Vandals, Alans and Sueves

It is possible that individuals who were regarded as Vandals by the historians and poets of Roman North Africa continued to maintain secondary ethnic affiliations. In other words, those Sueves and Alans whom Procopius claimed had disappeared among the greater body of Vandals may well have maintained their own distinct identities. The evidence for this, however, is rather less substantial than many commentators have assumed. There is little to suggest, for example, that the Alans had their own distinct military organization, or maintained distinctive naming practices. The most striking evidence in favour of a continued ethnic identity comes from official documentation. After the Byzantine conquest, Justinian claimed the victory title Alanus Vandalicus Afri-canus (Alan-, Vandal - and Africa-Conqueror).48 Of more direct relevance is the legislation of Huneric which was issued in the name of Rex Hunirix wandalorum et alanorum (Huneric, king of the Vandals and the Alans).49 Some 50 years later, the last of the Hasding kings was celebrated as Geilamir rex Vandalorum et Alanorum in an inscription on a magnificent silver basin, probably sent to the Ostrogothic court as a diplomatic gift.50 This dual claim to authority may have been a hangover from the peculiar alliance of the Alans and the Hasdings after Wallia’s campaigns in 416, or might simply reflect the pretensions of Huneric and Gelimer, who felt that their authority might be bolstered by an anachronistic claim to rule over an obsolescent group.51 Given the fact that no other Hasding king claimed authority over the group (Gunthamund and Thrasamund are both Rex Vandalorum in the few cases when their titulature includes an ethnonym), and most Hasding titulature simply employs rex or dominus, it seems unlikely that the Alans existed as a meaningful political entity within North Africa after the first generation of occupation.52 Nevertheless, a small handful of apparently ‘Alanic’ names are known from North Africa in the Vandal period, and individuals may well have maintained some sense of ethnic independence from the great mass of Vandals.53

An epitaph discovered in the Grand Basilica in Hippo in 1951 provides our other possible evidence for the survival of significant sub-groups within the Vandal population. This inscription was erected in ad 474 to commemorate the death of a woman called Ermengon, who was survived by her husband Ingomar.54 From the epitaph that he erected, we know that Ermengon was 35 at the time of her death, and that she was regarded by her husband as a Suava or Sueve. It may well be that this couple were not natives of the Vandal kingdom, and that Ingomar was actually an ambassador or merchant from the Suevic kingdom who had died abroad, although the presence of his wife in Hippo would argue against this. If both were subjects of Geiseric, however, the epitaph would indicate that individuals born at around the time of the fall of Carthage could maintain their Suevic identity throughout their life. This need not have excluded Ermengon and Ingomar from assuming a Vandal identity too - they may have been viewed as part of a Suevic community among the Vandals - but it does indicate how complex the politics of identity formation could be in this period.