The fall of the Vandal Kingdom and Justinian I's Reconquest of North Africa: an overview

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. Today we talk about the Vandals. It's one of those videos that tackles some broader topics including international relations, warfare, and the general role of those people in the Mediterranean. I have just a bunch of videos on the Vandals. That's why in part this was actually extracted by the lottery, but we're going to make others.

[00:00:23]I think the Vandals are the first people I started the Germanic uh peoples series. Personally, you know that they have a separated Germanic peoples or some migration era, you know, that there's a broader playlist as well for that.

[00:00:38]Um peoples series that does not include the wall of these very peoples history and warfare, but the fundamentally focuses on the history of the individual group uh throughout throughout history as a at a pretty lengthy uh level.

[00:00:56]I am in tension not just to continue that series. We just left out only say minor Germanic groups as a matter of fact for the later antique for early um middle ages, the migration era. However, there is of course classical antiquity to cover and I would like to apply the military historical series now to in fact more ancient uh migration era um history including commanders like we really have to talk about Geiseric as one of the greatest leaders of that of that era as a matter of fact.

[00:01:35]But I really have to extend this for the entirety of antiquity, the Mediterranean, Byzantine Empire, the Islamic invasions, and so on. So, every once in a while we engage instead in these kind of broader overviews that really made our point a bit more known around. Lots of people, if you look at that, for example, interview with various SN characters are somehow convinced that I am a migration era-based channel. I had I wrote hundreds of pages about the migration era in my university career, but I eventually moved to, as you know, the later Middle Ages.

[00:02:14]Yet, I it is true I maintained a a close uh familiarity sort of uh and in the sense also continuity with the previous work through Swertha board. The point being that the algorithm apparently favors or the audience and this always difficult to see. I know that YouTube actually pays you pay pays you more ads speaking if you make migration era videos, right?

[00:02:43]A a Germanic history video will pay you more than than other content, which makes me suspect that in fact these videos are pushed a bit too much. As you know, I was actually one of the very few people actually I think the only person who had started talking um early Germanic history on YouTube when I began back in 2018, which tells you also how few was actually covered about them.

[00:03:07]These overviews were always popular because in general they come from an informed background more than else, also a perspective that we continuously widen as we don't say, "Okay, now we have to make the video about the Vandals and it stops there." No.

[00:03:25]As you know, we own a diachronic and comparative view. So, for us in this case, in this video in particular, we're not overly concerned with the event eventual side of the story or the past of the Vandals per se that we have already expanded in other videos specifically dedicated to that, but the general meaning of their existence, of their deeds um as a pretty successful polity up to at least the the Byzantine reconquest of the central Mediterranean and western Mediterranean.

[00:03:53]So, the ultimate collapse of the Vandal Kingdom that occurred in 533.

[00:03:59]I also made a video about the Battle of Tricamarum, as a matter of fact. So, yes, we have some videos already on the Vandals. Now that I think about it, I should create a playlist about them now.

[00:04:10]This would This would be the sixth video.

[00:04:13]And And this opens the quite interesting chapter of Byzantine rule to the southern shores of the Iberian Peninsula as well, not just North Africa, but uh continuing west along its uh its coast. As you know, the control of parts of Andalusia, of southeastern Spain, that were among in fact the most florid and that the the the Visigothic so-called Visigothic Kingdom of Spain had fundamentally not been able to fully subdue, even though of course there was a lot of I mean infiltration there as well. I am planning actually to make a video about Thervingian warfare, which is not in fact probably what we call Visigothic later on. We will pass to that uh as well to probably as as a sequel so of that video.

[00:05:01]>> [snorts] >> And And so, this as you know is a big deal for a number of reasons. The Vandals had been threatening the the Italian Peninsula mostly its supply lines. Uh they had important piratic bases uh in Sicily, especially in the west, even after the Ostrogoths had reclaimed the the island right westernmost part of it like at the time of the of the First Punic War was was controlled from from Tunisia. Um Sardinia as well. The Balearic Islands that I I'm probably going to cover soon as well for the historical regional series. So, you are now seeing how many um theaters and political implications the existence of the Vandalic Kingdom really had.

[00:05:44]With its maritime location, it was somehow unavoidable considering that obviously the North African hinterland is not particularly resourceful to say the least. Um the demographic resources of the Vandals brought, especially as a people in arms, to Tunisia that is essentially, aside from Egypt, the most fertile and most in this sense um also advanced at the time part of of North Africa that was heavily romanized. Let me stress that are not, however, enough to compensate for the lack of a proper hinterland, one that especially could be controlled and wrestled from the semi-nomadic Berber populations that would in fact continuously harass the Vandals, the uh the Byzantines, and actually the same Muslims uh later on even as they converted to to Islam, right? There was always some sort of more civilized um polity on on the coast. I made some videos about this medieval uh Islamic North African kingdoms. As a matter of fact, and in fact, there is also even a debate that I don't find overwhelmingly productive, especially surrounding Africa in particular. Some people say that the Byzantines should have actually not reconquered it because they eventually spent a great deal uh in in garrison in defenses and fortifications to safeguard it from this incursions of the hinterland. Doesn't make much sense.

[00:07:10]Like the fact also that there were usurpers, including Heraclius, that emerged from there to eventually seize um power in Constantinople, etc. It's not really something you can't say just because it is something happened a century later, you know, you have to expect somebody um at that point to to to have uh known better. Like I've heard these kind of claims in for the for the Justinian end reconquest entirely. And in my opinion, they're completely diluted, right? The entire notion of the they knew that the system would be exhausted or that the pandemic would come. It doesn't make any sense. They did good, right? Also, because they actually succeeded in ways that can't be really questioned against all these various Romano-Germanic peoples.

[00:07:56]It is true that that was wasn't enough to consolidate this power, but hey, the Byzantines also controlled a substantial part of the Italian mainland for for centuries after this. They maintained some broader connection in fact with the central Mediterranean.

[00:08:12]They they had a capacity also in fact of North African control importantly even in fact before the the Islamic conquest.

[00:08:18]So, um and and even in fact the loss of some Levantine provinces. There's a very interesting history of this.

[00:08:26]People tend, I think, to um ignore the Roman continuity in places like, I don't know, Provence, uh Morocco, Wales, et cetera.

[00:08:37]As far as properly the local communities embracing a Roman Imperial identity that was fundamentally based on the most obvious realization that the Roman Empire was still the center of the world and not just merely the what we call the Byzantine Empire in strictly territorial terms, but as these provinces just show, and always considering that as far as the Westerners were concerned, the center of the world was Rome, Rome, Italy, not Constantinople, and this should be very clear in my mind. Like only to the French of they say the uh the Norse during the Viking era, Constantinople was not even necessarily the center of the world, but the most important thing they could achieve because the West had actually achieved much more than that already. Uh and they were altogether in fact the big the the big defeated in the following centuries at least in that kind of mourning uh um lifestyle, so to say, from the Viking side and especially the Byzantine civilization in front of the Latin-Germanic world as a whole, including in fact a civilized Scandinavian one.

[00:09:44]It's civilized by a Franco-Roman civilization in fact.

[00:09:48]Um and so there are some interesting considerations one could make about the Vandals themselves. Today, again, it's really uh not about dissecting everything that we may know from for example how much power did the Vandals claim to be delegated by the same uh Roman Empire at this point in their control of Africa, right? The Vandals, as you know also in colloquial terms, are remembered a bit like the pests of all the various Romano-Germanic kingdoms. And and the actual reason why this is the case is not much just because they sacked Rome at some point.

