The Vandals

The Vandals is the first book available in the English Language dedicated to exploring the sudden rise and dramatic fall of this complex North African Kingdom. Today, the Vandals are remembered primarily as a metaphor for violent and uncultured destruction, but as the Roman Empire came to an end, the Vandals began to exert considerable influence, occupying Carthage and establishing one of the richest kingdoms of the early medieval world. This complete history provides a full account of the Vandals and re–evaluates key aspects of the society including political and economic structures; the complex foreign policy which combined diplomatic alliances and marriages with brutal raiding; the extraordinary cultural development of secular learning; the religious struggles that threatened to tear the state apart; and the nature of Vandal identity, examined from a social and gender perspective. Drawing upon new archaeological findings, as well as textual evidence, the authors present a provocative reinterpretation of this long–forgotten chapter of late antiquity.

List of Illustrations viii Preface ix List of Abbreviations xii 1 The Vandals in History 1 2 From the Danube to Africa 27 3 Ruling the Vandal Kingdom ad 435–534 56 4 Identity and Ethnicity in the Vandal Kingdom 83 5 The Vandal Kingdom and the Wider World, ad 439–534 109 6 The Economy of Vandal Africa 141 7 Religion and the Vandal Kingdom 177 8 Cultural Life Under the Vandals 204 9 Justinian and the End of the Vandal Kingdom 228 Notes 256 Pre–1800 Sources 306 Works Post 1800 313 Index 341

Andy Merrills is an RCUK Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester. His work has focused largely upon the history of late Antique North Africa and upon geographical thought within the classical and medieval worlds. He is author of History and Geography in Late Antiquity (2005) and editor of Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa (2004). Richard Miles is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney.  His research has centred primarily upon the history and archaeology of Punic, Roman and late Antique North Africa.  He is author of African Hercules: The Rise and Fall of Carthage (2009), and editor of Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity (1999).

“…Andy Merrills and Richard Miles have done us a great service with this clear, erudite, and engaging study.”  ( Melbourne Historical Journal, 1 December 2012)