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Biography of Gaiseric
Name: Gaiseric
Birth Date: N/A
Death Date: 477
Place of Birth: N/A
Nationality: German
Gender: Male
Occupations: tribal leader, king
Gaiseric
Gaiseric (died 477) was the ruler of the Germanic tribe of the Vandals who established a kingdom in North Africa and in 455 sacked Rome.The Vandals were one of several tribes pushed into the Roman Empire by the attacks of the Huns. When Gaiseric, the son of King Godegiselus and a slave, succeeded his half brother Gunderic in 428, the Vandals were settled in southern Spain. However, the struggle for power among rivals in the Roman government, as in many other cases, provided new opportunities for the barbarians. The Roman governor of North Africa, Boniface, was under attack by forces of Emperor Valentinian III, and as Boniface's defeat seemed imminent, he was accused, perhaps unjustly, of calling in the Vandals in 429 to counter the Romans.Gaiseric proved to be one of the most formidable of the barbarian leaders, skillful in both war and diplomacy. A contemporary account describes him of medium height, …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…of Valentinian III, who had been captured in Rome.Meanwhile the rulers of the Eastern Empire were determined to recover North Africa. In 460 Emperor Majorian failed to conquer Gaiseric and was forced into a new treaty in 462. In 468 a massive new expedition was launched. Poorly led and outmaneuvered militarily and diplomatically, it was disastrously defeated. Gaiseric concluded peace with the East Romans in 468 and with the West Romans in 471. With these treaties he secured the Vandalic kingdom. After his death in 477 the kingdom was continued under his descendants until it was conquered by Belisarius in 533-534. Further Reading Some of the ancient sources on Gaiseric are translated in C. D. Gordon, The Age of Attila: Fifth-Century Byzantium and the Barbarians (1960). A good English account is J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, A.D. 395 to A.D. 565 (2 vols., 1923).
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