[00:10:25]The the Visigoths did not really have the same name. Uh at a point surely the Vandal sack was was was worse, right?

[00:10:32]The the Visigothic one was a fairly tidy one, to tell you the truth. But because of their in fact persistence in the fundamentally uh antithetic position they took, especially considering the um the stability of the Italian supply chains that, as you know, got most of their uh grain uh import to to the quite much more populous in fact Italian peninsula from from Africa as well. The fact that they never fully uh converted to Catholicism, even though among the Vandals there was this sort of as it happened also among the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, this deep debate that actually crippled them and undermined part of their political cohesion regarding what what kind of relation should we have with the locals, especially the church, and therefore also the empire.

[00:11:24]If you see it in more pragmatic terms, you realize that the Vandals were probably not among the most powerful of the of the Roman-Germanic kingdoms.

[00:11:35]Actually, they had by definition like sort sort of uh less of a of an interland and and resources in general. They mostly exploited the straits, the one with Sicily, the one say the general novel projection of their piracy fundamentally to make a great leverage in terms of in fact like supply chains control etc. But they they never had the kind of potential and uh and core and and landmass that I don't know the Visigoths could have or the Ostrogoths or the Franks etc. And so when you look at it from from that um perspective and you also realize how fundamentally the Vandals rejected alliance with Gothic Italy and Spain interestingly enough while however not siding with the Franks and and the Byzantines by the time of Justinian, that tells you that there were some sort of third front that was somehow just surviving uh among much bigger powers at Gothic hegemony in the central western Mediterranean was was utterly insane, right? Theodoric from Ravenna controlled up to the Danube uh in the north um up to uh Belgrade uh in this if you look at Singidunum uh in it so it for not talking about the vassalage that the fact that the Visigoths found themselves in in relation to to the Italian ruler. But this is um in fact a perspective that also other powers tend to have and that was obviously mirrored also by fundamental weakness of the Vandals. In uh at least once a substantial Byzantine force could land. Let's always remember that if a western empire dissolved administratively speaking, nominally, formally, was due to Geiseric. All All Geiseric was really at that point not just um the the greatest ruler of the the Vandals, but at that point really such an incredibly tough and um authoritative individual that his resolution to withstand the Byzant- the the Byzantine renewed thalassocracy and destroying the fleet at the Battle of Cape Bon and in fact also preventing at Carthage and the full subjection of the Visigoths at the hands of of Majorian uh whose expedition failed um that had almost succeeded basically reconquering Spain from Italy. And at that point showing that basically the the manpower of Italy was done for at least a some reconquest of the West from the Apennine Peninsula is one of the single biggest turning point in history. Hadn't Geiseric existed, had there been another I don't know the current ruler of the Visigoths in in comparison, um the the Vandals would have given up, right? Just like the Visigoths, they would have said, "Okay, well, we surrender. Just, you know, deport us.

[00:14:29]We'll keep fighting for the empire in some uh distant eastern province uh etc. This is something that other Germans did uh as well. I've made lots of videos to to explain this, frankly. Uh even if you see some kind of more archaic early Germanic picture here, we were not talking much about the origins of of the Vandals per se.

[00:14:50]They also have a relatively obscure history even though there is um rich um reference to to them and their sort of ancestral archetype in Norse mythology, Viniler and Vandil. They were essentially the twin the evil twin brothers of of the Lombards. You know, you you couldn't say which one was worse. The but the Lombards at least ended up being more successful than the Vandals and in fact going towards the path of of radical civilization that to this day it it's absolutely shocking to learn that the average layman completely ignores uh in favor of this kind of barbarism, uh barbaric interpretation of the migration era.

[00:15:29]And the case of the Vandals actually shows you where that actually led.

[00:15:35]Now, when you look at this ultimate collapse of the Vandals, you also realize that it was a culmination of a century-long international struggle that deeply influenced Emperor Justinian from the moment he ascended the throne in 527.

[00:15:49]As the ambitious Uh the fact that at that point you can't say Byzantine I'm not going to digress every time on the Romans, the Byzantine, whatever.

[00:15:58]I also refuse myself in this sense to call him Eastern Roman ruler because the fact that a whole Roman rule existed as the western half had been administratively dissolved. It's not like the the had ever been an Eastern or Western Empire. It's a deep misunderstanding.

[00:16:14]Paradoxically, it's it's um it's more correct to claim like Western Eastern Empire by the time of the Holy Roman Empire the Byzantine what? Because they were effectively at that point not technically recognizing each other at least as Roman Empires.

[00:16:30]Uh at least the you know, especially the Byzantines didn't recognize the Western as such. That's another story. All right, we're far away from from this. As we were hinting at before, when you look at Justinian's reconquest of the West, um this was much of a of an obvious restoration of of the glory of of a unified empire.

[00:16:54]From military conquest reconquest in particular, cuz that was the idea. These lands were still Roman, right? And therefore, the Vandals, yes, were a problem, not actually as much as the the Gothic one or even the emerging Frankish one because a not called to reason for the Byzantine reconquest of the West was actually the quite disturbing Atlantic expansion of the Franks as a matter of fact. And so these were all major issues to tackle. Obviously, we don't know too much in spite of and the thanks to the work of Procopius that informs us about sort of the the the details, probably all the process of reconquest. We'll come back on the Justinian army, which is a really topic on on its own, the Justinian era, right, including also the one of the successors of his house on the the Byzantine imperial throne is truly another time in in of itself, the the peak proper of what we call Byzantine civilization, telling the truth in in relative terms, and for different reasons that here I'm not going to digress on because we're talking mostly about the Vandals, right? But this is for saying that even how important these are minor Germanic kingdoms were, the reconquest of their of their subjects, of their territories, was something of a little beyond, was much more important than any earthly instantiation. It was obviously about the restoration of the the absolute heavenly double of of of of the globe in the in the soul, right, in the divinizing soul of a victorious Roman emperor, right? The greater problem actually for Justinian was Rome um before any other strategic consideration. Like the first and most obvious thing is to recover Rome. It doesn't matter that the Ostrogoths had been sent there on behalf of the same Byzantines that and and which and the problems that actually occurred in the actual reconquest of Italy. That actually was quite easily achieved initially and then seemingly because of Belisarius's removal from command reignited. So, armies made back and forth across the peninsula couple of times but as you know massive damage it truly destructured late antique Italy as we understand it uh even though this could have been a bit overstated in in the Italian peninsula. Right, whereas instead it would remain especially as far as the latifundium system was concerned in in Spain in in Gaul.

[00:19:46]Right?

[00:19:49]So, it's a huge deal obviously in after this reconquest formed the opening phase of Justinian's so-called renovatio imperii Romanorum.

[00:19:58]His grand program to reclaim western territories lost during the Germanic migrations.

[00:20:04]Think about this. At some point these peoples enter the Roman uh ecumene so to say.

[00:20:12]And they simply settle on lands that not just belong to the empire but are overwhelmingly populated by Catholic Romans. And we'll know what Catholic actually means. And frankly that's actually the meme of the channel in many ways.

[00:20:28]And so the way in fact we we tend to see um today in a modern secular perspective like the the idea of the formation of these Roman-Germanic kingdoms probably in in the mindset of of the same rulers uh and the same subjects what was actually not such a thing like here I I don't know like a a Victorian map where you have you know this polity that is colored in this way and this color and that are obviously they didn't even technically have the same um means of representation. But they didn't care about that because indeed they had a much more plastic and multi-dimensional sense of how the empire manifests and how you can seize, right? Yeah.

