General Conclusions

Within North Africa, the consequences of the Vandal occupation were at once dramatic and surprisingly short lived. Our literary sources testify to

The sheer terror that the invaders inspired, and many former inhabitants of the region were scattered to the distant shores of the Mediterranean. The heart of the African political system was also transplanted, as Vandal kings replaced imperial proconsuls in their own palace. Royal authority evolved anew, and the Hasding monarchs drew upon Vandal, Roman and even Punic ideologies in creating a form of rulership in their own image. Court society emerges only imperfectly from the textual and archaeological sources available to us, but its outlines are clear.

But many networks of power remained in place. The Vandal occupation was largely limited to the fertile valleys around Carthage, and the presence in Byzacena and Numidia was probably largely limited to military garrisons and estates held in the name of the Hasding family. In these regions, still rich agricultural and pastoral lands, the change of government in Carthage meant relatively little. Provincial government remained in the hands of the senatorial aristocracy (at least of those who had not flown at the coming of the barbarians), and municipal government, too, remained active. Where change came in these regions it was not from the Vandals, but from the emergence of new - rival - centres of political activity on the periphery of the Vandal kingdom. Moorish rulers provided local aristocracies with new channels for political and economic development.

Among these changes, the inhabitants of North Africa continued to live alongside one another in (relative) peace and (general) prosperity. The political systems functioned, educational and legal structures remained strong. These relations did occasionally descend into violence and persecution, as is well known, but the fault lines within this society did not run simply along the ethnic boundary between ‘Vandal’ and ‘Roman’. Geiseric and Huneric victimized Vandals as well as Romans, Arians as well as Catholics. Romano-Africans could earn promotion within the Vandal court and municipal aristocracy, just as Vandals could find themselves ostracised for political, religious or personal reasons. But the overall impression of the kingdom of Vandal Carthage is of integration under a strong - and evolving - form of kingship.