Introduction
Vandal King Gaiseric, also known as Geiseric or Genseric, was one of the most famous men of his time.
During the nearly 50 years of his reign, he raised the less important German nation to the status of a great Mediterranean empire - which after his death, went into a rapid decline and eventually collapsed.
Gaiseric, whose real name is Gaisureiks meaning "king of the spear", was the illegitimate son of King Godigisel; he is thought to have been born near Lake Balaton (now Hungary) about the year 389. (See note 1, at the bottom of the page) Sources at the time say that Gaiseric was the son of Godigisel and one of his maids, but Father treated her as his legal son, Gunderic. As a young man, Gaiseric fought battles against Rome and the Franks; We can just imagine him taking part in a bloody battle with the Franks in 406 and the subsequent violation of the Roman Empire at Rhin on December 31, 406.
After his father's death in battle in 406, Gaiseric was the second most powerful man among the Vandals, after a new king, his younger brother Gunderic. Apparently he did not resent his brother (existing Roman accounts say that he became emperor by killing Gunderic may have been propaganda; the same sources often refer to Gaiseric as the Antichrist) and he spent most of his time building Vandal ships, something they did not have for centuries.
At the time, the Vandals lived in the Andalusia region of present-day Spain (then known as Vandalusia or the Land of Vandals).
After Gunderic's death in 428, roughly in battle with the mighty Visigoths in Spain, 39-year-old Gaiseric was elected new emperor. Clever and experienced in martial arts, he soon began looking for ways to increase the power and wealth of his people.
The Vandals suffered greatly at the hands of the Visigoths, and soon after taking power, Gaiseric decided to leave Spain for the German occupation.
African invasion and first victory
Using a dispute between Boniface, the Roman emperor of North Africa, and the Roman government, Gaiseric deported all 80,000 of his people to Africa in 429.
Once there, he won many battles against weak and divisive Roman opponents and soon conquered the area that now includes modern-day Morocco and northern Algeria. His army of Vandal laid siege to the city of Hippo Regius (modern-day Annaba, Algeria) in 430.
This siege is famous for history because St. Augustine served as bishop of Hippo, and he died during the siege. On one occasion, a Roman army sent from Constantinople rebuilt the city and put an end to the siege.
But the Vandals responded with a battle that took Hippo to the end of 431 and ended fourteen months of heavy fighting. The following year, Roman Emperor Valentinian III recognized Gaiseric as king of the territories he and his men conquered, and Hippo became the new capital of Vandal.
Gaiseric took hundreds of prisoners in his conquest, one of them was a Roman centurion in the eastern Marcian.
Seeking peace with the Romans at this time, he promised to release any prisoners who would make a vow never to fight the Vandals in the future.
Marcian took the oath, and honored it - something that became very important 19 years later, when he became Emperor. (see note 2, bottom of page)
The Fall of Carthage
In 439, after a jealous eye on the great city of Carthage for ten years, he took the city, apparently without war. Shocking accounts claim that Gaiseric paid the gatekeepers to open the city walls late at night, so that he could slide hundreds of his soldiers inside the city and take key points throughout the city during the night. That morning, the Vandals opened all the gates and the city immediately surrendered. Unbeknownst to the Romans, Gaiseric also captured a large part of the Roman navy at Carthage
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