The most important repercussion of the new phase of barbarian movement was the sudden invasion of Spain, which occurred either on September 28th or (less probably) on October 13th 409.57 While the crossing of the Pyrenees would have required some effort, the mountains themselves were scarcely an insurmountable obstacle. Since the early fourth century, the overland supply routes, which stretched from the grain fields of southern Spain through the mineral rich north-west and up towards the Rhineland frontier, had been fortified, but the city walls and Pyrenean fortresses were primarily intended to see off local bandits, not to protect against a concerted invasion attempt.58 This changed somewhat during the civil wars of the early 400s, when two local aristocrats undertook the defence of the mountains from the usurper Constantine. According to Orosius, Gerontius’ defeat of these Theodosian loyalists led to a reorganization of the mountain defences and the replacement of local troops with a unit of barbarians known as the Honoriaci in the service of Constans - variously identified as British, ‘Germanic’ or Suevic federates by modern scholars.59 He goes on to state that the barbarians plundered the campi Pallentini (presumably the agricultural region around the Roman city of Palentia) and later joined the Vandals and Alans in their wide-ranging devastation of Spain. Both Orosius and the Greek historian Sozomen declare that it was their dereliction of duty which allowed the barbarians free passage into the country.60
Either way, the Vandals and other barbarians crossed the Pyrenees. Some were certainly left in Gaul: we know of groups of Alans operating more or less autonomously both in Aquitaine in the 410s and in Armorica in the middle of the century.61 Others very probably returned to Gaul with the army of Gerontius early in 410, and a famous historical tradition reminds us that the general’s closest personal companion at the time of his defeat was himself an Alan.62 Still others may have fought for Constantine or another power-broker in Gaul. But the focus of the history of the Vandals as a group thereafter moved southwards to the Iberian peninsula.
The two years which followed the crossing of the Pyrenees in autumn 409 were bleak for those living in the Spanish provinces. Three independent sources discuss the destruction caused by the barbarians in the region, and this suffering was compounded by the famine which swept through the region at the same time. Just as Jerome and the poets form the background to the activities of the Vandals in Gaul, so the Spanish chronicler Hydatius took up the narrative in Spain:
As the barbarians ran wild through Spain and the deadly pestilence continued on its savage course, the wealth and goods stored in the cities were plundered by the tyrannical tax collector and consumed by the soldiers. A famine ran riot, so dire that driven by hunger human beings devoured human flesh; mothers too feasted upon the bodies of their own children whom they had killed and cooked with their own hands; wild beasts, habituated to feeding on the bodies of those slain by the sword, famine or pestilence, killed all the braver individuals and feasting on their flesh everywhere became brutally set upon the destruction of the human race. And thus with the four plagues of sword, famine, pestilence and wild beasts raging everywhere throughout the world, the annunciations foretold by the Lord through his prophets came to fulfilment.63
This is an apocalyptic combination of famine, pestilence and barbarian warmongering. But amidst the horrors a number of details are worth noting. Hydatius implies that the towns of the peninsula were largely spared the worst ravages of the barbarian assault, a happy result perhaps of the fortifications which had been erected over the previous century. While he then states that their escape from death simply resulted in heavier taxes, this itself is significant. Continuity of taxation implied an administrative continuity, too.64 Destructive as the Vandals, Alans and Sueves may have been, the superstructure of Roman rule seems to have weathered the combined ravages of barbarian attack and famine. Conspicuously, after the barbarian depravations finally came to a halt two or three years later, the peninsula enjoyed a half-decade or so of relative prosperity.