[00:21:08]And control certain communities, certain lands, right? And this was true for the Germans themselves that therefore, and especially in this context, did see themselves in a way or another, if not directly delegated by the Roman Empire, it was actually sort of the the norm here to control those territories on behalf of of Rome.

[00:21:31]Um they they were however perfectly aware and this, as we just explained, was the more the case of of the Vandals to be within a Roman Empire and that they were always, by the way, also a step away from being uh reconquered at some point. And again, as we explained there with the Battle of Cape Bon and Geiseric, the Vandals had already sort of tasted that bitter um threat, right? Even in their success while defending that off.

[00:22:03]>> [snorts] >> As you know, there is an Eastern truce with the Sasanian Empire under Khosrow I that allowed Justinian to redirect substantial military funding and veteran troops westward without fear of immediate two-front warfare. It was a strategic breathing space that eluded previous emperors facing simultaneous threats.

[00:22:25]Uh regarding the previous wars, I'm going to start a series explaining We actually already started it from the 3rd century, like all the Romano-Persian Wars.

[00:22:35]All right. Uh we arrived till Diocletian fundamentally, so we have to go on, but uh they're incredibly important and they give you a proper sense of multi um century fought between two potentially ecumenic powers, although Rome was was actually the the universal one and the one around which the entire system pivoted. But indeed, the fact that the West presented such a Germanic uh government that had installed themselves in that even government because telling the truth that these lands were kept being ruled by the Romans.

[00:23:09]Right, it wasn't a simple obliteration of the local nobility.

[00:23:13]Uh and indeed that the Vandals were not so cooperative with the Romans like the Ostrogoths for example, but it was always a syncresis of this and again they ruled on also more modest scale basis that did not probably even entail such an enormous continuity with say I don't know the local uh establishment infrastructures. So this was completely different from a country like Italy for example. It was also much more deeply connected with uh the the the Byzantine Empire, right? Even under the Ostrogoths. And this is also part of the reason why the Roman senators were still ruling the peninsula together with Theodoric called eventually the the Byzantines, right? This was a bad move telling the truth. But the if you look at all these realms, you realize that whoever stuck to the Arianism uh Catholic clash not even just to the to Arianism per se that was never fully universally um accepted. That is the interesting thing. They they kind of collapsed in the end, right? Uh and so and this is true differently for and especially for these more also potentially gifted countries especially the the Gothic ones. All right. Uh >> [snorts] >> compared to to to the Franks or even the Lombards. It The Lombards stuck to Arianism up to sort of mid-7th century, but there was nothing really ferocious about the divides between the nobles regarding the problem. That was the actual issue of these other countries. If you had that um schism so to say inside your own nobility and on top of this you had a Roman society that was awaiting just to be reunited to a whole empire right under direct rule of the same. Well, that's where the problem really led. The Lombards were Aryan and they were obviously in in a country of a vast majority of Catholics. There was no way that they could simply push Aryan but they wouldn't do it as well because there was no other point of of that but being a simple um sort of internal fractional struggle.

[00:25:26]It's at some point how that the the Guelph-Ghibelline faction is very different thing but still derails towards some sort of very more blurred thing simply because at that point the latifundium system and the senatorial threat did not quite exist anymore.

[00:25:40]And in fact that the kingdom goes on civilly without persecutions, without the without internal instability in particular because also persecutions also in Africa weren't weren't aren't really shown like the the bad name again that the Vandals get mostly is after Babel historiography that was very sophisticated, advanced, intelligent uh in its propaganda.

[00:26:03]But that in fact only moderns understand and simply okay like so there was something inherently wrong about the Vandals that even the Vandals were simply hated more than other peoples at the time. Like this was not entirely true.

[00:26:17]Uh or just by scale we are all these tangents arising properly comparable. There was nothing about the Vandals that that made them more barbaric or more um religiously intolerant. We don't have archaeological evidence of any major destruction of or persecu- also historiographically persecution right of the church in Africa I mean under the the Aryan rule of the Vandals.

[00:26:43]But the divides between the ability was the the actual issue. Today we're not even talking about that. I'm sorry that I digress every once in a while.

[00:26:52]But just know that there is a history of this. We don't know too much, but a few that we know is quite interesting.

[00:26:59]And so, we are in this point where where in which the chaotic Germanic migrations in the west had finally settled into a relatively fixed map of regional powers where the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons had expanded into Britain.

[00:27:11]That was properly another world that I don't know if nobody was really caring more than much also because as you know, the Britons had been left on their own uh by the Romans quite early on. Um the Franks and Burgundians as we were saying before, these were actually more relevant for for for the west and and the same Byzantine Empire dominated in fact almost all of Gaul.

[00:27:32]And the Visigoths and Suebi occupied the Iberian Peninsula.

[00:27:36]Right long before the Vandals established their own secure territorial power in Latin Africa, the Roman province of Africa centered on its prosperous agricultural heartlands, they did again in the core of the the Tunisian hinterland extension to the the modern country today roughly, were actually quite advanced. Uh Africa together with Andalusia, with Provence, um and outside of Italy was one of the most overly traumatically Romanized, advanced, and civilized countries in the world. All right? And and there's something uh really interesting in this cuz indeed Roman conquest, colonization, etc. had managed to expand. If you think about the Carthaginians prior and the sort of rougher Liby-Phoenician peoples that they rule on. That there was something about in fact Phoenician colonization that was very uh very scarcely demographic. Right? The Greeks, the Romans properly conquered with peoples. They settled large amounts of people in there. And the Romans managed to grandly expand the the African hinterland itself. Admittedly, yes, the Punics had their own latifundias also. That's why the reason they had very good cavalry, but so is no comparison with Romanization, especially the the the inclusion of of Africa in the in the broader empire that Rome really was.

[00:28:58]It's something staggeringly unspeakable to to begin with.

[00:29:03]Um and so, the we we tend naturally we know what were the fate historical fates of North Africa, so we tend not to consider much this this province retrospectively.

[00:29:15]Uh there is no doubt again that the problem was mostly fact that there were actually less resources, but in in in the broader hinterland, but in Africa proper Roman Africa proper, so roughly today's Tunisia again, they were fundamentally concentrated.

[00:29:30]That's how they they had managed to supply grain to Italy. At some point that came also from Egypt, but I also made a video about how this was mostly the prerogative of Constantinople.

[00:29:43]That had naturally sort of started sucking many resources. There were also some state-sponsored grain expeditions periodical um fleet literally that with this massive amount of cargoes moved from Egypt to to to the Bosphorus in a time where piracy had resumed. In fact, much to the word, there was also the Germanic pirates around.

[00:30:08]But also for for this reason, infrastructurally, Africa had historically developed a uniquely maritime strength while still moving and that think about the Carthaginian one back in the day.

[00:30:20]Again, during the Roman Empire, yes, of course, Africa had not become much like the the base of a major naval power, etc. The main, as you know, bases had historically been in in the early empire Misenum, Ravenna, that at this point the latter of which was also probably the capital of of of the west part uh of the empire.

[00:30:39]>> [snorts] >> And later also, in fact, the the base of the Exarchate of Italy after Justinian's reconquest.

[00:30:45]Um those were the big uh ports, right?

