king was compelled even to relinquish the tribute
which had hitherto been paid to him (491).
Gunthamund died 3 September 496; Thrasamund, his brother,
distinguished for his beauty, amiability, wisdom and general culture,
succeeded him on the throne. He pursued yet a different course
from that of his predecessors with regard to the Catholics. He tried,
like Huneric, to spread Arianism in his kingdom, yet as a rule he avoided
the violent measures to which that king had recourse. Thus several
bishops, among whom was the bishop of Carthage, were once more
banished, but they were well treated in their exile. His action was
mainly due to religious fanaticism, for there was no ground for political
suspicion, at least during the greater part of his reign; the king was
on friendly terms with the schismatical Emperor Anastasius. After
the accession of the orthodox Emperor Justin (518) Thrasamund's
aversion to the Catholics is easier to understand, especially when
the Emperor took steps to improve the position of the orthodox
episcopate in Africa. The Vandal kingdom found a real support in
the alliance with the Ostrogoths in Italy. Theodoric the Great, swayed
by the desire to bring about an alliance of all German princes of the
Arian faith, wedded his widowed sister Amalafrida to Thrasamund,
whose first wife had died childless ; she came to Carthage with a retinue
of 1000 distinguished Goths as her body-guard as well as 5000 slaves
capable of bearing arms, and brought her royal husband a dowry of the
part of the island of Sicily round Lilybaeum (500). A temporary
interruption occurred in the alliance between the two States in 510-511,
because Thrasamund gave pecuniary support to Gesalech the pretender
to the Visigothic throne, who was not recognised by Theodoric; but on
the representation of his brother-in-law he repented and apologised.
Serious difficulties occurred in the Vandal kingdom once more through
the Moors. The tribes of Tripolis really succeeded in making them-
selves independent. At the end of his reign the king himself took the
field against them, but suffered defeat.
Thrasamund died on 6 May 523; he was succeeded by the al-
ready aged, utterly effeminate son of Huneric and Eudoxia, Hilderic,
who was averse from warfare. Thrasamund, having a presentiment of
future events, had exacted an oath from him not to restore to the
banished Catholics either their churches or their privileges, but Hilderic
evaded his pledge, for even before his formal accession, he recalled the
exiled clergy and ordered fresh elections in the place of those who had
died. In foreign politics also the new king turned entirely from the system
а
6. A.
## p. 314 (#344) ############################################
314
Hilderic
[ 523–530
hitherto followed, of alliance with the Ostrogoth kingdom, and entered
into a close connexion with the Byzantine Empire where Justinian, the
nephew of the ageing Emperor Justin, already practically wielded the
sceptre. Inasmuch as he had coins struck bearing the effigy of Justin I,
Hilderic formally gave the impression of recognising a kind of suzerainty
of the Byzantine Empire. To the opposition of Amalafrida and her
following he replied by slaughtering the Goths and Ainging the sister
of Theodoric into prison. To avenge this insult the Gothic king fitted
out a strong fleet, but his death (526) prevented the despatch of the
expedition, which would probably have been fatal to the Vandal kingdom.
Theodoric's grandson and successor Athalarich, or rather his mother
Amalasuntha, was content with making remonstrances, which of course
received no attention.
Though there was nothing to fear from the Ostrogoths, the danger
from the Moors waxed ever greater. After the year
525 it
appears
that
they had acquired control over Mauretania Caesariensis with the exception
of its capital city, of the Sitifensis Province and of southern Numidia
as well—Mauretania Tingitana had already been given up. But especially
momentous in its widespread results was the rise of Antalas who at the
head of some tribes in the southern part of Byzacene infested this
province more and more, and at last severely defeated the relieving
Vandal troops commanded by Oamer, a cousin of Hilderic. The dislike
of the Vandals to their king, which had been existent long before this
event, shewed itself fully at this failure. Hilderic was deposed by the
defeated army on its return home and was imprisoned together with his
followers, and in his stead the next heir to the throne Gelimer', a great-
grandson of Gaiseric, was called upon to rule (19 May 530). Doubtless
this usurpation was mainly the result of Gelimer's ambition and love of
power, but on the whole it was sustained by the will of the people.
They were discontented with the policy hitherto pursued towards the
Catholics and Byzantium as well as with the unwarlike, inconsistent
character of Hilderic, who was to Teutonic ideas utterly unworthy of
royalty.