By 411 or 412 the immediate crisis had passed. The new Roman generalissimo Constantius had successfully put down the last of the rebellions in Gaul. As if intimidated by this influential new policeman on
Figure 2.3 Hispania ad 409-422
The beat, the barbarians in Spain brought their ravaging to an end and sought peaceful settlement within the peninsula. The partition of Spain that followed is one of the stranger episodes in the early history of the Vandals. Hydatius, again, is our best source:
They then apportioned to themselves by lot areas of the provinces for settlement: the Vandals took possession of Gallaecia and the Sueves that part of Gallaecia which is situated on the very western edge of the Ocean. The Alans were allotted the provinces of Lusitania and Carthaginiensis, and the Siling Vandals Baetica. The Spaniards in the cities and forts who had survived the disasters surrendered themselves to servitude under the barbarians who held sway throughout the provinces.65
Of the five provinces of mainland Spain, four were claimed by different barbarian groups, and the fifth - the Roman political centre of Tarraconensis - remained under the government of the usurper
Maximus. Of the division itself little can be said beyond the obvious fact that the Alans took by far the largest portion and the Hasding Vandals and Sueves shared the smallest.66 Evidently, this was not a random distribution: the division probably represented the relative strengths of the different barbarian groups at the time.67 The Alans were evidently the largest and most important group, and Hydatius later alludes to the fact that the Alan King Addax had enjoyed a hegemony of some sort over both the Sueves and the Hasding Vandals.68 Quite how formal this division was is unknown. Hydatius states that the dividing up of the provinces was accomplished by the barbarians themselves, and was probably not ratified by the imperial court at Tarraco or Rome.69 In 415, the barbarians in Spain approached the imperial authorities for a formal recognition of their status, a move which would not have been necessary had their initial settlement been officially ratified.70
In 415, however, the balance of power in the imperial province of Tarraconensis changed. The position of the usurper Maximus had collapsed after the suicide of Gerontius in 411, and his own Gallic troops drove him into exile among the barbarians.71 Four years later, the hub of Roman authority on the Spanish Mediterranean coast was occupied by the Goths under King Athaulf.72 The brother-in-law and designated successor of Alaric, Athaulf had overseen the movement of the Goths through Italy and into southern Gaul, where the group enjoyed an ambivalent relationship with the imperial court at Ravenna.73 In Orosius’ rather optimistic opinion, Athaulf had pledged himself to the defence of Roman civilization with Gothic arms, and he initially proved to be a valuable ally for the empire in its struggles against the new usurpation of Jovinus in northern Gaul.74 Yet a more or less autonomous army was a dangerous prospect in the Mediterranean provinces, and Athaulf’s position was further bolstered by his capture of, and marriage to, the imperial princess Galla Placidia at the time of the sack of Rome. Threatened by this, the Roman generalissimo Constantius did his best to smother Gothic independence. In 415, Athaulf was driven from his base in Narbonne by a combination of military and economic pressure. In flight from Constantius, and apparently desperate for food, Athaulf brought his Goths to Tarraco and Barcino.75
Matters did not improve for the Goths once they entered Spain. Suffocating under the continued economic blockade, the Goths underwent a series of political convulsions. Athaulf was assassinated in the summer of 415, apparently by his own men, and his successor Segeric was also killed shortly afterwards.76 Meanwhile the Vandals mocked the Goths in their suffering, even as they sold them grain at prohibitive prices.77 In an effort to break this stranglehold, a small number of Goths attempted to cross into Mauretania but this, too, ended in ignominious failure, and the new Gothic king Wallia was forced to try to consolidate his position.78 The result seems to have been a shuffling of the political deck within Spain. All of the barbarian groups took this opportunity to open lines of negotiation with Constantius, either to offer themselves to the service of the court, or to pre-empt imperial action in their own corners of the Iberian Peninsula.79