[00:30:48]The the big military um is installations. But however, at this point, right, during late antiquity, there had been a process of disgregation and provincialization. I mean, the fact that the Vandals themselves seized power in Africa obviously had brought to a re- um sort of reorientation of local resources as we explained towards in fact renewed maritime um push, right? Nothing overwhelming. It's basically piracy, right? The Vandals, yes, they have their own fleet, but it's naturally something much clumsier than as also the reconquest have proved than than a Byzantine one.

[00:31:26]Resources are strained, etc. So, it's mostly about war banding airing uh knights, so to say, uh across the major rain, and with this Germanic adventurism typical of the migration here than than else.

[00:31:39]Right? The Vandals were an East Germanic people. We rank them as such. So, they were actually a Slavic-Germanic people with some Celtic um background as well. They they had brought the Alans together with them.

[00:31:51]So, they were actually a pretty um interestingly mixed bunch. They had beaten a bit of peoples all around the Burgundians. They had plundered Gaul, Spain, etc. Finally settled in Africa.

[00:32:02]They didn't set They preserved as in fact you don't destroy the places that you're eventually going to base yourself uh on.

[00:32:11]This background is obviously quite interesting. It does affect uh probably also the unity of the Vandal people as such, who were somehow composite. While still moving through the Iberian Peninsula after advancing from the Rhine and crossing the Pyrenees, they partnered with the Alans.

[00:32:25]Um in ways they historically had never been quite overwhelmingly successful like the Alans.

[00:32:30]I made a video about them, especially as far as Gaul is concerned, and they they ended up side The Alans ended up saying with the Romans against the Germans.

[00:32:39]Interestingly enough, and they in fact the the Romans counted much more on the Alans because they were a minority and they could sort of however a pretty qualitative one as you know from a military standpoint. Their knightly ethos was particularly influential in fact of the development also of Germanic cavalry and the migration here are one informing in fact later um equestrian traditions in the west right think about this word in the go and there's a a really rich uh historical connection. There are some studies by Bachrach for example trying to point like to to Britannic um and properly Breton actually legacy and and the Alans back in the day through Britain through also the the ones settled in Gaul.

[00:33:25]Their center was Aurelian.

[00:33:27]Um but these guys that go across the the the Pyrenees are actually a bit more um adventuristic. As we said before the Vandals had that bias. Others tend to settle down.

[00:33:39]The they associate as partners with these other people mostly to plunder to raid. At some point they tried to rule also from from Spain from southern Spain particularly. There were different groups. Some were destroyed actually. So they had suffered an important um blow.

[00:33:55]Um the Iranians as you know were speaking step nomads who had joined their confederation during the earlier the the the Vandal confederation in the earlier migrations across Gaul and Spain. All right.

[00:34:07]And in imagine them finally in part getting to Africa and participating to the same um Mediterranean piracy right through the fleet that in part the the Vandals also sort of controlled from the locals right when you look at this this fleet it's a bit like later with the Arabs in the Levant. If we would have the the fleets that besieged Constantinople.

[00:34:31]Uh well obviously, it was the local population who were the the local Romans historically.

[00:34:39]Um you you can imagine even stereotypically the Alans providing mobile cavalry initially like with an elite bias that complemented Vandal infantry, but Eastern Germans had also because of such relations or historically had important sort of amounts of heavy cavalry was mostly the the Franks and the northern Germans were sort of scarcer as far as that is concerned, but there's no doubt that their elite right this was true from a numerical point of view, but their elite was incredibly obsessed like with together with like any other European peoples in history with with horses with horsemanship with the idea that the hero is a knight after all. We made many videos about the the iconography of the victorious knight slaying the serpent since the 3rd century BC probably been represented, but after a millennium of symbolism is allowing also coordinated raids the point of the migration here that they honed uh to the same Vandal seafaring skills during two decades in Spain before the uh the fateful 429 AD crossing of the Gibraltar Strait right and therefore their North African uh adventure. Some have also been left behind. We know that we've seen it at Belchior Cameron that there were some um sort of affiliates some allies of the various Vandal noblemen that were um sort of ready to to welcome them back in in Spain to a degree naturally in a situation in a disaster situation where their army had been destroyed in open field as it was um just like refugees fundamentally once again.

[00:36:25]Um in turn, if you think about this, the Alans once were very powerful people among the Sarmatians, the westernmost emerging from the Tian Shan and therefore the proper core of the of Central Asian knighthood.

[00:36:42]And among the the last, in fact, waves of Indo-European conquerors were the remnants of this Sarmatian people displaced by Hunnic pressure and previously actually being uh conquered by the Goths, right, the Greuthungians with their Pontic kingdom. And so, they're pretty complicated story, but their people had been fundamentally fragmented. Some remained around the essentially the lands of today's of Ossetia. Well, I made a video about the Alans that explains that you find this hyper-elite knightly um element even in in this small fragmented people with, I don't know, Alan bodyguards at the uh service of the Mongol emperor of China in in the 13th century and and beyond. So, it uh they really got it. The Alans incarnate the the top Indo-European absoluteness in terms, at least, of migration era uh timeline and and lifestyle.

[00:37:37]Um And so, you imagine again this even the warrior ethos of these combined elite, right, in amphibious operations, hit-and-run tactics, coastlines ravaged by by them.

[00:37:52]And this was the case especially as they were marching east in North Africa encountering Roman resistance.

[00:38:00]Right. Uh there was some Afro-Roman government there that was also, as we explained, not particularly scarce, right, and well well equipped.

[00:38:13]This seafaring capability of the Vandals apexed after they migrated from Iberian to North Africa, in fact, under King Geiseric or or Genseric or Gaiseric, however you want to call it.

[00:38:26]This capable and ruthless Vandal ruler who led his people across the strait.

[00:38:33]In 429 and with an estimated force including families and allies totaling perhaps around 80,000.

[00:38:40]So, when you look at these peoples by the way, the other thing that makes you think really is is their size. Like they weren't particularly impactful in in a in a demographic sense, right? We we know obviously under much depleted late antique world with demographic crisis etc. that they were important. Probably they were the Vandals may have actually been more important than we think in Africa in particular.

[00:39:03]But the reflection that that I usually make is that essentially in order to have 80,000 people in total, like women, children, the elderly etc. It means that your army is at most something like 30,000 men. So, it's basically a regional field army, which means that if you're defeated in one major battle of that kind, you're done for as a people.

[00:39:24]And this happened to other populations.

[00:39:26]The same Vandals contributed to weaken for example the Burgundians. If the Romans could deport them from Worms in the middle Rhine, that's what the Nibelungenlied apparently recounts. Not much the Huns of Attila but the Huns of Aetius, right? And relocating the Gepids was also because say they had gotten at some point a beating from the from the Vandals that had obliged them to locate themselves in fact in this frontier literally across the the river. Uh because they were too scared of everybody after this traumatic event, both the Huns, the Romans.

[00:39:56]Uh and so it was a constant equilibrium.

[00:39:59]As Genseric was bringing the Vandals into Africa, he knew that they may have never come back from that as as as a as a people as as a group.

[00:40:09]But they are also warlike, right? When you look especially at the leaders, you realize these Germans were really tough.

[00:40:14]Um their their people was it in arms effectively had a warlike ethos they had been leaving and sort of marching moving constantly with this need of this matters of still as and again always a step away from possible disaster so they had to be tough and cohesive.

