The Hasdings did have a role to play within the economic development of their kingdom, but the prosperity of the region, and the difficulties it faced, resulted from factors far beyond the control of the rulers in Carthage. Like other regions in the Late Antique Mediterranean, North Africa had started to undergo substantial changes from the fourth century, for social and political as well as economic reasons. This reached a tipping point in the western Mediterranean in the middle of the fifth century, when the collapse of the imperial taxation system removed one of the major supports for the economy of the empire. The Vandals can claim some responsibility for this change - it was, after all, the capture of Carthage which marked the end of the annona, and the sack of Rome in 455 certainly added to the woes of the western empire. But the full economic implications of these actions were revealed only slowly.
Within North Africa, the Vandals presided over something of an Indian summer for the ancient economy. Farms continued to produce and even diversified, many towns continued to flourish, and money which once flowed northwards to the imperial capital remained within Africa itself, to the benefit of its inhabitants. This was not a situation which could last forever: prosperity depends upon continued demand as well as supply, and there is every indication that this had begun to decline over the course of the fifth century. To the Hasdings’ credit, however, they did not simply watch the great imperial economic machine unwind. The Vandal state continued to tax its inhabitants, and to provide some degree of public spending. Equally significantly, the Hasding kings followed an ambitious monetary policy, which further stimulated daily exchange within the kingdom and (more importantly) acted as a catalyst for international contact with both Italy and the eastern empire.
When Belisarius and Procopius entered Carthage, they found a fiscal system which they could barely understand; to be re-integrated into the new Roman empire, the region would have to undergo a complete financial re-appraisal. The effort which this took testifies to the changes which had taken place in the African economy (and in the economy of Constantinople) since 439, but should not be regarded as evidence for its failure. As Procopius testifies, the Vandals were extraordinarily rich at the time of the Byzantine conquest, but it seems likely that many of their Roman subjects were too.
World History