This course of events was most welcome to the Byzantine Emperor,
who in any case had for some time past harboured some idea of the
plan which later he definitely announced for joining all the lands
belonging to the old Roman Empire under his own sceptre. Just as
he afterwards posed as the avenger of Amalasuntha, so he now became
the official protector of the rights of the deposed king of the Vandals.
He asked Gelimer in the most courteous manner not openly to violate
the law regarding the succession to the throne, which had been decreed
by Gaiseric and had been always hitherto respected, but to be satisfied
with the actual exercise of power and to let the old king, whose death
1 More correctly Geilamir as the name reads in inscriptions and on coins.
## p. 315 (#345) ############################################
530-533]
Gelimer
315
might shortly be expected, remain as nominal ruler. Gelimer did not
deign at first to answer the Emperor; when, however, the latter took
a sharper tone and demanded the surrender of the prisoners he haughtily
rejected the interference, emphatically claimed validity for his own
succession and declared that he was ready to oppose with the utmost
vigour any attack which might occur. Justinian was now firmly resolved
to bring matters to an armed decision, but first took steps to end the
war which had been begun against the Persians. In the year
532
peace
was concluded with them.
The scheme directed against the Vandal kingdom found no approval
from the body of crown councillors before whom Justinian laid it for an
opinion. They objected to the chronic want of money in the state
treasury and that the same fate might easily be prepared for the
Byzantines as had befallen Basiliscus under Gaiseric. The troops, too,
which had just sustained the fatigues of the Persian campaign, were little
fit to be again sent to an uncertain conflict against a powerful and
famous kingdom on the other side of the sea. Justinian was almost
persuaded to give up the undertaking when a fresh impulse, that of
religion, made itself felt. An oriental bishop appeared at Court and
declared that God himself had, in a dream, commanded him to reproach
the Emperor on account of his indecision and to tell him that he might
count on the support of Heaven if he would march forth to liberate the
Christian (that is, the orthodox) people of Africa from the dominion of
the heretics.
Through this kind of influence on the part of the Catholic clergy, and
through the endeavours of the Roman nobility who had been reinstated
by Hilderic but driven forth again by Gelimer, Justinian was entirely
brought round. Belisarius, previously commander-in-chief in the Persian
war, was placed at the head of the expedition with unlimited authority.
It was very fortunate for the Emperor that, in the first place, the Ostro-
goth queen Amalasuntha declared for him and held out prospects of
supplying provisions and horses in Sicily, and, further, that the Vandal
governor of Sardinia, Godas, rose against Gelimer and asked for troops
to enable him to hold his own, and finally that the population of
Tripolis, led by a distinguished Roman, Prudentius, declared itself in
favour of union with Byzantium.
In June 533 the preparations for war were completed. The army
mustered reckoned 10,000 infantry under Johannes of Epidamnus and
about 5000 cavalry, also the 5000 men of Belisarius' powerfully mounted
guard, 400 Heruls and 600 Huns. The fleet was composed of 500
transport vessels and 92 battleships under the command of Kalonymus.
Among Belisarius' attendants was the historian Procopius of Caesarea,
to whom we owe the vivid and trustworthy description of the campaign.
The departure of the ships took place at the end of July, and the last
hour of the kingdom which was once so powerful had struck.
CH, XI.
## p. 316 (#346) ############################################
316
Vandals and Romans
It is only in Africa that we are well acquainted with the internal
circumstances of the Vandal kingdom ; for of the parallel conditions in
the Spanish communities of the Sueves, Alans and the Silingian and
Asdingian Vandals we only know, at the present time, that they were
under monarchical rule. The centre of Vandal rule in Africa was Carthage;
here all the threads of the government converged, here the king also
held court. The Roman division of the land into provinces (Mauretania :
Tingitana, Caesariensis, Sitifensis ; Numidia ; Proconsularis or Zeugitana;
Byzacene; Tripolitana) remained the same. The districts assigned to
the Vandals, the so-called “Sortes Vandalorum,” were separated as
especial commands. The governing people were the Vandals of the
Asdingian branch which now alone survived, with whom were joined the
Alans and contingents from different peoples, among whom in particular
were Goths. The Alans, who probably were already Germanised at the
time of the transference to Africa, seem to have maintained a kind of
independence for a while, but in Procopius' time these foreign elements
had become completely merged in the Vandals. The Romans were by
far more numerous. These were by no means looked upon as having
equal privileges, but were treated as conquered subjects according to the
usages of war. Marriages between them and the Vandals were forbidden,
as they were in all the German States founded on Roman soil except
among the Franks. If, however, the hitherto existing arrangements
outside the Vandal settlements remained the same in the main and
indeed even the high offices were left in the hands of the Romans—this
only happened because the Vandal kings proved themselves incapable of
providing a fresh political organisation. On the other hand, the numerous
Moorish tribes were to a great extent held in only slight subjection.
