When we think of the barbarians, we think of hordes of bellicose warriors storming across the plains to attack Rome. But that’s wrong. It was more of a migration. Think of those wagon trains rolling across the American West, full of brave pioneers searching for a new future. That’s a more accurate image, particularly in the case of another great barbarian nation whose name has been well and truly blackened by Dark Age propaganda – The Vandals.

According to my Shorter Oxford Dictionary, a vandal is “a wilful or ignorant destroyer of anything beautiful, venerable or worthy of preservation”.

That’s what it meant in 1663, but it shouldn’t be what it means today. The story of the Vandals is actually rather poignant.

They were basically a nation of Germanic farmers, living peacefully in central Europe until the Huns pushed them out. For a while, they ended up here in Spain, until a group of Goths pushed them out of there as well, and the poor old Vandals had to move on again to here – north Africa.

In 429 A.D., 80,000 people came across the Straits of Gibraltar, crammed onto small boats.

A kingdom on the move, looking for a homeland. The Vandals had arrived in Africa. Originally, this word “vandal” meant something like “wanderer”. Someone who is looking for something. It comes from the same Germanic root as the English word “to wend”, as in “I was wending my way home from work”. And the Vandals were great wenders and great wanderers.

King Genseric

The Vandals who arrived here in Africa were led by a formidable king called Genseric. If you think of the Vandals as a lost people and Africa as the promised land, then Genseric was their Moses, leading them across the oceans.

They made their way along the North African coast, attacking cities, collecting followers, absorbing territory, until, eventually, in 439 A.D., the reached their destination… Carthage.

Carthage Rome’s second-largest city in the Western Roman Empire. Busy, rich, a crucial trading centre. The Romans depended on it for the olive oil they burned in lamps and the wheat from which they made their bread.

When the Vandals took Carthage, they shocked the Roman Empire.

The capture of Carthage was surprisingly peaceful. King Genseric was so clever. He entered the city on 19 October, the day of the Roman games. Sports day. Now, the Romans, who were obsessed with sports, were far too interested in the gladiatorial combat and the chariot racing to fight the Vandals.

Thus, King Genseric and his vandal army strolled into the second-largest city of the Western Roman Empire, took control of it, and stayed there for the next century.

People used to think the Vandals went about destroying and pillaging Carthage as soon as they got here. But today, we know they didn’t. The most remarkable thing about the Vandal occupation of Africa is not how much they destroyed, but how little. Later on, angry Romans and Christians writing of these events made sure they blackened the Vandals’ reputation as they did with all the barbarians. But the art that remains from these times tells a different story.

To signal their new status as overlords of Rome’s most prosperous province, the Vandals did what the nouveau riche always do – they spent money on the arts. Their jewellers were commanded to make gorgeous Vandal bling. And out in the countryside, they built elegant villas for themselves and filled them with superb decorations. That’s the Julius Mosaic. It’s one of the masterpieces of the period. And Julius himself sitting there in his white robe, and he’s the man who commissioned the mosaic.

No-one is 100% certain if this was made just before the Vandals got here or just after. And that is the most telling thing about it. This is how rich Romans lived and also rich Vandals. Julius’s house, where this was found, is shown in the middle – the posh, fortified villa. Those domes at the back are the bathhouses, the equivalent today of a luxury swimming pool. All around the villa are busy scenes of rural life in North Africa. Up on the left, that’s winter. See the people picking olives? That’s what you did in winter. On the other side, on the right, is summer. See the shepherds with their summer flock and of those fields of ripe wheat behind them.

Down here are spring and autumn. Spring is the season of flowers, and there’s Mrs Julius in her garden admiring herself in a mirror while a servant brings her a bowl of roses. They are beautiful and so is she.

On the other side, it is autumn, and there is Lord Julius himself, sitting on a throne in his orchard, while a labourer brings him a basket of grapes and a hare is caught running about the vines.

This is mosaic making of the highest calibre. So imaginative and clever. It isn’t just a portrait of Julius and his house, this is a visualisation of the perfect lifestyle. A rural dream made real. The message here is how glorious life is when man lives in harmony with nature. When order prevails and the land is fertile and balanced. Welcome to the good life in Africa.

King Thrasamund

Instead of knocking down Carthage, the Vandals set about making it more homely. They put small houses in the huge Roman clearings and, famously, an ambitious new bath house was built here by the art-loving Vandal king, Thrasamund. Bathhouses were hugely important in Roman society. They were a kind of social club where people will chat and gossip, a bit like modern health clubs, except much cheaper. Roman bathhouses had two main spaces – a hot room, or caldarium, that heated you up, and a cold room, or frigidarium, that cooled you down. These are the ruins.

The largest of all the Roman bath complexes was here in Carthage – the Antonine Baths, built in the second century by the Roman emperor, Antoninus Pius. These are the ruins.

So imagine how big the baths must have been.

Long before the Vandals conquered Carthage, the Antonine Baths had fallen into disrepair. So the Vandal king, Thrasamund, built some new ones. We know a lot about Thrasamund’s baths, because, amazingly, a collection of Vandal poems on the subject have survived.

That’s right. Vandal poems. The Vandals were particularly keen on poetry, and hundreds of poems written here in Carthage in the Vandal years have survived. And this thick book of unexpected literature tells us so much about them.

A poet called Felix has left behind an evocative description of Thrasamund’s a bathhouse. “This magnificent monument was erected by Royal command where water and fire display their obedience.”

There were no less than five poems by Felix about these great baths, and the big idea in all of them is this dramatic contrast between the cool, refreshing springs of the frigidarium and the hot, boiling waters of the caldarium.

Here, says Felix “I see spring waters exist harmoniously with flames. Here, the shivering nymph is startled by the fiery bath.”

Felix’s poems were displayed, all around you as you bathed, as mosaics, so they surrounded you, pushed their way into your thoughts, and as you read them, you are prompted to marvel At this great miracle achieved here by Thrasamund.

In the Vandal baths, Thrasamund has achieved the ultimate harmony – Thrasamund has united fire and water.

External Links

The Vandals – Wikipedia Page