Sale: CNG 79, Lot: 1297. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 17 September 2008.  Sold For $170. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

VANDALS. temp. Gaiseric to Gunthamund. Circa 440-490. AR Siliqua (1.64 g, 8h). Imitative Group. Pseudo-Ravenna mint in Carthage. Struck in the name of Honorius. [D N HO]NORI [VS P F ΛVG], pearl-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right / [VRBS] ROIIΛ, Roma seated left on cuirass, holding Victory on globe and scepter; [RVPS]. MEC 1, 1-3; Morrisson & Schwartz 11 (this coin, illustrated); BMC Vandals 6-9. Fine, toned, minor deposits, light scratches.

For nearly one hundred years the Vandals controlled a kingdom based approximately in what had been the Roman province of Africa. This Germanic tribe crossed the frozen Rhine in AD 406, and proceeded to ravage Gaul, and then Spain in AD 409. Over the next three decades, the main group splintered into a number of factions, two of the largest of which settled in Spain. Almost immediately, another Germanic tribe, the Visigoths, who had also settled in Spain, attacked these factions and destroyed them, save for a small group that took refuge in Gaul. As Visigothic Spain became permanently hostile to them, this group, under Gaiseric, crossed into North Africa at the behest of Count Boniface, a Roman rebel who hoped to use them against the emperor Valentinian III. Boniface misread the situation, though, and soon thereafter Gaiseric and his tribesmen sacked Carthage and overran the surrounding territory. So fierce were Gaiseric’s Vandals that in AD 435, their kingdom was recognized in a treaty with the emperor Valentinian III. Nonetheless, hostilities continued, and Gaiseric conquered the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica, and a portion of Sicily. Most significantly, Gaiseric sacked Rome in AD 455 and defeated a large expedition sent against him in AD 468. Gaiseric’s successors, however, were not able to build upon his achievements, and their kingdom only held out until the Byzantine general Belisarius captured Carthage in AD 533. Their kingdom was vanquished, and the surviving Vandals were enslaved or joined into the imperial service.