Vandals Sack Rome

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Tweet Report an Error
  • The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

The Vandals were a Germanic tribe who were displaced by the expansion and westward migration of the Huns early in the 5th century. They crossed the Rhine with the Alani and Suebi into Roman territory at Moguntiacum (Mainz) in 406, then raided across Gaul and settled in Andalusian Spain around 409. In 429, led by their king Gaiseric and numbering about 80,000, they migrated across the straits of Gibraltar established their rule over the North African coast in what is now Tunisia and northeastern Algeria. In 430 they besieged the Roman colony at Hippo Regius (near modern Annaba, Algeria), where St Augustine had been bishop from 395, and occasioned his death. Ten years later they captured Carthage. Unusually for a Germanic …

251 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Vandals Sack Rome". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 November 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1620, accessed 23 November 2024.]

1620 Vandals Sack Rome 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.