Vandals

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)
The Sack of Rome by Vandals, Karl Briullov, 1833–1836

Vandals (वैन्डल) were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century.[1]

Variants

History

The Vandals migrated to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula rivers in the second century BC and settled in Silesia from around 120 BC.[2]They are associated with the Przeworsk culture and were possibly the same people as the Lugii. Expanding into Dacia during the Marcomannic Wars and to Pannonia during the Crisis of the Third Century, the Vandals were confined to Pannonia by the Goths around 330 AD, where they received permission to settle from Constantine the Great. Around 400, raids by the Huns from the east forced many Germanic tribes to migrate west into the territory of the Roman Empire and, fearing that they might be targeted next, the Vandals were also pushed westwards, crossing the Rhine into Gaul along with other tribes in 406.[3] In 409, the Vandals crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, where the Hasdingi and the Silingi settled in Gallaecia (northwest Iberia) and Baetica (south-central Iberia).

On the orders of the Romans, the Visigoths invaded Iberia in 418. They almost wiped out the Alans and Silingi Vandals who voluntarily subjected themselves to the rule of Hasdingian leader Gunderic. Gunderic was then pushed from Gallaecia to Baetica by a Roman-Suebi coalition in 419. In 429, under king Genseric (reigned 428–477), the Vandals entered North Africa. By 439 they established a kingdom which included the Roman province of Africa as well as Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearic Islands. They fended off several Roman attempts to recapture the African province, and sacked the city of Rome in 455. Their kingdom collapsed in the Vandalic War of 533–34, in which Emperor Justinian I's forces reconquered the province for the Eastern Roman Empire.

As the Vandals plundered Rome for fourteen days, [4] Renaissance and early-modern writers characterized the Vandals as prototypical barbarians. This led to the use of the term "vandalism" to describe any pointless destruction, particularly the "barbarian" defacing of artwork. However, some modern historians have emphasised the role of Vandals as continuators of aspects of Roman culture, in the transitional period from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.[5]

Name

The ethnonym is attested as Wandali and Wendilenses by Saxo, as Vendill in Old Norse, and as Wend(e)las in Old English, all going back to a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as *Wanđilaz.[6]The etymology of the name remains unclear. According to linguist Vladimir Orel, it may stem from the Proto-Germanic adjective *wanđaz ('turned, twisted'), itself derived from the verb *wenđanan (or *winđanan), meaning 'to wind'. [7]

Alternatively, it has been derived from a root *wanđ-, meaning 'water', based on the idea that the tribe was originally located near the Limfjord (a sea inlet in Denmark).[8] The stem can also be found in Old High German wentilsēo and Old English wendelsǣ, both literally meaning 'Vandal-sea' and designating the Mediterranean Sea.[9][10]

The Germanic mythological figure of Aurvandill has been interpreted by Rudolf Much to mean 'Shining Vandal'. Much forwarded the theory that the tribal name Vandal reflects worship of Aurvandil or the Divine Twins, possibly involving an origin myth that the Vandalic kings were descended from Aurvandil (comparable to the case of many other Germanic tribal names).[11]

Some medieval authors equated two classical ethnonyms, "Vandals" and Veneti, and applied both to West Slavs, leading to the term Wends, which has been used for various Slavic-speaking groups and is still used for Lusatians. However, modern scholars derive "Wend" from "Veneti", and do not equate the Veneti and Vandals.[12]

The name of the Vandals has been connected to that of Vendel, the name of a province in Uppland, Sweden, which is also eponymous of the Vendel Period of Swedish prehistory, corresponding to the late Germanic Iron Age leading up to the Viking Age. The connection is considered tenuous at best and more plausibly the result of chance, though Scandinavia is considered the probable homeland of the tribe prior to the Migration Period.[13]

Classification

As the Vandals eventually came to live outside of Germania, they were not considered Germani by ancient Roman authors. Neither another East Germanic-speaking group, the Goths, nor Norsemen (early Scandinavians), were counted among the Germani by the Romans.[14]

Since the Vandals spoke a Germanic language and belonged to early Germanic culture, they are classified as a Germanic people by modern scholars.[15]

Early classical sources

The earliest mention of the Vandals is from Pliny the Elder, who used the term Vandili in a broad way to define one of the major groupings of all Germanic peoples. Tribes within this category who he mentions are the Burgundiones, Varini, Carini (otherwise unknown), and the Gutones.[16]