[00:40:33]They captured the strategic stronghold of Carthage in 439 turning the city into a nerve center for widespread Vandal aggression now that allowed them to invade the major islands of the western central Mediterranean such as I've said before Sicily Sardinia Corsica Malta and the Balearics and launched devastating coastal raids against even the Greek peninsula as well as obviously the Italian mainland most notably resulting in the plundering of Rome in 455 as we were recounting at the beginning. This is not very different from what the Saracens will do. By the way as you can see here in there in the illustration I inserted some Berber auxiliary on board of the the the Vandal ships amidst in fact a very wide looking as we explained before Germano-Slavic populations so you have this this other interesting connection regarding their military. We talked about the Mauretanian auxiliaries also in in the video about the battle of Tricamarum if you're interested.

[00:41:38]Um I talked even about some battles between the Byzantines and and and the Moors.

[00:41:44]As a matter of fact we will come back talking about them.

[00:41:49]So as we're seeing before the figure of Gaiseric is also one to behold. He ruled from 428 to 477 which is a heck of a long time for the times and places especially these pretty tumultuous barbarian groups.

[00:42:06]Exploiting internal Roman weaknesses like the assassination of Valentinian III to launch the 455 expedition against the Orbs during which his forces methodically loaded ships with valuable valuables over 2 weeks while taking high-value hostages like Empress Eudocia and her Eudoxia as a matter of fact and her daughters actions that enrich the kingdom and disrupted Roman grain supplies without the total urban devastation however later exaggerated in popular accounts. There was no need, no point right to destroy even too much. But of course that this is the the the sack that hit the artist.

[00:42:44]All right. There were other terrible times during the Gothic War but there was no uh in terms of the population of the city of Rome temporary in part but this was the most uh humiliating. Right? This is where for example the um the the the co- the bronze coverings of the Temple of Jupiter were removed where the the menorah that the Romans had dis- taken away from from [snorts] the the Temple of from the destruction of Temple of Jerusalem. And that and in fact I made a a video about the the Vandalic sack of Rome that explains part of these only legions unfortunately because what happened is that all these treasures in fact that the Goths had taken them to Toulouse.

[00:43:26]And so at some point we can think even the Franks maybe put their hands on that. Uh but the the story of the menorah in particular is said to have in fact brought um to to if it's to have been brought from Rome to Carthage during the Vandalic sack then Belisarius retook it uh when conquering Carthage and uh he sent it to Justinian Constantinople who decided to bring it back to Jerusalem interestingly enough.

[00:43:50]But as you know they're all lost now.

[00:43:52]It not just so the menorah in this case but many other uh inestimable treasures. There are lots of legions regarding but as you know also with the Islamic invasion all what could happen only God knows what actually went down. We unfortunately don't have enough documentation for all these sanctuaries. Um but as you understand here, there was not a generalized sense of crisis and decadence, but especially one of resettling, of the sort of re-wiring of the um traditional centers of power and objects of power, as a matter of fact, and symbols and values, etc. So, the Vandals, obviously from their side, saw themselves as truly rulers, tamers of of of the Romans, blessed by God for this uh indeed evangelic accomplishment, so to say.

[00:44:40]Um and so you have really a lot of um things going down. As explained also in that video about the sack negotiations with Pope Leo the first, secured promises against arson and civilian massacres, specifically allowing the Vandals to focus on organized plunder for palaces, temples, and elite residences. So, imagine how Rome still looked at the time. By the way, the the myth that Rome was fundamentally deeply undermined or, you know, ruined, but it it's not quite true. It was despoiled, of course, that was quite visible and and again, painfully ignominious, etc. But the notion that Rome fundamentally suffered in scale dramatically by the sacks that would have been particularly destructive, whatever, is actually not proven by any historical archaeological evidence. On the contrary, we know also later authors, obviously, been you know, marveled at Rome, like throughout all the rest of the of the well, even of just the early Middle Ages. We're not talking about the reconstructions, of course, that happened, right? Again, I it's almost a meme now, but I always also um lash at those videos, like, what was actually Rome like after the sack of, you know, after 476? Yeah, it was actually a pretty good place, yeah. And there there were lots of marvelous things, and it was actually the the moral axis of of of of a renewed Western power among the the the Anglo-Saxons, the Franks, the Lombards and more. Um in that story, I presume I'm literally the only person who's actually I say it without modesty because literally it's true, by the way, um that is covering that it on on Schwarzpunkt as a matter of fact.

[00:46:22]We were talking about the despoliations, the the Temple of Jupiter, also with its gilded elements, not just the bronze and the bronze was actually on the also on the Pantheon and so on.

[00:46:36]Um so you understand also why the the papacy, not just the empire, didn't like the Vandals very much, all right?

[00:46:44]>> [snorts] >> Um this this persistent normal threat forced the Eastern and Western Roman Empires because remember, here the West still existed and again, it's always an administrative division, it was never such a thing like two empires, but by convention, you know what we mean here.

[00:47:00]Um that cooperated actually against the Vandals. As I was saying before, with um we'll see now with Cape Bon, uh had the the Byzantines because it was literally the Eastern Roman fleet at that point, retaken Africa, they had they landed and conquered the Vandals at that point because the problem was stopping them at sea cuz the the Vandals did not have means to realistically stop at least, you know, the the the Byzantine army once landed.

[00:47:28]It's not like the Byzantines would have seized Africa on behalf of the West.

[00:47:32]They would probably restore it to to to the West. The only sort of issues that had followed throughout these years was mostly in Illyricum and the most interland areas of the the Balkans, as you know.

[00:47:44]They were also difficult to reach but by both empires, but for the rest, it was a true cooperation, all right? Hadn't been for Gaiseric, likely there may have not been Islamic invasions for some odd indirect uh unexplainable reason, but uh assuming that the Muslims would have arrived at some point, hadn't Gaiseric been there, they would have found still a Western Roman Empire standing in in Africa.

[00:48:09]And in the rest of West, but anyway, at least in Mediterranean.

[00:48:12]And so, you have um this strong cooperation between two sides utilizing a two-pronged strategy that relied on a diplomatic containment policy formally recognizing the Vandals as foederati, so allies of the Roman Empire within Latin Africa. So, the Vandals were actually recognized, obviously, by by the Empire as having a status with with Romans.

[00:48:39]Um there is the treaty, for example, 435, that was renewed around 442 that granted them control over key territories in exchange for nominal allegiance and tribute obligations balanced by an expensive, financially draining joint invasion by land and sea to crush the the Vandal realness well, right? So, this tells you how unstable these relations were were. But really the the foederati status was pretty universal, and as you know, the foederati had always been pretty swinging loyalty, right? It could be incredibly loyal and incredibly uh unloyal uh to Rome depending on the circumstances.

[00:49:17]The 435 treaty initially ceded parts of Numidian Mauretania, even. So, technically they're reaching almost to the same straits that the the same Vandals had controlled.

[00:49:28]While al- And this was important for the same Romans to control, for example, trade along the coast uh up to Spain, etc. While allowing the Romans to retain core African provinces temporarily, even, right? So, that there was an uneven distribution also of the Vandal settlement. This is something that happened also in other provinces. For example, I don't know, uh in Italy, Germanic concentration was mostly along actually the least developed areas the at the Alpine locks along the Alpine hinterland more than the the more fertile urbanized areas even though of course the leads had great power etc. but the Vandals were importantly settled on the frontier if anything for defending the same Africa that had conquered in fact many of them had remained there as military colonists when Belisarius crushed their kingdom. They remained there settled as federates. This happened to to the Goths for example or even to the Lombards who had come to fight the same Goths in Italy. So it was really normal to to an extent because what do you do with these people? Especially in a time in which you know manpower and labor force costs a freaking lot or there is a demographic crisis and economical one accordingly.