They retained their autonomy, as they did in the time of the Romans,
but their princes received from the hands of the Vandal kings the
insignia of their dignity. Under Gaiseric's stern government they
conducted themselves quietly and completely left off their raids into
civilised districts, which had occurred so frequently in the last years of the
Roman rule, but even under Huneric they began with ever-increasing
success to struggle for their independence. The destruction which befell
the works of ancient civilisation in Africa must be placed to the account
of the Moors, not of the Vandals.
The first settlement of the Vandals in Africa was on the basis of a
treaty with the Roman Empire, when the people were settled among the
Roman landowners and as an equivalent became liable to land tax and
military service. The land settlement which took place after the
recognition of the Vandal sovereignty was carried out as by right of
conquest; the largest and most valuable estates of the country land-
owners in the province of Zeugitana were taken possession of and given
to individual Vandal households. Further particulars of the details are
wanting, yet it is certain that the Roman organisation arranged on the
## p. 317 (#347) ############################################
The Sortes Vandalorum
317
basis of landed property grants was not disturbed. The property only
changed hands, otherwise the conditions were the same as they had been
under Roman government. Of the villa, the manor house on the
Roman estate, a Vandal with his family now took possession, and the
coloni had to pay the necessary dues to the landed proprietor or his
representative and render the usual compulsory service. The profits of
the single estates were in any case on an average not insignificant, for
they made the development of a luxurious mode of life possible even
after an increase in the number of the population. The management of
the estate was, as formerly, directed only in a minority of cases by the
new masters themselves, for they lacked the necessary knowledge, and
service in the Court and in the army compelled them to be absent
frequently from their property. More often the management was
entrusted to stewards or farmers (conductores) who were survivals from
the earlier state of things. Nevertheless the position of the dependents
of the manor, wherever they were directly under the Vandal rule, must
have been materially improved in comparison with what it had been
forinerly, for we know from various authorities that the country people
were in no way content with the reintroduction of the old system of
oppression by the Byzantines after the fall of the Vandal kingdom.
The Vandals like the other German races were divided into three
classes slaves, freemen and nobles. The nobleman as he now appears
is a noble by service who derives his privileged position from serving the
king, not as earlier from birth. The freemen comprised the bulk of
the people, nevertheless they had, in comparison with earlier times, lost
considerably in political importance while the rights of the popular
assembly had devolved in the strengthened monarchy. The slaves were
entirely without rights, they were reckoned not as persons but as
alienable chattels. The position of the coloni who were taken over
from the Roman settlement was wholly foreign to the Vandals ; they
remained tied to the soil but were personally free peasants who kept
their former constitutional status.
At the head of the State was the King, whose power had gradually
become unlimited and differed but little from that of the Byzantine
Roman Emperor. His full official title was Rex Vandalorum et Alanorum.
His mark of distinction and that of his kindred was, as with the
Merwings, long hair falling to the shoulders. While the earlier rulers
dressed in the customary Vandal costume, Gelimer wore the purple
mantle, like the Emperor.
The succession to the throne was legally settled by Gaiseric's so-called
testament. Gaiseric, who himself had obtained the throne through the
choice of the people, ignoring probably the sons of his predecessor
Gunderic, who were still minors, considered himself after he had fully
grasped monarchical power as the new founder of the Vandal kingship,
as the originator of a dynasty. The sovereignty was looked upon as an
CH. XI.
## p. 318 (#348) ############################################
318
The King
inheritance for his family over which no right of disposal belonged to
the people. As however the existence of several heirs threatened the by
no means solidly established kingdom with the risk of subdivision into
several portions, Gaiseric established the principle of individual succession;
moreover he provided that the crown should pass to the eldest of his
male issue at the time being. By this last provision the government of
a minor, unable to bear arms, was made, humanly speaking, impossible.
The Vandal kingdom was the first and for a long time the only State in
which the idea of a permanent rule of succession came to be realised -
and rightly is Gaiseric's family statute reckoned in history among the
most remarkable facts relating to public law. It remained valid until
the end of the kingdom. Gaiseric himself was succeeded by his eldest
son Huneric who was succeeded in turns by two of his nephews
Gunthamund and Thrasamund, and only after the death of the latter
came Huneric's son Hilderic. Gelimer obtained the throne, on the
other hand, in a direct and irregular way, and his endeavours to represent
a
himself to Justinian as a legitimate ruler did not succeed.