Tacitus mentioned the Vandilii, but only in a passage explaining legends about the origins of the Germanic peoples. He names them as one of the groups sometimes thought to be one of the oldest divisions of these peoples, along with the Marsi, Gambrivii, Suebi but does not say where they live, or which peoples are within this category. On the other hand, Tacitus and Ptolemy give information about the position of Varini, Burgundians, and Gutones in this period, and these indications suggest that the Vandals in this period lived between the Oder and Vistula rivers.[17]

Ptolemy furthermore mentioned the Silingi who were later counted as Vandals, as living south of the Semnones, who were Suebians living on the Elbe, and stretching to the Oder.[18]

The Hasdingi, who later led the invasion of Carthage, do not appear in written records until the 2nd century and the time of the Marcomannic wars.[19] The Lacringi appear in 3rd century records.[20]

Sack of Rome (455)

The Vandals under Genseric (also known as Geiseric) crossed to Africa in 429. [21] Although numbers are unknown and some historians debate the validity of estimates, based on Procopius' assertion that the Vandals and Alans numbered 80,000 when they moved to North Africa, [22] Peter Heather estimates that they could have fielded an army of around 15,000–20,000.[23]

During the next thirty-five years, with a large fleet, Genseric looted the coasts of the Eastern and Western Empires. Vandal activity in the Mediterranean was so substantial that the sea's name in Old English was Wendelsæ (i. e. Sea of the Vandals).[24] After Attila the Hun's death, however, the Romans could afford to turn their attention back to the Vandals, who were in control of some of the richest lands of their former empire.

In an effort to bring the Vandals into the fold of the Empire, Valentinian III offered his daughter's hand in marriage to Genseric's son. Before this treaty could be carried out, however, politics again played a crucial part in the blunders of Rome. Petronius Maximus killed Valentinian III and claimed the Western throne. Petronius then forced Valentinian III's widow, empress Licinia Eudoxia, to marry him.[25] Diplomacy between the two factions broke down, and in 455 with a letter from Licinia Eudoxia, begging Genseric's son to rescue her, the Vandals took Rome, along with the Empress and her daughters Eudocia and Placidia.

The chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine[26] offers the only fifth-century report that, on 2 June 455, Pope Leo the Great received Genseric and implored him to abstain from murder and destruction by fire, and to be satisfied with pillage. Whether the pope's influence saved Rome is, however, questioned. The Vandals departed with countless valuables. Eudoxia and her daughter Eudocia were taken to North Africa.[27]

Lugii

The Lugii, who were also mentioned in early classical sources in the same region, are likely to have been the same people as the Vandals.[28][29] The Lugii are mentioned by Strabo, Tacitus and Ptolemy as a large group of tribes between the Vistula and the Oder. Strabo and Ptolemy do not mention the Vandals at all, only the Lugii, Tacitus mentions them in a passage about the ancestry of the Germanic peoples without saying where they lived, and Pliny the Elder in contrast mentions the Vandals but not the Lugii.[30] Walter Pohl and Walter Goffart have noted that Ptolemy seems to distinguish the Silingi from the Lugii, and in the 2nd century the Hasdings, when they appear in the Roman record, are also distinguished from the Lugii.[31] Herwig Wolfram notes that "In all likelihood the Lugians and the Vandals were one cultic community that lived in the same region of the Oder in Silesia, where it was first under Celtic and then under Germanic domination."[32] This may account for the differentiation between the Celtic Lugii and their more Germanic successors the Vandals.

Jat History

Maharaja Suraj Mal - An article by Ahmed Ali[33] published in Times of India Delhi, 16 August 1981, traces ancestry of Maharaja Suraj Mal to Vandals. ...."An illiterate man, Suraj Mal possessed great wisdom sharpened by experience. A member of the Jat clan, he rose to power by sheer dint of personal effort and native genius. His forebears were sturdy peasants, who cultivated their lands, built durable mud fortresses, though by preference they were highway robbers. They were a Central Asian people, though Natwar Singh refrains from discussing their controversial origins traced by some to Aryans and to Scythians by some others. The consistent pattern of their behaviour, and clan characteristics based in racial instincts, however, point to the Huns, a nomadic Central Asian warlike race, a branch of which went to Europe in the 4th century A.D. where they are also known by the name of Vandals. The branch that came to India, between the 4th and 6th centuries, was called the White Huns, who spread from the bank of the Indus, through the Punjab, Northern Rajasthan, the Upper Jamuna Valley down to Gwalior beyond the Chambal, Gujars and Ahirs are also of the same race."