[00:50:43]So you don't want to simply kill them first of all but in some cases you don't even want to deport them. Some were by the way they went fighting they weren't diluting the rest of the Byzantine Empire but also fighting on different fronts.

[00:50:58]The 442 agreement formalized Vandal possession of the wealthy proconsular Africa Bizacena and Tripolitania. So technically also Tunisia and essentially Libya as well up to Cyrenaica that remained Byzantine and you have in this sense a very important recognition right of a marking shift from allied status to the de facto independent control of Africa's economic core that de facto the Vandals had already seized right?

[00:51:29]After all you just have to control these coastal island posts. This is what mostly the European pattern had mostly been about really. Africa again this is the only place it has fundamentally some deeper hinterland that you can't settle as a core land and then you can't control the surrounding coastline because they don't have much hinterland to begin with. Yes, there is some in Algeria, there is some in Morocco further west.

[00:51:53]But some of those areas were not controlled even by the Vandals at some point, especially the the westernmost ones.

[00:51:59]Though the Cape Bon allied campaign suffered a catastrophic defeat in 468 when a massive combined fleet of over a thousand ships under Eastern commander Basiliscus was destroyed by Vandal fire ships and surprise attacks near Cape Bon after poor tactical decision allowed Geiseric to exploit anchored vulnerabilities, the memory of the failure right? And the fact that effectively Africa had been lost but also in this sense the possibility of a further autonomous Italian expansion of capacity to to the lack of grain supplies for for the army remained deeply ingrained in Justinian's strategic calculations decades later, shaping his cautious yet approach to western reconquests amid ongoing fiscal and military planning.

[00:52:52]If you're interested, I made a video about Byzantine strategy from Zeno to Justinian, so you can see sort of this period and sort of what what was occurring.

[00:53:03]Also in the later 15th century, it is a period we haven't covered excessively.

[00:53:07]We talk about it specially as far as the Eastern Roman Empire is concerned. We should definitely talk about the West, right? So this had been a major blow because what I understood again that without the sort of this the reconquest of Spain and of Africa, Italy was boxed like what remained the most important territory to Moscow is a regional core regardless of this point the the lack of a of a Roman-Germanic people that could fundamentally like the Ostrogoths simply could in could easily nationally control the the country especially from a military point of view because Odoacer's forces, as you know, were not really stemming from a people as such. They were essentially war bands sort of federati units from many different populations, including the Scirii from which he came he came from himself. In fact, I have a video prepared on the Scirii that have to make.

[00:54:03]Uh and so, lots of interesting things are are going on.

[00:54:07]Besides the also from a technical operational standpoint, the 468 expedition was one of the largest amphibious actions of antiquity, right? Funded at enormous cost by Emperor Leo I with contributions from both empires and involving separate forces under leaders like Marcellinus and Heraclius collapsing due, as we explained, to Basiliscus anchoring the fleet vulnerably, allowing Geiseric's nighttime fireship assault that reportedly destroyed hundreds of vessels and killed or scattered tens of thousands. This was a massive disaster and tells you also how risky naval warfare in and of itself really was, right?

[00:54:48]So, this was a memento for any future operation that historically would have had already been prospective. I mean, had it they had done it once, like obviously in the future it would have been done twice because it was really understood as we explained before. Even I don't know, 30,000 Vandal warriors, yes, can be a problem in this specific part of the Mediterranean from an international and strategic point of view, their control of of trade routes across the sea, but they're not they're easy to overcome, right? Once you land, once you secure the beachheads and you can supply these logistics you know, from also from the surrounding areas, the same Sicily, for example, the Ostrogoths, right? That would be next in Belisarius' uh on Belisarius' um list, so so say, did did actually help the Byzantine conquest of Africa, the destruction of the Vandals, cuz they were initially compliant. They they sent lots of grain from from Sicily to actually support the same Byzantine army on that occasion. So, um it's a quite fascinating uh scenario as well. And also for the for 168 campaign, I will make a video that is going to explain things more in depth.

[00:55:59]Um And so, even though the Vandal kingdom eventually transitioned into a secure territorial power, this generation is dedicated to cementing its recognized borders, this was definitely not a a particularly stable system. After all, we explained the reason why. First of all, they maintained Aryan Christian practices that distinguished the Vandal establishment in part in particular, because that's was a problem. They were also fragmented to one another from the Catholic Roman population while extracting revenues from agriculture, trade, and continued occasional raiding.

[00:56:36]And that is per se, like again, there's this idea that the Vandals were predatory and in or they mismanaged local rule.

[00:56:45]Probably that their problem derived as as we said before from a mix of prior political issues, the fact that they were not a quite fundamentally unified people, especially at this point of the migration era after so many blows. Also, they had lost literally a piece uh of themselves in in Iberia. They had ended up massacred. Um you have this inherent issue with uh probably also different parts in fact of of the whole Vandalic people. Again, you you would have had the the Alans themselves would have had other other elements.

[00:57:18]And and the local Catholic creed that was opposed to the Aryan one was mostly signaling a um sort of an autonomous as aggressive stance towards the empire, like saying, "We are We Christianized to be part of the empire, but we don't have to be pushed.

[00:57:35]We want to be autonomous.

[00:57:37]And we don't fully align also with especially in ecclesiastical direction of matter, because as you know, the ecclesiastical administration was essentially the first uh path to the also the consolidation of a proper monarchy, which some Vandals were actually fine with, especially the the the ruling kings normally, not always.

[00:57:55]Um and and regardless of their position at uh in this confessional matter, so to say, but that in fact the other than ability did not necessarily want. All right. And this was a fractious um routing ability that wanted to push through, for example, their raiding policies also, um not caring as far as they were enriching themselves in the moment of the broader international standing of the Vandals, etc. So, it's obvious that major expeditions like the one in Rome have been glorious for the Vandals in general, and they all had this kind of uh spirit of conquest uh deeply ingrained in in their in their in their bones, but so to say, they they didn't benefit on the longer run of of this position.

[00:58:43]Justinian carefully watched the region and ultimately exploited internal political unrest within the Vandal realm. As you know, the Byzantines paid also some local African groups, especially the the ones of the frontier area that were half sort of probably savages like Berbers of those that would eventually end up harassing the same Byzantines there to to rise against the Vandals, but this was also like, I don't know, treating well the rest of the population, especially the Roman one. After all, this entire reconquest was based on the ideology that these were indeed Roman lands and had to be recovered from an element that was allogene and or at least misaligned, especially as long as they remained Arian. That was the greatest issue at the end of the day.

[00:59:27]Because in a Catholic perspective, if you accepted Imperial authority and in the unity of the church, like you were automatically, yes, you could be anyone, but as long as you complied with it and the general direction, you would become Roman and you would stay Roman.

[00:59:43]There were deep succession disputes and tensions after the death of later kings like Hilderic, who had shown, as we were just saying, more pro-Roman leanings.

[00:59:55]So, the Vandals had called it upon themselves, right? It's always this nobility that fundamentally prevents the the weak monarch, evidently, depending on them uh as much as they were also depending, however, on the monarchy as in terms of leadership also for organizing great, the major ones, more successful ones, um to be uh internationally incoherent, right?

[01:00:17]Except, right? They inimicate practically everybody, right? Both Byzantines, the Goths.

[01:00:23]And so, they're not really in a good position.

[01:00:26]On the contrary, they also know that if the Byzantines have to reconquer Italy, they would pass from Africa because there they can't secure their supply lines. Africa, Sicily, a bit like it happened uh say in World War II, but in particular at this point because um yes, because there were rich lands, but because they could supply their their army with the the grain of of these these regions.