The scope of the royal power comprised the national army, the
convening of the assembly, justice, legislation and executive, the appoint-
ments to the praefecture, the supreme control of finance, of police and of
the Church. Of any co-operation in the government by the people-
by the Vandals (not of course by the Romans) such as obtained in
olden times, there is no sign whatever.
The development of absolute government seems to have been com-
pleted in the year 442; according to the brief but significant statements
of our authorities several nobles, who had twice risen against the king
because he had overstepped the limits of his authority, were put to
death with a good many of the people. The origin of the royal power
is traceable to God; the dominant centre of the State is the king and
his court.
In war the king is in chief command over the troops and issues the
summons to the weapon-bearing freemen. The arrangement of the
army was, like that of the nation, by thousands and hundreds. Larger
divisions of troops were placed under commanders appointed especially
by the monarch and generally selected from the royal family. The
Vandals had been even in their settlements in Hungary a nation of
horsemen, and they remained so in Africa. They were chiefly armed
with long spears and swords, and were little suited to long campaigns.
Their principal strength lay in their feet. The ships they commanded
were usually small, lightly built, fast sailing cruisers which did not hold
more than about 40 persons. In the great mobility of the army as well
as of the navy lay the secret of the surprising successes which the
Vandals achieved.
But immediately after Gaiseric's death, a general
military decline began. Enervated by the hot climate and the luxury
into which they had been allured by the produce of a rich country,
## p. 319 (#349) ############################################
The Law
319
they lost their warlike capacity more and more, and thus sank before
the attack of the Byzantines in a manner almost unique in history.
The king is the director of the whole external polity. He sends
forth and receives envoys, concludes alliances, decides war and peace.
On single and peculiarly important questions he may take counsel
beforehand with the chiefs of his following, but the royal will alone is
absolute.
The Vandals were judged according to their national principles of
jurisprudence in the separate hundred districts by the leaders of the
thousands. Sentences for political offences were reserved for the king
as executor of justice in the national assembly. Legal procedure for the
Romans remained the same as before. Judgment was passed on trivial
matters by the town magistrates, on greater by provincial governors
according to Roman law but in the name of the king.
Quarrels between
Vandals and Romans were of course settled only in the Vandal court of
justice according to the law of the victor. That the king often inter-
fered arbitrarily in the regular legal proceedings of the Romans is not
surprising, considering the state of affairs, but a similar arbitrary inter-
ference among the Vandals is a circumstance of political importance :
treason, treachery against the person of the king and his house, apostasy
from the Arian Church come into prominence, so that the life and
freedom of individuals were almost at the mercy of the monarch's
will.
The laws which the Vandal kings enacted were, as far as we know,
for the most part directed against the Romans and the Catholics. In
addition to the numerous edicts concerning religion the regulations
issued against the immorality so widespread in Africa are especially
worthy of remark, but like all regulations of the kind only possessed a
temporary efficiency. On the other hand, the law of royal succession
which we have already alluded to possessed universal validity.
The officials in the service of the Court and State as also those in
the Church are all subject to the royal power; they are nominated by
the monarch or at least confirmed by him, and can be deprived of their
functions by peremptory royal decree. The members belonging to the
household of the king represent different elements, spiritual and lay,
German and Roman, free and unfree together. The highest official in
the Vandal Court was the praepositus regni, whose importance lay entirely
in the sphere of the government of the kingdom; his position corresponded
to that of a prime minister. As holders of this office appear, so far as
is known, only persons of Teutonic nationality. An important post was
also that of head of the Chancery of the Cabinet, who had to draw up
the king's written edicts and was besides frequently entrusted with
different missions of especial political importance. The existence of a
special Arian court clergy is to be inferred from the fact that at the
princely courts house chaplains are mentioned. Besides these there
H. XI.
## p. 320 (#350) ############################################
320
The Officials
lived permanently at the Vandal Court a supernumerary class of men
who without holding any definite office enjoyed the favour of the king
and were employed by him in different ways. A number of them seem
to have borne the title comes as among the Franks, Ostrogoths and
others; from among them were taken, for example, the envoys sent to
foreign nations. Together with the provincial officials, who might be
temporarily present at the Court, and the Arian bishops, the persons of
principal position in the king's circle frequently co-operated in the
decision of important questions of state affairs. As a general designation
for these persons when they belonged to the laity the expression domestici
appears. Admittance into the royal household required an oath of
fealty.
