GEISERIC, KING OF THE VANDALS

Reigned 428–477. Geiseric (also Genseric or Gaiseric) became king over the Vandals, Alans and a polyglot group of barbarians in Spain in 428. He was the illegitimate son of King Godagisel, born of a slave woman in 389. Of short stature, Geiseric walked with a limp as a result of a fall from a horse. The circumstances of his accession to the kingship are unknown, as is the cause of death of Geiseric's half–brother Guntharic, who preceded him as king.

In May 429 Geiseric led the most bold and successful expedition of any barbarian leader of his time. Having acquired a fleet, he effected the large–scale migration of 80,000 men, women and children across the strait of Gibraltar. With a fighting force estimated at a maximum of only 16,000 men, he proceeded to break the Roman Empire's hold over all of North Africa and install himself as king in Carthage within ten years. Styling himself rex Vandalorum et Alanorum (the King of the Vandals and Alans), he instituted a new calendar that began with the seizure of Carthage and minted coins in honor of his reign.

In politics and war, Geiseric was thoroughly Machiavellian. He avoided major conflicts with Roman forces but exploited Roman weakness wherever it was evident. On Oct. 19, 439, Geiseric entered Carthage, left undefended by virtue of a 435 treaty with the Western emperor Valentinian III. Valentinian recognized the fait accompli in a second treaty signed in 442. That same year Geiseric bloodily suppressed a revolt of his soldiers and nobles. From Carthage Geiseric ruled a large part of North Africa and many Mediterranean islands. He enjoyed tranquil relations with the indigenous African tribes, even enlisting their aid in military expeditions. His fleets engaged in piracy and raids along the coastlands of the Roman Empire; Italy and the Balkan peninsula were particularly afflicted. In June 455 Geiseric seized the opportunity afforded by the murder of Valentinian III to pillage Rome. He carried off the treasures of Rome (including the vessels that had been captured from the Temple in Jerusalem in a.d. 70) and many Romans, among them Valentinian's widow and daughter Eudoxia, whom he married to his son Huniric. In 468 Geiseric destroyed a large fleet sent by Emperor Leo I. Under the pretext of taking several days to consider peace, he awaited the proper wind and attacked by night, hurling burning ships into the anchored imperial fleet. In 474 Geiseric signed a treaty of perpetual peace with Leo's successor Zeno.

Geiseric attempted to completely replace the Catholic Church in Africa with the Arian creed and ecclesiastical structure. He employed bribery, forced re–baptism, torture, death and exile on Catholics—especially the bishops—but was met by the fortitude of Catholic Trinitarian faith. Because of his political success, cruelty, and persecution of the Catholic faith, some contemporaries saw Geiseric as Antichrist. Hydatius relates a rumor that Geiseric was an apostate who left Catholicism for Arianism. He died of natural causes on Jan. 24, 477.

Bibliography: c. courtois, Les Vandales et l'Afrique (Paris 1955). h.–j. diesner, Das Vandalenreich, Aufstieg und Untergang (Stuttgart 1966). e. f. gautier, Genséric, roi des Vandales (Paris 1951). h. gourdin, Genséric: soleil barbare (Paris 1999). f. martroye, Genséric: la conquête vandale en Afrique et la destruction de l'empire d'Occident (Paris 1907). l. schmidt, Geschichte der Wandalen (1942, repr. Munich 1970).

[d. van slyke]