VANDAL period.

Vandals in Libya

The Vandals were a Germanic tribe of people, who under the leadership of King Gaiseric, invaded North Africa in 429 AD, seizing power of Tripolitania in 455AD and ruling until 534AD. Although the period of the Vandal invasion of North Africa did not endure for more than 150 years, historical records have marked this period as one of much instability and violence, as the Vandals waged attacks on Roman Catholics living within the realm of the Roman Empire, looting and confiscating properties, valuables, and many important works of art. The general chaos of the Vandal period, which included the sacking of Rome in 455AD, accelerated the decline of the Roman hold over the whole of North Africa¹.

Gaiseric, having formed the wandering Vandal tribe into the masters of Roman North Africa, died in 477AD, after having ruled the Vandals for nearly fifty years. His successors included Thrasamund who died in 523AD and Gaiseric’s own grandson, Hilderic. Hilderic, who ruled from 523AD to 530AD, tried to improve the relationship between the Vandals and the Byzantine Empire, but fell victim to a revolt led by his cousin Gelimer, who then took the throne².

By 533 BCE, the ascendant Byzantine empire under Belisarius succeeded in defeating the Vandals thus gaining dominion over North Africa and restoring the churches to the Roman Catholics.