Modest as it is, this historical information at least provides some broad geographical stage for the earliest acts of Vandal history. To judge from the scatter of references to the Vandals across the Middle Danube region, several different groups may well have borne the name. The presence of ‘Vandal’ raids into Dacia and Noricum, and their evident friction with the Marcomanni, suggests that the settlement of these groups was probably concentrated in the northern parts of the Alfold or the Great Hungarian Plain.16 Archaeological investigation helps to narrow this down rather further, although not with the precision that was once believed. Detailed field surveys and piecemeal excavation reveal that the woody wetlands of the Upper Tisza Valley were relatively well populated during the later Roman period, and this is probably the region where the Vandals were settled. The region is generously watered and fertile, and also straddles a communications crossroads, marking as it does the principal routes of access between the Transylvanian plateau in the east, the Carpathian range in the north and the Hungarian plain to the south. Due west of the region, moreover, is the Great Bend of the Danube and the major crossing point at Aquincum. If we are to place the Vandals of the second and third centuries anywhere, it should be in the hamlets and agricultural settlements of the Upper Tisza.
Conventionally, a handful of warrior graves on the Upper Tisza have been labelled as specifically ‘Vandal’, in contrast to ‘Sarmatian’, ‘Quadic’ and ‘Dacian’ graves and settlements elsewhere in the plain.17 Unfortunately, there is little to sustain this identification - our texts are silent on the precise location of Vandal settlement, and archaeology in itself is a notoriously unstable platform for ethnographic labelling. The supposed association of the material culture of the Tisza graves with the so-called Przeworsk culture of central Poland is hardly a basis for confident identification, as was discussed in the previous chapter. If we turn to the textual sources for assistance, the picture becomes still murkier. Ancient historians tell us about a displaced ‘Dacian’ or ‘Getic’ population in the area to the south of the Carpathians, along with Sarmatians and Iazyges who are said to have arrived from the east in the first cen-tury.18 Inscriptions similarly refer to Carpi, Sarmatians, Taifali, Peuki, Zorani, Bastarnae and several different Gothic groups.19 None of these peoples can be identified firmly on the ground, and there is no reason to suppose that the Vandals would be any easier to find.20 But if we should be cautious in trying to distinguish ‘Vandals’ from ‘Sarmatians’, ‘Dacians’ or ‘Iazyges’ in the archaeological record, we can at least be confident in assessing the social, political and cultural environment in which all of these groups are likely to have interacted.
The archaeology of the Tisza basin provides the only means to investigate the cultural setting in which the Vandals (and their neighbours) developed in the second, third and fourth centuries. Two overarching trends are particularly clear.21 The first of these might broadly be described as the gradual spread of ‘Roman’ influence throughout these groups. From the second century onwards, Roman jewellery began to appear in high status graves in the region, often combining with traditional forms of personal adornment to create a startling hybrid effect. Local ceramic manufacture, too, was influenced by an increased circulation of imported pottery, and began to adopt increasingly ‘Mediterranean’ forms. And even settlement location was shaped by cultural and economic forces from elsewhere. While detailed study of settlement in the Tisza Valley has revealed a strong adherence to established settlement patterns (and often closely respects features of the landscape like ancestral tombs), Roman military forts and watchtowers also acted as powerful economic magnets, drawing clusters of settlement on both sides of the frontier.22
Perhaps paradoxically, the other noticeable pattern in the archaeological record is a distinct level of continuity in many aspects of social and economic life. Regionally specific luxuries circulated alongside imported Roman goods, and foodstuffs continued to be transported (and eaten) in local containers as well as Mediterranean vessels.23 The point is most clearly demonstrated by patterns of settlement within the Upper Tisza Valley. Here, despite an apparent growth in population, and an increased emphasis upon settlement near the Roman frontiers, occupation patterns retained a strongly conservative dimension. Many settlements remained in continuous occupation, and even those which grew during this period frequently respected the prominent features of the prehistoric landscape, which suggests a strong continuity in sacral behaviour.
This continuity and change occurred against a background of considerable political upheaval within the region as a whole. The establishment of the Roman military presence on the Danube and in Dacia during the first and second centuries, the conflict of the Marcomannic Wars in the mid-second, and the eventual abandonment of Dacia by the empire in the 270s all had massive repercussions in the political sphere. On a less dramatic level, prolonged contact with the extensive frontier zone of the empire also created an unstable political stage. The few glimpses that we have had of Vandal activity in this period illustrate vividly the enormous influence of the empire on the political balance of the frontier zone. We have seen the Vandals and the Astingi as the allies of the empire, used as a tool to attack other barbarian groups; as enemies who were themselves the victims of aggressive imperial diplomacy and as a manpower reserve which could supply auxiliary troops for the Roman army.
Diplomatic relations of this kind had a catalytic effect upon the social and political development of communities on the frontiers. This process has been particularly well-studied for the Franks on the Rhine frontier and the Alamanni in the Rhine-Danube re-entrant, but is perhaps best known with respect to the Goths on the Lower Danube, from the middle of the third century.24 Here, prolonged contact with the Roman empire saw the Tervingi and Greuthungi - two hitherto obscure war-bands - emerge as major political players north of the frontier. This increase in political power may be charted in the spread of an increasingly homogeneous material culture throughout the northern and eastern Carpathians, and eventually to the creation of a genuine new threat to the Roman empire in the east. When the Goths started to flex their political muscles, the barbarian and Roman worlds took notice.
