Vandal (Civ3)/Civilopedia

The origins of the Vandals are unknown, with speculation of their original homeland running anywhere from Poland to Denmark to Sweden. What is known is that Tacitus placed a tribe called the "Vandilii" in Silesia (modern southwest Poland) when writing in 98AD. During the second century they moved south into the Danube region and clashed with the Romans for the first time, eventually settling in Dacia (modern Romania) and Pannonia (roughly coterminus with Hungary). The Vandals inhabited this area for almost 200 hundred years, during the course of which they were converted to the Arian form of Christianity. Since Arianism was considered heretical by the Catholics who made up most of the Roman Empire, it would later be a source of considerable conflict.
The invasion of the Huns prompted the Vandals to migrate to the west beginning in 400, as part of the vast "domino effect" of Germanic tribes triggered by the fierce newcomers. They traveled up the Danube without issue, but were denied entry into Gaul by the Franks, who were allied with the Romans. The Vandals defeated the Franks in battle with the help of the Alans, another Germanic tribe, and proceeded to cross the frozen Rhine into Gaul on December 31, 406.
For the next few years they devastated Gaul, leading an 18th century Frenchman to coin the word "vandal" as one who wantonly destroys property. The Vandals crossed over the Pyrenees in 409 and settled in southern Spain in 411. The Romans attempted to defeat them but without success, leading the Emperor Honorius to officially recognize their control of the region as federated Roman allies. In reality, however, the Vandals had created an independent kingdom in all but name in southern Spain, a region which still bears their name to this day in the province of (V)Andalusia.
Unwilling to leave the Vandals in possession of Spain, the Romans recruited the Visigoths to drive them out around 420. In the face of Visigothic pressure from the north, the Vandal king Gaiseric decided to lead his people across the Mediterranean to Northern Africa, which was all but undefended at the time. After crossing over to Tangier in 429, the Vandals were in almost complete control of Roman Africa within two years. A temporary peace with Rome was reached in 435, but this was soon broken by Gaiseric who completed his conquest by capturing the city of Carthage in 439. The Vandals were recognized as an independent state in 442 by Emperor Valentinian III,and Gaiseric used the following decades to build up the Kingdom of the Vandals into a powerful maritime state. His ships led raids throughout the Mediterranean and conquered the islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia. The murder of the Roman Emperor in 455 gave Gaiseric an excuse to attack Rome; the great city was plundered for two weeks and, humiliatingly, the wife and daughters of the deceased emperor were carried off as prisoners to Africa. The Eastern Roman Empire attempted to destroy the Vandals as well, but Gaiseric defeated a massive fleet sent against him in 468 and the Emperor Zeno was forced to make peace in 476.
The long-lived Gaiseric finally passed away at the height of his power in 477, setting off a period of rapid decline for the Vandals. A series of weak and ineffective kings wasted away the considerable naval power that had been built up, while the harsh persecution of Catholics by the Arian Vandals ensured complete lack of support from the native population. When the Emperor Justinian sent the famous general Belisarius against the Vandals in 533, they were rapidly defeated. Unlike many of the other Germanic tribes, the Vandals utterly ceased to exist once they were conquered, leaving nothing behind to history aside from their name.