From among the king's circle were drawn the greater part of the
higher officials in the provincial government, especially over the Vandals.
The most important officers of the Vandals were the heads of the
thousands (the chiliarchs, millenarii), on whom devolved the management
of the districts, i. e. the settlements of a thousand heads of families, in
judicial, military, administrative and fiscal respects. Outside the Vandal
allotments the organisation of the Roman system in Africa still remained,
with the exception of the military, and the duties of the separate offices
were discharged by the Romans themselves. The only exceptions were
the islands in the Mediterranean; Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic
Isles were united into one province and placed under a governor of
German nationality who resided in Sardinia and exercised both military
and civil functions.
The ruler has by virtue of his position absolute right over the
revenue of the State; state property and royal private property are
identical. A principal source of revenue is provided by the produce of
royal domains, which in Roman Africa occupy a particularly important
place. To this was added the taxes paid by the provincials, from which
the Vandals themselves were entirely exempt. The burdens, however,
cannot as a rule have been so oppressive as they were under the Roman
rule, for later on, under the government of the Byzantines, the former
more lenient conditions were regretted. Besides the taxes were to be taken
into account the proceeds from the tolls, the right of coinage, fines, dues
from mines and manufactures, and other unusual receipts.
The Arian as well as the Catholic Church is subject to the royal
power; the appointment of bishops is dependent on the consent of the
sovereign, the synods are convoked by the king and can only meet with
his permission. The Asdingian Vandals in their seats in Hungary had
clearly been already converted to Arianism, while the Silingians, Alans,
and Sueves in the first phase of their Spanish career were still adherents
of paganism. After the occupation of Africa the Catholic clergy were
entirely expelled from the country districts in the province of Zeugitana
as well as from Carthage, and the vacant places were given over to the
## p. 321 (#351) ############################################
Religion
321
Arian clergy with the whole of the church property. In the other
parts of the kingdom few or no Arian priests were to be found; only
under Huneric who presented the whole of the Catholic churches to the
Arians (a measure which certainly was never wholly carried out) were
they installed in greater numbers. The bishop residing in Carthage
bore the title of Patriarch and exercised as metropolitan a supreme
power over the whole of the Arian clergy. Since the Arian church-
service was held in the vernacular as among the other Germans, the
clergy were mostly of German nationality.
The position of the Catholic Church was, as has been already remarked,
very varied under the different rulers and very largely dependent on the
state of foreign politics. In Africa, after the tumult of the conquest
had passed over and the endowment of the Arian Established Church
was put into effect, Gaiseric only proceeded against those adherents of
orthodoxy from whom danger to the State was to be feared. The clergy
beyond the Vandal allotment were closely supervised, but they were not
molested if they did not oppose the royal will but confined themselves
to the execution of their pastoral duties. The real persecutions began
first under Huneric and were continued, after an interval of peace, by
Gunthamund and Thrasamund, though in a milder form. Hilderic
gave the Catholic Church its complete freedom again ; his successor
Gelimer, an ardent Arian, was too much occupied with political com-
plications to be able to be active in that sphere. Ecclesiastical conditions
suffered therefore only temporary not permanent disturbance and
sustained no material hurt; rather, the persecutions contributed largely
to temper the inner strength of the African Church.
When the Vandals occupied Africa they were undoubtedly still in
the same primitive stage of civilisation in which they had lived in
their homes in Hungary. Their political position as conquerors, the
settlement in an enclosed district, the sharp religious opposition must
certainly have hindered a rapid acceptance of the Roman influence.
But under Gelimer they quite adopted the luxurious mode of life of
the Romans, i. e. of the rich nobility; they lived in magnificent palaces,
wore fine clothes, visited theatres, gave themselves up to the pleasures
of an excellent table and did homage with great passion to Aphrodite.
Roman literary culture had just made its appearance in the royal
Court and among the nobility. Gaiseric was himself certainly, at least
at first, not skilled in Latin, but one of his grandsons was famous
for having distinguished himself in the acquisition of manifold know-
ledge. The same is said of Thrasamund, and we may assume it of
Hilderic.
Latin was the language of diplomatic intercourse and legislation, as
it was in the other German kingdoms; the Vandal language was quite
supplanted, and only remained in use in popular intercourse and in
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XI.
21
## p. 322 (#352) ############################################
322
Literature and Architecture
the church-service. So in the last years of the Vandal dominion
Roman literature in Africa produced a tiny harvest. The poet Dracontius
is to be remembered in this connexion, and the poets preserved in the
anthology of the Codex Salmasianus, and Bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe.