[01:00:51]And so, we've seen it also partially in our videos, the the Byzantines under Justinian mobilized a dual land and naval expedition under the command of Belisarius, completely crushing the Vandal state in 533 through, in fact, remarkable victories at battles like Ad Decimum and Tricamarum. Again, the the latter we made a video on that allowed rapid advances on Carthage with a well-disciplined force of around 16 to 18,000 troops. There weren't that many, as a matter of fact, but they were pretty good, especially very well led.

[01:01:26]Um and so, despite this numerical disadvantages in some engagements, they cleared the path for subsequent Byzantine developments that stretched imperial authority to the southern coastline of the Iberian Peninsula. The Vandalic kingdom was simply obliterated. All right. It was a fought campaign. It's not like the Byzantines simply walked uh into Carthage and the Vandals melted away, but indeed, like in open field, they they suffered importantly.

[01:01:56]And it's interesting to see from this operations of the kind of group they had on this territory, where their supply lines were, etc. Um but uh apparently, the idea is also a bit reinforced by Procopius's stereotype that these were fundamentally barbarians who were incapable, you know, this recurs.

[01:02:14]Especially effective is in in poliorcetic terms that see that they sucked, right? This will be repeated as a notion, also, um for the the Gothic campaign in in Italy, but uh you won't appreciate that these peoples did actually have an important potential to unlock. This would be evident especially when the Ostrogoths descended. And in fact, to finally uh surpass that kind of uh late antique model.

[01:02:44]All right. And given that the war had already destroyed the latifundia, basically, they they at that point gave up on that kind of notion of stark social divide by saying to the colonists, "Look, we will give you We will elevate you to to the same essentially freedom that say uh the the highest, especially the warriors, have, the soldiers have, um if you fight in fact against the Byzantines." That That's where things really got very, very tough in Italy. In In Vandal Africa, there was effectively no time for this. The system was much less um solid, as a matter of fact, before we said, of course, that Africa was incredibly advanced, but of course, it didn't have the same level of urbanization or broader social compaction and infrastructural uh functioning in general core of, say, countries like Italy or Spain. So, this is also partially the reason why the the Vandals gave way. Um Hilderic was the grandson, back in the day, of of a Roman emperor through his mother's line.

[01:03:51]Interestingly enough, he's a ruler from 523 to 530.

[01:03:56]He had been pursuing friendlier policies towards Constantinople and Catholics, including reduced persecution and even though again, we we don't have the eventual measure how what this practically meant, because if if it was uh just about deposing a Catholic bishop and installing an Arian one, but this is not like a particularly violent thing, right? We don't find churches destruction, archaeologically speaking.

[01:04:21]It happened at some point, but there's no major evidence to say that it was a cataclysmic um destruction at the arrival of Vandals. Again, no people did that when they had to settle where they were to meant to prosper and and rule, right?

[01:04:35]Um And Hilderic was however deposed, and that's where the inner instability comes from, in a coup by his cousin Gelimer, who was more traditional Arian and anti-Roman stance provided Justinian the legal pretext for intervention after appeals from displaced African elites reaching the uh imperial court.

[01:04:58]And we partially seen this also at Tricamarum, the the entire story um with Gelimer, etc. Belisarius landed near Caput Vada with a fleet of about 500 ships carrying infantry, cavalry, and support, even the Hannic auxiliaries that were essentially prisoners of war that were promised freedom in the steps once again.

[01:05:19]They would be unleashed free. Like, you're free, boy. Run. Run.

[01:05:23]Had they actually won um that they had fulfilled their military service in Africa and Italy.

[01:05:34]Even though again, some of these men were sort of just soldiers. In general, that's all they knew. They didn't care very much.

[01:05:40]Probably they liked even the sedentary.

[01:05:42]Well, they actually they began complaining to resolve this story we've read in Procopius as well regarding sort of the way they were treated and the the general incapacity of assimilation of the steps elements. This is really true.

[01:05:53]Again, the Germans were more or less in any case deeply romanized and capable of coexisting and actually salvaging civilization, but steps peoples were completely out of that sort They they had no chance of doing so.

[01:06:13]Um As I Belisarius advanced rapidly despite minor logistical issues and at at Decimum in in September 533 used disciplined heavy cavalry charges and tactical flexibility to route Gelimer's larger but less coordinated forces near Carthage.

[01:06:30]Followed by the December battle of Tricamarum where further Vandal defeats including the death of Gelimer's brother Tzazon led to the king's flight.

[01:06:40]Surrendered uh surrendered months later and the kingdom's full incorporation to the Byzantine Empire by 534.

[01:06:48]Gelimer had escaped in the in the Berber hinterland.

[01:06:52]Had been besieged and at some point he's betrayed. Like, but it's it's interesting. It's an interesting figure.

[01:06:58]There was also the matter of the best of the Vandals who were objectively in Africa to quell a rebellion and is a bit It's to things that had happened also in Carthaginian history, telling the truth.

[01:07:09]Um and so things could have objectively gone differently. Otherwise, there would have not been the need of a war. And the other thing we highlighted in those videos like Tricamarum is how much cavalry actually the the Vandals used. Right? What kind of consistently equestrian clashes, the ones Procopius describes from both sides between the Byzantines and Vandals that they were overall. Like, consider that they looked looked like similar um in the the there wasn't much one actual difference even in arms and armor. How how you distinguish? I made a video about the Maurician cabalarius. Some of them were literally Germans themselves. Um and so it's very interesting at this age that is, you know, in following decades also in fact the one of the strategic and etc. to to observe even this ethnographic variety but similarity for through to Byzantine sources that are effectively the sort of the sort of the richer for this period that is otherwise pretty scarcely documented, as you know.

[01:08:14]I have an entire uh playlist if you're interested in 6th century history. And I have Germanic warfare like in late antiquity migration here. You can access these videos from all different avenues if you're interested in this and that topic.

[01:08:28]This rapid campaign documented vividly by Procopius, who accompanied Belisarius as his secretary, so he knew something about the war story, not only restored Roman administration, Catholic orthodoxy, and grain flows to lease, but also enabled follow-on operations extending influence towards southern Spain.

[01:08:49]Seemingly, Spain was conquered before Italy. There was an older historiographical version, but it seems now historiographically ascertained that basically Spain was southern Spain, obviously, was reconquered in in the wake in fact of the fall of the Vandalic kingdom because some connections had remained after all. And so this also projects a broader um stretch, let's say, of Vandal rule and or at least of affiliate client clienteles that had been separated from the Gothic ones of Spain.

[01:09:23]As we said at the beginning, there would be also long-term Byzantine control in Africa facing ongoing Moorish tribal pressures and eventual contraction as well. But that's also because of the plague that will strike um and part of indeed because of the exhaustion of this there's no doubt that sorry the the the crisis following all these wars and so on like weakened the population there uh immunitory systems that the availability this is an incredibly poor time. We were told that Belisarius's knights were even so sorry the top of the the Byzantine military that they in Italy they used literally wooden armor for especially their their shins cuz that there wasn't materially speaking the availability of metal was a big deal, right?

[01:10:16]And this even in before the mid-6th century that is probably the moment in which a broader contraction does happen and and it changes really the entire landscape. You see here again that the the advance of advancement of cavalry is quite fascinating. One may wonder why the Vandals had in fact developed so much cavalry.