From what we can gather, no group became dominant in the same way within the Tisza basin. Extensive textual references would suggest that the Sarmatians were the principal recipients of Roman support within the Alfold, and it seems likely that the vast earthworks which still scar the plain represent a systematic programme of Roman military aid during the early fourth century.25 The Vandals, by contrast, did not rise to particular prominence along the Danube frontier. The strong patterns of continuity evident in the material record, and the relative paucity of references to the Vandals in the textual accounts, all suggest that the group remained relatively insignificant in a geo-political sense. As a small handful of groups bullied their way to prominence in the frontier zone, the relatively underdeveloped Vandals - along with many of their neighbours - were jostled along in their wake. While the Goths rapidly seem to have grown into something like a coherent political entity during the third century, and the Sarmatians found their own niche under the benevolent aegis of the empire, the Vandals remained a small and insignificant warband. This was to change over the course of the fifth century, and to change dramatically. But the Vandal ‘coming of age’ took place a long way from the Danube.
In the last quarter of the fourth century, the balance of power on the Middle Danube began to teeter precariously. The settlement in Thrace of a substantial number of Gothic refugees in ad 376 is conventionally regarded as the crucial turning point. The abuse of the group by the Roman provincial authorities, the subsequent revolt of the Goths and their crushing defeat of the imperial army in the environs of Constantinople in 378 created a semi-autonomous new military power in the Balkans, even after the peace settlement of 382.26 Elsewhere tensions continued to run high. In a letter of 396 to the bishop of Altinum,
Jerome laments two decades of suffering across ‘Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dardania, Dacia, Thessaly, Achaia, Epirus, Dalmatia, the Pannonias’ at the hands of assorted ‘Goths and Sarmatians, Quadi and Alans, Huns and Vandals and Marcomanni’.27 The Vandals again feature only among the supporting cast, but within a drama that was rapidly reaching its climax.
Matters came to a head in the first decade of the fifth century, when the deep political currents swirling around northern Italy saw the Vandals and their fellow bit-players wash up on the frontiers of Gaul. The initial catalyst for this was Radagaisus, an independent Gothic king who led a massive army, perhaps including some groups of Vandals, from the Danube across Raetia and into Italy in ad 405.28 His campaign was devastating, and was recalled with horror by later Christian commentators, but was ultimately unsuccessful.29 In 406, on the verge of securing Florence, Radagaisus was driven back by the forces of the magister militum Stilicho, who arrived on the scene with a mixed force of Romans and allied barbarians. Radagaisus was forced into flight, and eventually starved into surrender at the heights of Fiesole. There he was executed, many of his troops apparently allied themselves with Stilicho, and others scattered to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
The standard military narrative of this period now turns to a second Gothic soldier, Alaric in Illyricum. Since the turn of the fifth century, Alaric had been involved in a complex power struggle with Stilicho. This had temporarily subsided at the time of Radagaisus’ invasion, but erupted again in the years that followed. In 407, Alaric marched on Italy, setting in chain a series of events which led to Stilicho’s execution in 408 and - ultimately - to the Gothic sack of Rome in 410.30 But as the attentions of contemporaries and historians turned to the unfolding power struggle between a Roman generalissimo and a Gothic king with powerful friends in Constantinople, the frontier did not remain silent. The successive threats posed by Radagaisus and Alaric forced Stilicho to withdraw many troops away from the frontiers and to keep them in northern Italy, leaving the protection of Roman interests in the frontier regions to a number of federated Frankish and Alaman troops.31 This changing balance of power in the northern militarized zone had dramatic consequences in the long term.
Even as Radagaisus crashed into Italy in ad 405, other groups appear to have been moving within the frontier region.32 These changes went largely unobserved by contemporaries more focused on the unfolding drama in the cockpit of northern Italy, but groups of Vandals and their allies were increasingly prominent on the Rhine frontier. Two independent sources describe a major conflict in the Rhineland, probably between Frankish federates and a Vandal army. Renatus Frigeridus, in a passage preserved in the Histories of Gregory of Tours, states that a Vandal army was badly mauled by the Franks, losing their king in combat, and avoiding total annihilation only by the timely intervention of their Alan allies.33 Orosius’ History of c. 417 does not support this exactly, but it does describe a major Frankish defeat in the Rhineland, which left the frontier region open to the barbarians.34 The impact of this disaster for the empire was compounded by the dispersal of Radagaisus’ followers following the defeat at Fiesole in 406. Some of these troops, including perhaps some Vandals, headed north to seek their fortune in the frontier zone; others crossed the Alps into eastern Gaul, where their presence sent shivers throughout the western provinces.35
This had ominous implications for the Roman provinces of Gaul, where stability was further threatened by the prospect of military rebellion across the channel in Britain.36 The appearance of barbarian troops in eastern Gaul in the summer of 406 caused panic among the legions in Britain. The army there mutinied and in successive coups proclaimed three of their officers as emperor during the autumn and winter of 406/407.37 The last of these was the usurper Constantine, who had apparently risen from the ranks before being elevated to the purple in February 407 on the strength of his auspicious name. Almost immediately his attention turned to the mounting crisis on the continent. In the last days of 406 - on New Year’s Eve of that year according to our only source - a mixed group of Alans, Vandals and Sueves had crossed into Gaul, and were threatening the crucial supply port of Bononia. The security of the empire was threatened, Constantine departed for Gaul, and the Vandals had started on the next phase of their history.
World History
