Germanic people, originally from the Baltic area between Szczecin and Gdansk in Northern Poland, who invaded Gaul in 406, and set up a kingdom in Spain The majority of the Vandals migrated to Africa, where they founded a state which survived until the reconquest of the western Mediterranean under Justinian (535)
A group of Teutonic (German) tribes, who, during the fifth century, fought their way westward across the Rhine (406) and the Pyrenees (409) Led by their hero king, Genseric (d 477), from 428 to 477, they went on to Africa where they captured Carthage (439) and made it their capital From this base, they attacked Constantinople and Rome, plundering and destroying all in their way With Genseric's death, their power declined rapidly
A vandal is someone who deliberately damages things, especially public property. someone who deliberately damages things, especially public property (Vandal). Any member of a Germanic people who ruled a kingdom in North Africa from 429 to 534 and who sacked Rome in 455. Fleeing westward from the Huns, they invaded Gaul before settling in Spain (409). Under King Gaiseric (r. 428-477) they migrated to North Africa and became federates of Rome (435). Four years later Gaiseric threw off Roman overlordship and captured Carthage. The Vandals later annexed Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, and their pirate fleets controlled much of the western Mediterranean. When they invaded Italy and captured Rome (455), they plundered the city and its artworks, and their name has remained a synonym for willful desecration and destruction. The Vandals were Arian Christians (see Arianism) who persecuted Roman Catholics in Africa. They were conquered when the Byzantines invaded North Africa (533-534)
One of a Teutonic race, formerly dwelling on the south shore of the Baltic, the most barbarous and fierce of the northern nations that plundered Rome in the 5th century, notorious for destroying the monuments of art and literature