The literary life of Vandal North Africa has not always attracted the attention that it deserves. Scholars, exasperated by what they considered to be bad Latin poetry and shoddy artistic endeavour, have often been quick to dismiss what has survived as the laboured efforts of a society increasingly devoid of inspiration or technical expertise. In the introduction to his study of the works of the sixth-century North African writer, Fulgentius ‘the Mythographer’, L. G. Whitbread perfectly encapsulated the rather damning verdict that much of nineteenth - and twentieth-century scholarship had delivered on the literary output of the period:
At worst, the Latin is appalling - decadent, involved, littered with wasteful connectives and rhetorical extravagances, pompous, inflated, pretentious, prolix, infested with Asianic exaggeration. The colours of rhetoric turn psychedelic; enormous sentences confront lucidity like barbed wire entanglements. And as the style is without grace, so are the purposes and methods muddleheaded and dubious, and displays of learning second hand and suspect.1
Fulgentius does not stand alone in attracting such harsh criticism, and many of the other writers of poetry and prose in this period have attracted the caustic comments of generations of modern scholars brought up on Vergil and Cicero.2 But what is remarkable is that so many writers flourished in North Africa in this period, and that so many of their works have survived. In sheer volume alone, the literary output of Vandal Africa is impressive, and in some specific cases the productions of the period deserve to rank alongside any from the late Roman and postRoman west.
The study of Latin poetry in the Vandal kingdom is dominated by two collections of verse. The first - and in purely literary terms the superior
The Vandals Andy Merrills and Richard Miles © 2010 Andy Merrills and Richard Miles. ISBN: 978-1-405-16068-1
- is the collected oeuvre of the poet Blossius Aemilianus Dracontius, who wrote in the second half of the fifth century during the reigns of Huneric, Gunthamund and Thrasamund. His works, which include short occasional pieces as well as two long Christian verses, certainly rank among the best literature of the age. But much of Dracontius’ poetry was written from a prison cell in Carthage, where he was incarcerated during the reign of Gunthamund. Rather less accomplished, but striking in its variety and vivacity is the Latin Anthology or Anthologia Latina, a surprising and varied medley of poetry which survives in a single ninth-century manuscript, and which would seem to have been compiled at the time of the fall of the Vandal kingdom or shortly thereafter.3 The collection includes some material by classical writers such as Vergil, Propertius and Ovid, as well as a considerable body of work which was certainly composed under the Vandals. To judge from the sheer number of writers assembled in the collection - 15 named poets are listed within the Anthology who can probably be dated to the Vandal period - there was a considerable fashion for poetry of this kind within the Hasding kingdom. None of these poets was as accomplished as Dracontius in purely literary terms, but they seem to have enjoyed a rather more fruitful relationship with their patrons. It is something of a paradox that Dracontius
- the ‘best’ poet working in the kingdom - was overshadowed politically by his less-talented contemporaries; this is an issue which we shall explore in depth in this chapter.
Equally important to the culture of North Africa in this period was the fate of the cities under the Vandals. Like the literature of the period, post-Roman urban life was long dismissed by scholars more attuned to the spectacular ornaments of the classical world, but a recent generation of scholars has been more inclined to view the civic society of the Vandals more positively. We have already seen how the gradual transformation of the economic landscape within North Africa had an effect upon the region’s cities, but these changes also had a cultural dimension. Here again, our image is mixed and occasionally puzzling, and impressive foundations did not always ensure lasting success. Carthage, for example, provides a mixed picture of continuity and change. Many prominent public buildings, including some of the most prominent landmarks of the city, were abandoned or put to new uses, others seem to have continued in use down to the vast urban regeneration campaign of Justinian in the mid-sixth century. Likewise, some neighbourhoods survived and flourished under the Vandals, while others fell into desuetude. Much the same pattern is apparent throughout the Vandal kingdom, indeed throughout North Africa as a whole.
The present chapter will examine continuity and change within the secular culture of North Africa. It will look first at the evidence for urban life within North Africa in this period, and then will explore the literary culture which continued to flourish within the towns themselves. The image which emerges is by no means straightforward. Depending on where we focus - the poems or buildings which we choose to examine - the culture of the Vandal period can be viewed as a triumph or as a disaster. Clearly, we cannot treat these two imposters just the same, and a balanced image of the Vandal kingdom must incorporate images of decay and decline alongside the striking evidence for a continued classical tradition.
World History
