Gaiseric turned a minor Germanic tribe into a Mediterranean naval power
Lame from a riding fall, sparing with words and scornful of luxury, Gaiseric led the Vandals out of Spain, across the Straits of Gibraltar and into Roman Africa. Within a generation he held Carthage, commanded much of the western Roman fleet, and sacked Rome itself.
His father Godigisel died fighting the Franks during the Vandals' crossing of the Rhine, leaving Gaiseric second only to his half-brother, King Gunderic. The chronicler Jordanes painted him as a man of middling height, thoughtful and quiet, quick to fury, hungry for wealth, and gifted at winning allies and setting enemies against each other. When Gunderic died in 428, Gaiseric took the throne of the Vandals and Alans, then living in southern Spain and battered by the larger Visigothic forces.
He seems to have been building ships even before becoming king. First he beat off a Suebian army at Mérida in 428, its commander drowning in the Guadiana while fleeing. Then in 428 or 429 he ferried his people to Africa; estimates run from 80,000 down to perhaps 20,000. The Roman governor Bonifacius may have invited them as allies against his rival Aetius. The Vandals overran what is now Morocco and northern Algeria and besieged Hippo Regius for 14 months, during which its bishop, Augustine, died of illness.
A treaty in 435 recognised Gaiseric's conquests in exchange for tribute and his son Huneric as a hostage. Then, on 19 October 439, while Aetius was busy in Gaul, he seized Carthage by surprise, capturing a large share of the western Roman navy in its harbour. An Arian Christian, he exiled the city's Catholic bishop to Naples and reportedly executed four counsellors who refused to convert.
When Emperor Valentinian III, who had promised his daughter to Huneric, was murdered, Gaiseric invaded Italy and plundered Rome in June 455. He crushed Roman attempts to retake Africa under Majorian in 460 and Basiliscus in 468, after which Rome made peace. He died in Carthage on 25 January 477, after nearly half a century as king.
Source: Gaiseric