Ultimately, it was Wallia who was nominated as agent of the empire, and in ad 417-18 he commanded a devastating campaign against the other barbarian groups within Spain.80 The Siling Vandals in Baetica and the Alans in Lusitania were decisively defeated in a campaign that was presumably intended to re-establish imperial control over the city of Merida and the rich grain-producing lands of southern Spain.81 Hydatius states firmly that the Silings were entirely destroyed, and although this is certainly an exaggeration, nothing more is heard of them.82 King Addax of the Alans was killed during the same campaign, and his followers turned to Gunderic of the Vandals for refuge.83 Significantly, Wallia never marched into Gallaecia, and both the Hasding Vandals and the Sueves escaped from his systematic conquest unscathed. This was probably simply a reflection of the strategic irrelevance of Gallaecia, and the relative unimportance of the Sueves and Vandals settled there.84 Constantius may also have regarded the barbarians as a potential source of military manpower, which he wished to keep available.85 At the very least, neither group would seem to have been regarded as a major military threat, and Wallia was removed from Spain and resettled in Aquitaine in 418.86
The Hasdings - now apparently reinforced by the last remnants of the Lusitanian Alans - then came into conflict with their Suevic neighbours in Gallaecia, probably in around 420. This conflict was most likely caused by the re-emergence from obscurity of the imperial pretender Maximus, who had once been Gerontius’ puppet in Spain. We know from several sources that Maximus found refuge with the barbarians after he had been deposed by his own troops, and a Gallic chronicle reports that a usurper of the same name rose to prominence in Gallaecia in 420.87 In the same year an imperial army under the comes Hispaniarum Asterius arrived in Gallaecia. Hydatius’ cursory account of these events tells us only that Asterius relieved the Sueves, who were under siege by the Vandals at the time, and then inflicted a minor defeat upon the Hasdings, which forced them to retreat towards Baetica.88
With hindsight, Asterius’ campaign was a strategic disaster. As a direct result of his intervention, the Vandals were bumped from a peripheral province at the edge of the empire into the rich lands of southern Spain, whence they set about establishing themselves as a major power within the peninsula. But at the time the expedition was viewed as a success. Asterius was declared a patrician shortly after his recall from Spain - a social rank that seems to have been reserved for particular imperial favourites in this period.89 We can conclude from this that his campaign in Gallaecia was never intended to be a major action against the Vandals, but was rather an attempt to crush Maximus’ embryonic usurpation before it gained momentum.90 This was certainly the impression of one Consentius, who wrote to Augustine from the Balearic islands in 420, and who probably reflects the assumptions of the Hispano-Roman establishment at this time.91 To the mind of the imperial establishment at Ravenna, Maximus simply posed a greater threat to the empire than either the Vandals or the Sueves. The suppression of the usurpation was a success. Maximus was captured - perhaps in the battle in which the Vandals were defeated - and was taken to Ravenna with his companion Jovinus. There, the two of them were executed at a public games held in honour of the tricennalia of Honorius.92
Within two years, however, this smug triumphalism began to look distinctly short-sighted. Far from evaporating in the warm air of Baetica, the Vandals revealed themselves to be a major threat to imperial interests in the south. Shortly after Asterius’ promotion, the comes domesticorum Castinus was charged with clearing up the mess that his predecessor had left.93 Allied with the magister militum Boniface - the ‘golden boy’ of the western military, following his victories over usurpers in Gaul - and aided further by the presence of a substantial number of Gothic federates, Castinus moved to engage the barbarians. Despite quarrels with Boniface, and the latter’s petulant departure for Africa in a sulk, Castinus was initially successful against the Vandals and was only deprived of a substantial victory by his desire for something more decisive.94 No doubt buoyed by the reflection that the Vandals had engaged in only two (or perhaps three) fixed battles over the previous 15 years, and had lost all of them, Castinus resolved to engage his opponents in the open field. But the Roman general was betrayed by his Gothic federates and suffered a humiliating defeat.95
Castinus’ defeat might justly be regarded as one of the most significant battles in the history of the western Roman empire, yet we know remarkably little about it. Hydatius implies that it was a siege of some description, but whether this represents the defence of a hill-top or (less probably) that of a town is unclear.96 The result, however, was not. At one stroke, the Hasding Vandals were transformed in the most unlikely fashion from a fugitive group, simply awaiting their coup de grace, to undisputed masters of southern Spain. Modern scholarship has tended to underplay the significance of this victory, largely because the Vandals were assumed to have been a formidable group at the time of the battle. In fact, the defeat of Castinus represented the first certain military victory in Vandal history, and it signalled the start of their great consolidation of power - first in southern Spain and Mauretania, and then in the provinces around Hippo and Carthage.
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