1 janv. 455 - Rome sacked by Vandals

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The Vandals were a "barbarian" Germanic people who sacked Rome, battled the Huns and the Goths, and founded a kingdom in North Africa that flourished for about a century until it succumbed to an invasion force from the Byzantine Empire in A.D. 534. While the Vandals did sack Rome in A.D. 455, they spared most of the city's inhabitants and did not burn down its buildings. "Despite the negative connotation their name now carries, the Vandals conducted themselves much better during the sack of Rome than did many other invading barbarians.

The Vandal king Genseric had become so powerful by 455 that his son, Huneric, was set to marry a Roman princess named Eudocia. When the now grown-up Valentinian III was murdered in that year, and Eudocia was pledged to another man, the enraged Genseric moved his force toward Rome.
"For fourteen days, the Vandals slowly and leisurely plunder the city of its wealth. Everything was taken down from the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill, and the churches were emptied of their collected treasures," writes Jacobsen.

"Despite the great indignity of the sack of Rome, it appears that Genseric was true to his word and did not destroy the buildings. Also, we hear nothing of any killings." However, Genseric was said to have brought some of the Romans back to North Africa as slaves.

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