[01:10:35]You you would imagine they had some of it of course in their tradition and we've seen the Alans etc. but when you look at the affirmation of cavalry over infantry we we see the 6th century the mid-16th century as the the watershed but or at the latest, right? In the first half of the 6th you see here evidently some equestrian buys and you can imagine the Vandals had to chase those Berbers in the hinterland.

[01:10:59]Um those had always been good horsemen.

[01:11:01]Now, the the the the the Romans had historically introduced camels to Berber warfare that uh as we've seen also in in in another battle video actually with the the one of Mammuthus as a matter of fact.

[01:11:16]Were used even as some sort of mobile uh leaving barricade by by the semi-nomadic Moors in the in North African hinterland.

[01:11:28]In any case, the Byzantines defeated them.

[01:11:31]At at the Decimum, Belisarius capitalized on Vandal overconfidence and divided command after Gelimer's forces engaged piecemeal.

[01:11:40]With Byzantine cataphract charges breaking key contingents and opening the road to Carthage.

[01:11:47]Through Tricamarum, so repeated heavy cavalry assaults shattered Vandal lines with Sassans that triggering a route that ended organized resistance.

[01:11:57]If you studied the battle, you realize it's pretty uh tactically unsophisticated. It just clashed over a stream and then at some point the Vandals collapsed because their leader dies and basically the whole army collapsed. That's literally it, right under pressure. That obviously was intensely fought, but tactics are often very simple. After all, this was a frontal uh attack apparently even without further There were reserves, but these reserves were the Moors and apparently like that didn't work very well cuz they would The the Vandals sort of fell back on their camp, but uh uh by the evening the Byzantines had reached that and taken control of the situation. The Vandals' maritime dominance built on captured Carthaginian shipyards and experienced crews allowed sustained control over key trade routes and islands funding their kingdom through piracy and tribute while disrupting Roman supply lines for decades. Right, what you want to appreciate here is that again, the crews were effectively subject to the Vandals.

[01:12:59]They would have considered also the marine element of that.

[01:13:03]They would have been just Vandals, but the tendential elite character of warfare, as we're highlighting here, is to be seen on on deck as much as on land, given that in any case uh the sort of hand-to-hand combat uh balance fundamentally rested on the same individuals who fought in it, even if dismounted, etc. But naval warfare definitely has a different uh a different mechanism, but socially, culturally, it's this hierarchy that emerges.

[01:13:37]The Vandalic Arian faith led to periodic tensions with the majority Nicene Christian population, including property confiscation from Catholic elites that fueled internal grievances later exploited by Justinian's envoys.

[01:13:53]Belisarius' expedition, though modest in size compared to earlier failed armadas, benefited from superior discipline, intelligence on Vandal disarray, and swift adaptation to local terrain, securing Africa as a Byzantine province that supplied vital resources despite later Berber revolts.

[01:14:12]As especially like the western central Mediterranean control was was concerned for the Byzantines. So, there is really something here that we we could go on, maybe for another video about the history of Byzantine Africa up to, in fact, the Islamic invasions.

[01:14:30]And um in fact, these are the spaces that are sharp and we still haven't quite well covered, but given the general uh picture, I think that it's it's positive that we talk more about the Vandals, that we have this better um picture in uh in mind that we talk about this stuff cuz again, we have almost how much like almost 3,000 videos, but this does not mean that it it it's ever enough, right? That what we've done is fundamentally just I don't know some core topics and then even the same those same ones in order of importance do not have to be discussed further. As a matter of fact, it's quite the opposite and because of the in fact deeper knowledge that um exists for them. So, in in a general sense, we can appreciate obviously enough how variegated this topic is, how much there is really to cover.

[01:15:33]And fundamentally also you know, the room for further knowledge, for further improvement that we always have the chance in fact of renewing on Schwerpunkt to true through this visitations, right? As I said at the beginning, we have more than enough space, [snorts] so to say, as far as um anything is is concerned, but we also go by degrees. On Schwerpunkt, if you really are familiar with the channel, we we never pushed too much. Like we took our time.

[01:16:10]Um we said, "Okay, well, we have to go by degrees." And we stuck to that, right?

[01:16:17]Uh cuz it's only by covering things this granularly that you really get anywhere to to begin with.

[01:16:25]Uh as I said, I will resume also my Germanic peoples' history series. I will be making more really probably in summer and in autumn I'm going to make way more videos about late antiquity and the early Middle Ages as far as specially as also topics that we haven't covered much like again Islamic invasions.

[01:16:46]Uh the Byzantine campaigns against the Persians and the Muslims later. So, there is really a lot too much actually that we haven't covered and the objective is still just giving an introduction with this video of 1 hour 2 hours uh for eventually descending even further detail. All right? And I know that generally speaking you like this topics. You like the migration in or you like Germanic history. Um just know that the whole content is definitely organized and articulated uh in this way. That is entirely um interconnected. Like you can't really think to watch a video without looking at the rest.

[01:17:24]Um it has always been Sharp on his policy. So, that yesterday for example made a video about Waterloo. Right? And I announced that I will be making more uh Napoleonic uh warfare videos, more battle videos, more campaign videos.

[01:17:39]Well, this is definitely very important and we have like an enormous potential for everything. Literally like at this point we're really um creating I see an important audience, some important even algorithmic uh relevance following. Again, this is exactly what this content is supposed to be. I'm very glad we arrived to this point. Let's hope that AI does not disrupt everything. Even as you see here, I've been using AI more consistently and there's an ever greater historical precision and accuracy. For example, just banally the fact that you know, and up to today I use only Wikimedia Commons pictures because they are the only ones that I can legally use for commercial purposes. I took this very seriously as you know since 2021 I began re-uploading everything that I had been using with copyrighted images that were blurred whatever, but I don't trust the system.

[01:18:35]And I don't like for example all those vlogs apparently now are are coming under uh automatic scrutiny by YouTube. So, fortunately, I I really don't understand why some channels should live off of our channels. Haunted feels pretty lame. And it's always a gray area. It's always an ambiguous situation. You're always depending on someone. And that's definitely what I don't want to be. So, um one notable There are some topics that are very well covered iconographically. Uh the candles, not so much. And today, for example, I created these pictures that you see Okay, we had a lot, obviously, about the general Germanic stuff that you see here, cuz I'm not going to substitute everything with AI at all. If anything, I'm going to use the actual historical evidence to make AI content. And I don't post any image that is not actually correct, right? Um but the most important part of this is that, for example, caliphal armies, zero.

[01:19:28]Now, just because the Muslims were iconoclasts, obviously, they didn't leave us uh especially in the early day much um iconographic evidence.

[01:19:37]Uh but now, I can say, "Okay, I have some good sort of model for for the for making AI image about free original content about the caliphal armies."

[01:19:51]Well, now we have a greater incentive for making a video like that that doesn't look badly, right? That is proper and accurate and so on. So, I think we will see a pretty brutal expansion in that direction. Um plus towards really lots of other things, as as we've seen during these uh this month in particular, things have been really accelerating in terms of actual uh representation, visibility, and more. I'm really glad that we are um uh that we are at this point.

[01:20:27]And um yeah, I I like these funny little videos because and I um I'm really projected on sort of making more and better all the time cuz that's exactly where we should be.

[01:20:47]For today, however, I stop it here. I just hope that you enjoyed this video.

[01:20:53]If you did, please share it. Otherwise, leave a like or subscribe to my channel if you're interested in my upcoming content. As always, I thank you heartily for listening to me. I wish you a nice time and see you next time.

[01:21:09]Bye.

[01:23:15]>> Mhm.