The art of architecture found in Thrasamund an eager patron; mention
is made of splendid buildings which were raised under this king. There
is certainly no authentic trace extant of any artistic capacity among the
Vandals themselves.
## p. 323 (#353) ############################################
996
323
323
43
CHAPTER XII.
(A)
THE ASIATIC BACKGROUND.
a
The Asiatic background has its basis in the immense zone of steppes
and deserts which stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Khin-gan
Mountains, and is divided into two regions by the Pamir and the Thian
Shan ranges. The western region, like the whole lowland district of
West Asia, even to the extreme north, is a deserted sea-bed; the eastern
(Tarim basin and Gobi) seems formerly to have been covered with great
fresh-water lakes. The water-basins began to evaporate and to shrink to
inland seas, while the intervening country became a desert. The largest
remains of former enormous water-basins are the salt Caspian Sea and
the sweet-water Aral Sea. In both regions all the moisture that falls
evaporates, so that no rivers reach the open sea; most of them ooze away
in the sand, and only the greatest, such as the Syr, Amu, Ili, Chu,
Tarim, flow into large inland seas. The fact that the evaporation is
greater than the fall of moisture, and that the latter takes place chiefly
in the cold season, has important consequences, which account for the
desert nature of the land. All the salt which is released by the
weathering and decomposition of the soil remains in the ground, and
only in the higher regions with greater falls of moisture, and by the
banks of rivers is the soil-sufficiently lixiviated to be fit for cultivation.
Everywhere else is steppe and desert absolutely uncultivable. The surface
of the land can be divided into six categories : sand-deserts, gravel-
deserts, salt-steppes, loam-steppes, loess-land, and rocky_mountains.
Of these the sand-deserts form by far the greatest part. They
consist of fine drift-sand, which the driving storm wind forms into sickle-
shaped shifting dunes (barkhans). The loose drift-sand is waterless, and
for the most part without vegetation ; the barkhans, however, here and
there display a few poor saxaul and other shrubs; human life is impossible.
The gravel-deserts, also very extensive, which form the transition between
the sand-deserts and the steppes, have a sparse vegetation and serve the
nomads as grazing-grounds in their wanderings to and from winter
CH. XII.
21-2
## p. 324 (#354) ############################################
324
Nature of the Soil. Vegetation. Climate
quarters and summer pastures. The adjoining salt-steppes, consisting
of loam and sand, are so impregnated with salt that the latter
settles down on the surface like rime. In spring they bear a scanty
vegetation, which, on account of its saline nature, affords excellent pasture
for numerous flocks of sheep. During the rain of autumn and spring
the loam-steppes, consisting of loess-soil mixed with much sand, are
covered with luxuriant verdure and myriads of wild flowers, especially
tulips, and, on the drier ground, with camel-thorn (Alhagi camelorum),
without which the camel could not exist for any length of time. These
steppes form the real pastures of the nomads. In the loess-land
agriculture and gardening are only possible where the soil has been
sufficiently softened by rainfall and artificial canals, and is constantly
irrigated. It forms the sub-soil of all cultivable oases. Without irri-
gation the soil becomes in summer as hard as concrete, and its vegetation
dies completely. The oases comprise only two per cent. of the total area
of Turkestan. As a rule the rocky mountains are quite bare; they consist
of black gleaming stone cracked by frost and heat, and are waterless.
Roughly speaking these differences of vegetation follow one another
from south to north, viz. the salt-, the sand- and the grass-steppes. A little
below 50° N. latitude the landscape of West Asia changes in consequence
of a greater fall of moisture. The undrained lakes become less frequent,
the rivers reach the sea (Ishim, Tobol, etc. ), and trees appear. Here begins,
as a transition to the compact forest-land, the tree-steppe on the very
fertile “black earth. ” On the Yenisei are park-like districts with splendid
grass plains, and luxuriant trees. Northward come endless pine-forests,
and beyond them, towards the Arctic Sea, is the moss-steppe or
tundra.
The climate is typically continental, with icy cold winters, hot
summers, cold nights, and hot days with enormous fluctuations of
temperature. The warmth increases quickly from winter to spring and
decreases just as quickly from summer to autumn. In West Turkestan,
the summer is almost cloudless and rainless, and at this time the steppes
become deserts. On account of the dryness little snow falls; as a rule it
remains loose and is whirled aloft by the north-east storm wind (buran).