Henry Walter Bellew[34]....There are tribes, found in the areas of these ancient satrapies, and mentioned by Greek writers subsequently to the conquest by Alexander the Great, which bear names of a stamp different from the preceding, and clearly referable, some to Thrakian affinities, and others to Skythian. Amongst these last are classed, by the native Afghan genealogists, a number of tribes bearing Rajput names referable to the Saka Skythian races, of later arrival in India than the Naga Skythians above mentioned, but earlier than the Jata Skythians who dispossessed the Greeks of Baktriana, and swarmed into India at about the same period that other Jata hordes of their kindred surged westward into Europe, as Jutes, Goths, and Vandals, the Jit, Jat, and Mandan of our Indus valley tribes.

वैन्डल

वैन्डल एक उत्तर यूरोप में बसने वाली जर्मैनी भाषा बोलने वाली जाति थी। पाँचवी शताब्दी ईसवी में वे रोमन साम्राज्य के क्षेत्रों में दाख़िल हुए और सन् 455 ई॰ में उन्होने राजधानी रोम पर क़ब्ज़ा कर के उसे तहस-नहस कर दिया। क्योंकि रोम पश्चिमी संस्कृति का एक आधार माना जाता है, इसलिए बहुत से प्राचीन और आधुनिक पश्चिमी विद्वान वैन्डलों को नफ़रत की दृष्टि से देखते हैं।[35][36] इस वजह से अंग्रेज़ी में वैन्डलिज़्म (vandalism), यानि वैन्डलगर्दी, शब्द का मतलब किसी सुन्दर चीज़ को जंगलीपने से ख़राब करना या तोड़ना हो गया। रोमन साम्राज्य में प्रवेश करने के बाद वैन्डल कई इलाक़ों में फैल गए, जिनमें इटली और स्पेन शामिल थे। सन् 429 में वे उत्तर अफ़्रीका भी जा पहुँचे। वहाँ उन्होने कार्थेज पर केन्द्रित एक राज्य चलाया जो छोटे अरसे तक ही रहा।[37]

एलरिक

ठाकुर देशराज[38] ने लिखा है....5. एलऋषि - इन्हें यूनानी लेखकों ने एलरिक लिखा है। उन्होंने ईस्वी सन 400 के आसपास ज्ञात (गाथ) लोगों के एक बड़े समूह के साथ कुस्तुनतुनिया पर चढ़ाई की थी किंतु परकोटे की सुदृढ़ दीवारों से इनका वश नहीं चला। अतः मिलन पर चढ़ाई की किंतु यहां वंडाल लोग रोम के बादशाह की मदद पर खड़े हो गए। इसलिए इस युद्ध में एलरिक की हार हुई किंतु एलरिक हताश होने वाले योद्धाओं में न था। उसने 408 ई. में [पृ.164]: दुबारा चढ़ाई की। बादशाह ने कुछ वायदे उससे ऐसे किए जिससे एलरिक ने घेरा उठा लिया। किंतु तीसरी बार एलरिक को बादशाह की बेईमानी के कारण इटली पर चढ़ाई की। दुर्भाग्य से बीमारी के फैलने के कारण एलरिक का देहांत हो गया। तब अतुलपाश जिससे कि यूनानियों ने अटाल्फ़स लिखा है ने ज्ञात (गाथ) लोगों की कमान संभाली। बहादुर जाट इस वीरता से अबकी बार लड़े कि बादशाह को उनसे संधि करनी पड़ी। इस संधि के अनुसार रोम के बादशाह अतुलपास को अपनी लड़की व्याह दी।

