Eharding on the fall of the Roman Empire, Part XI/XII: rise of the Sueves, rise of Attila
eharding.substack.com
Seeing the Romans concentrated on the Gallic front, troubled by the Hispanic front, and unconcerned with the African front, Gaiseric decided to seize Tunisia with the same intent of the Caliph Umar deciding to seize Egypt two centuries later. On October 19, 439, some one thousand years prior to the invention of the printing press, he reached Carthage and took the city by trickery. The second largest city of the Western Mediterranean was now in Germanic hands. It was the first of the Empire’s five great cities to fall into the hands of foreigners with the foreigners having an intent to hold it. The Roman church in the now Vandal-controlled city was largely extinguished and the city thoroughly looted and partly destroyed (Cambridge Ancient History 14, p. 556). The Vandal kingdom of Carthage which Gaiseric had desired for over a decade was a reality. The disproportionately absentee landowners of the Senatorial province of Africa Proconsularis (northern Tunisia) were expropriated, while those in the other provinces were left alone.
Eharding on the fall of the Roman Empire, Part XI/XII: rise of the Sueves, rise of Attila
Eharding on the fall of the Roman Empire…
Eharding on the fall of the Roman Empire, Part XI/XII: rise of the Sueves, rise of Attila
Seeing the Romans concentrated on the Gallic front, troubled by the Hispanic front, and unconcerned with the African front, Gaiseric decided to seize Tunisia with the same intent of the Caliph Umar deciding to seize Egypt two centuries later. On October 19, 439, some one thousand years prior to the invention of the printing press, he reached Carthage and took the city by trickery. The second largest city of the Western Mediterranean was now in Germanic hands. It was the first of the Empire’s five great cities to fall into the hands of foreigners with the foreigners having an intent to hold it. The Roman church in the now Vandal-controlled city was largely extinguished and the city thoroughly looted and partly destroyed (Cambridge Ancient History 14, p. 556). The Vandal kingdom of Carthage which Gaiseric had desired for over a decade was a reality. The disproportionately absentee landowners of the Senatorial province of Africa Proconsularis (northern Tunisia) were expropriated, while those in the other provinces were left alone.