These storm burans are just as terrible as the summer storms of salt-dust
in Trans-Caspia at a temperature of 104° to 113° Fahr. Considering
that in summer the temperature sometimes reaches 118° in the shade,
exceeding body-heat by 20°, and that in winter it sinks below - 31,
and further that the heat, especially in the sand-deserts, reaches a
degree at which the white of egg coagulates, the climate, even if
not deadly, should be very injurious to man; Hindustan, which is
far less hot, enervates the European on account of the greater
moisture, and has changed the Aryan, once so energetic, to the weak
and cowardly Hindu. Nevertheless the contrary is the case.
The
climate of Turkestan is wholesome, and its people are long-lived and
>
>
## p. 325 (#355) ############################################
Use of the Soil.
Mounted Nomadism
325
healthy, and that especially in the hot summer, on account of the un-
paralleled dryness of the air. Once acclimatised, one bears the heat very
well, and likewise the extreme cold of winter. The climate of Central
Asia furthers a rapid bodily and mental development and premature
ageing, as well as corpulence, especially among the Altaians. Obesity
is even regarded as a distinction, and it became so native to the mounted
nomads that it accompanied them to Europe; it is characteristic of all
the nomads who have invaded Europe; and Hippocrates mentions it
expressly as a characteristic of the Scythians. The climate of Turkestan
also influences the character, leading to an apathy which creates indiffer-
ence to the heaviest blows of fate, and even accompanies the condemned
to the scaffold.
The entire West Asiatic region from the salt-steppes to the compact
forest-land forms one economic whole. The well-watered northern part,
which remains green throughout the summer, feeds countless herds in
the warm season, but affords no pasturage in winter owing to the
deep snow. On the other hand, the southern part, which is poor in
water-the grass-, sand-, and salt-steppes—is uninhabitable in summer.
Thus the northern part provides summer pastures, the southern-the
Aral-Caspian basin-winter pastures to one and the same nomad
people.
The nomad then is the son and product of the peculiar and variable
constitution which nevertheless is an indivisible economic whole-of the
Asiatic background. Any agriculture, worthy of the name, is impossible
in the steppes and deserts--the few oases excepted—on account of the
—
dryness of the summer, when animals also find no food. Life on the
steppes and deserts is only possible in connexion either with the
Siberian grass-region or with the mountains. This life is necessarily
extremely hard and restless for man and beast and it creates a condition
of nomadism, which must at the same time be a mounted nomadism,
seeing that a wagon would be an impossibility in the long trackless
wanderings over mountain and valley, river and swamp, and that goods
and chattels, together with the disjoinable dwellings, can only be carried
on the backs of beasts of burden.
Setting aside the Glacial Period and the small Brückner cycle of
35 years or so, the climatic changes of Central Asia, according to
Huntington', fall into cycles of several hundred years' duration within
which the aridity rises and sinks considerably. “All Central Asia
has undergone a series of climatic pulsations during historic times.
There seems to be strong evidence that at the time of Christ or
earlier the climate was much moister and more propitious than it now
is. Then during the first few centuries of the Christian era there
appears to have been an epoch of increasing aridity. It culminated
| Huntington, Pulse, p. 359.
CH. XII.
## p. 326 (#356) ############################################
326
Ruins in the Wastes
about A. D. 500, at which time the climate appears to have been drier
than at present. Next came an epoch of more propitious climate which
reached its acme about A. D. 900. There is a little evidence of a second
epoch of aridity which was especially marked in the twelfth century.
Finally, in the later Middle Ages, a rise in the level of the Caspian Sea and
the condition of certain ruins render it probable that climatic conditions
once again became somewhat favorable, only to give place ere long to
the present aridity? "
But Central Asia has not been, since the beginning of historic
records, in a state of desiccation. The process of “geological” desic-
cation was already ended in prehistoric times, and even the oldest
historic accounts testify to the same climatic conditions as those of
to-day. The earliest Babylonian kings maintained irrigation works, and
Hammurabi (23rd cent. B. c. ) had canals made through the land, one
of which bore his name. Thus, as at present, without artificial irriga-
tion agriculture was not possible there 4200 years ago. Palestine's
climate too has not changed in the least since Biblical times : its present
waste condition is the result of Turkish mismanagement, and Biot has
proved from the cultivated plants grown in the earliest times that the
temperature of China has remained the same for 3300 years. Curtius
Rufus and Arrian give similar accounts of Bactria.