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ "Vandal". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
  2. ↑ "Germanic peoples". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
  3. ↑ Brian, Adam. "History of the Vandals". Roman Empire
  4. ↑ Heather, Peter (2005). The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-98914-2. pp. 379
  5. ↑ Contrasting articles in Frank M. Clover and R.S. Humphreys, eds, Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity (University of Wisconsin Press) 1989, highlight the Vandals' role as continuators: Frank Clover stresses continuities in North African Roman mosaics and coinage and literature, whereas Averil Cameron, drawing upon archaeology, documents how swift were the social, religious and linguistic changes once the area was conquered by Byzantium and then by Islam.
  6. ↑ de Vries, Jan (1962). Altnordisches Etymologisches Worterbuch (1977 ed.). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-05436-3. pp. 653–654.
  7. ↑ Orel, Vladimir E. (2003). A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12875-0.p. 446.
  8. ↑ de Vries 1962, pp. 653–654.
  9. ↑ de Vries 1962, pp. 653–654.
  10. ↑ Corazza, Vittoria Dolcetti (1986). Il mare dei Germani. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. p. 487.
  11. ↑ R. Much, Wandalische Götter, Mitteilungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde 27, 1926, 20–41. "R. Much has brought forth a relatively convincing argument to show that the very name Vandal reflects the worship of the Divine Twins." Donald Ward, The divine twins: an Indo-European myth in Germanic tradition, University of California publications: Folklore studies, nr. 19, 1968, p. 53.
  12. ↑ Roland Steinacher "Studien zur vandalischen Geschichte. Die Gleichsetzung der Ethnonyme Wenden, Slawen und Vandalen vom Mittelalter bis ins 18. Jahrhundert
  13. ↑ "Vandali (Vandals) (Germans): Incorporating the Asdingas & Silingi". Kingdoms of the Germanic Tribes. English Place-name Society. 31 December 1999.
  14. ↑ [Wolfram, Herwig (1997). The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520085114. p. 4. ...."Goths, Vandals, and other East Germanic tribes were differentiated from the Germans... In keeping with this classification, post-Tacitean Scandinavians were also no longer counted among the Germans...."]
  15. ↑ Heather, Peter John (2012). "Vandals". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191735257. Retrieved January 25, 2020. "Vandals, a Germanic people..."
  16. ↑ "Natural History 4.28".
  17. ↑ Berndt, Guido M. (2010). "Hidden Tracks: On the Vandal's Paths to an African Kingdom". In Curta, Florin (ed.). Neglected Barbarians. Studies in the Early Middle Ages. Vol. 32. pp. 537–569. doi:10.1484/M.SEM-EB.3.5097. ISBN 978-2-503-53125-0.p. 549.
  18. ↑ "The Geography of Claudius Ptolemy", Book II, Chapter 10: "Greater Germany""
  19. ↑ Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides, p.85.
  20. ↑ Walter Pohl, Die Germanen, p.23
  21. ↑ Collins, Roger (2000). "Vandal Africa, 429–533". The Cambridge Ancient History. Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425–600. Vol. XIV. Cambridge University Press. p. 124
  22. ↑ Procopius Wars 3.5.18–19 in Heather 2005, p. 512
  23. ↑ Heather 2005, pp. 197–198
  24. ↑ "Mediterranean". Online Etymology Dictionary.
  25. ↑ Ralph W. Mathisen, Petronius Maximus (17 March 455 - 22 May 455)
  26. ↑ Prosper's account of the event was followed by his continuator in the 6th century, Victor of Tunnuna, a great admirer of Leo quite willing to adjust a date or bend a point (Steven Muhlberger, "Prosper's Epitoma Chronicon: was there an edition of 443?" Classical Philology 81.3 (July 1986), pp 240–244).
  27. ↑ Cameron 2000, p. 553
  28. ↑ Waldman & Mason 2006, pp. 821–825
  29. ↑ Wolfram 1997, p. 42
  30. ↑ Berndt, Guido M. (2010). "Hidden Tracks: On the Vandal's Paths to an African Kingdom". In Curta, Florin (ed.). Neglected Barbarians. Studies in the Early Middle Ages. Vol. 32. pp. 537–569. doi:10.1484/M.SEM-EB.3.5097. ISBN 978-2-503-53125-0. p. 549.
  31. ↑ Pohl, Die Germanen, p.23; Goffart, Barbarian Tides, p.298, footnote 47.
  32. ↑ Wolfram 1997, p. 42
  33. ↑ Maharaja Surajmal ruled in an age of treachery
  34. ↑ Henry Walter Bellew: An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan/Introductory remarks to an inquiry into the ethnography of Afghanistan, p.6
  35. ↑ Dryden, John, "To Sir Godfrey Kneller", 1694. Dryden also wrote of Renaissance Italy "reviving from the trance/Of Vandal, Goth and Monkish ignorance. ("To the Earl of Roscommon", 1680).
  36. ↑ Andrew H. Merrills, Richard Miles. "The Vandals". John Wiley and Sons, 2010. ISBN 9781405160681.
  37. ↑ Andrew H. Merrills, Richard Miles. "The Vandals". John Wiley and Sons, 2010. ISBN 9781405160681.
  38. ↑ Jat Itihas (Utpatti Aur Gaurav Khand)/Parishisht,pp.163-164
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