>
Amid the enormous wastes there are countless sand-buried ruins of
populous cities, monasteries and villages and choked-up canals standing
on ground won from the waste by systematic canalisation; where the
system of irrigation was destroyed, the earlier natural state, the desert,
returned. The causes of such destruction are manifold? . 1. Earth-
quake. 2. Violent rain-spouts after which the river does not find its
former bed, and the canals receive no more water from it. 3. On the
highest edge of the steppe, at the foot of the glacier, lie enormous flat
heaps of débris, and here the canalisation begins. If one side of this heap
rises higher than the other, the direction of the current is shifted, and
the oases nurtured by the now forsaken stream become derelict. But the
habitable ground simply migrates with the river. If, for example, a
river altered its course four times in historic times, three series of ruins
remain behind ; but it is erroneous simply to add these ruins together,
and to conclude from them that the whole once formed a flourishing
land which has become waste, when in reality the three series of settle-
ments did not flourish side by side but consecutively. This fallacy
vitiates all accounts which assume a progressive or periodic desiccation
as the chief cause of the abandonment of oases.
4. Continuous drought
in consequence of which the rivers become so waterless that they cannot
1 The view of Huntington (in Explorations in Turkestan, 1904, ed. by Pumpelly,
Washington, 1908, p. 231 note).
2 Cholnoky in Geogr. Zeitschr: xv. pp. 249 ff.
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## p. 327 (#357) ############################################
Irrigation and the Causes of its Destruction
327
Oases,
feed the canals of the lower river-basin, and thus the oases affected must
become parched, and are not always re-settled in more favourable years.
5. Neglect of the extreme care demanded in the administration of the
canal system. If irrigation is extended in the district next the mountain
from which the water comes, just so much water is taken from the lower
But in this case too nothing is lost which cannot be replaced in
another direction : vice versâ if an oasis on the upper course of the
river disappears through losing its canal system, the lower river course thus
becomes well watered and makes possible the formation of a new oasis.
6. The most terrible mischief is the work of enemies. In order to make
the whole oasis liable to tribute they need only seize the main canal; and
the nomads often blindly plundered and destroyed everything. A single
raid was enough to transform hundreds of oases into ashes and desert.
The nomads moreover not only ruined countless cities and villages of
Central Asia, but they also denuded the steppe itself, and promoted
drift-sand by senseless uprooting of trees and bushes for the sake of
firewood. But for them, according to Berg, there would be little drift-
sand in Central Asia, for, in his opinion, all sand-formations must in
time become firm. All the sand-deserts which he observed on the Aral
Sea and in Semiryechensk were originally firm, and even now most of
them are still kept firm by the vegetation.
With the varied dangers of irrigation systems it is impossible to
decide in the case of each group of ruins what causes have produced
them; it is therefore doubtful whether we can place in the foreground
the secular changes of climate. It is not even true that the cultivation
of the oases throve better in the damper and cooler periods than in the
arid and hot ones. Thus the oases of Turfan in Chinese Turkestan,
which is so extremely arid and so unendurably hot in summer, are
exceptionally fertile. We may therefore conclude that the cultivation
of the oases was considerably more extended in the damper and
cooler periods, but considerably less productive than in the arid and
hot ones of to-day. Changes in the volume of water of single rivers
and lakes are clearly apparent within short periods, and these lead
to frequent local migrations of the peasant population and to new
constructions as well as to the abandonment of irrigation canals. Thus
there is here a continual local fluctuation in the settlements, but history
knows nothing of regular migrations of agriculturists.
Still less is an unfavourable climatic change the cause of the nomad
invasions of Europe. The nomad does not remain at all during the
summer in the parched steppe and desert; and in the periods of increasing
aridity and summer heat South Siberia was warmer and the mountain
glaciers retreated, and hence the pastures in both these directions were
extended. The only consequence of this was that the distance between
summer and winter pastures increased and the nomad had to wander
a
CH. XII.
## p. 328 (#358) ############################################
328
Causes of the Nomad Invasions of Europe
further and quicker. The computation is correct in itself, that the
number of animals that can be reared to the square mile depends on
and varies with the annual rainfall"; but the nomad is not hampered
by square miles ; the poorer or richer the growth of grass the shorter
or longer time he remains, and he is accustomed from year to year to
Aluctuations in the abundance of his flocks. Moreover a shifting of the
winter pastures is not impossible, for their autumn and spring vegetation
is not destroyed by a progressive aridity, and if the water current
changes its bed, the nomad simply follows it. Further, the effect of
a secular progressive aridity is spread over so many generations that it is
not catastrophic for any one of them. The nomad invasions of China
and Europe must therefore have had other causes ; and we know some-
thing about the invasions of several nomad hordes-of the Avars, Turks
(Osmans) and Cumans, for example.
