Sack of Rome (455)

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Sack of Rome
Part of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Genseric sacking Rome, by Karl Briullov
Date 2 – c. 16 June 455 AD[1] Location Rome, Western Roman Empire Result Vandal victory Avitus appointed Western Roman Emperor Roman civil war of 456
Belligerents
Vandal Kingdom	Western Roman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Gaiseric	Petronius Maximus †
Casualties and losses
Unknown	more than 400,000 civilians and defensors

The Sack of Rome in 455 AD was carried out by the Vandals led by their king Genseric.

A peace treaty between the Western Roman Empire and Vandal Kingdom included a marriage of state between the daughter of Roman Emperor Valentinian III and the son of Genseric. Valentinian's successor Petronius Maximus violated the treaty by marrying his son to Valentinian's daughter which led to Genseric declaring Rome violated their treaty and launched an invasion. Maximus did not organise a defence of Rome and was lynched by a Roman mob while trying to escape the city. Pope Leo I convinced Genseric to avoid the use of violence against residents of the city. The Vandals looted Rome for two weeks, causing widespread destruction to the city, stripping it of most of its valuables, and taking some residents as slaves. Maximus's successor Avitus had little support which led to the outbreak of the Roman civil war of 456.

The Sack of Rome in 455 and the Visigothic sack of 410 shocked the Roman world and symbolized the decline and impending fall of the Western Roman Empire, marking a pivotal moment in European history.

Since its founding in 395 AD, the Western Roman Empire was in a prolonged state of decline. One of its major issues was a mass migration of Germanic and other non-Roman peoples known as the Migration Period, which led to the sack of Rome in 410 by the Germanic Visigoths under Alaric. They were increasingly threatened by the Vandals, a Germanic people who established the Vandal Kingdom in 435 in the empire's southern provinces in North Africa and the Mediterranean. The Western Romans, preoccupied with war in Gaul, secured a peace treaty with the Vandals in 442. The Vandal king Genseric and the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III had betrothed their children, Huneric and Eudocia,^[2] to strengthen their alliance. The marriage was delayed as Eudocia was too young, and Valentinian was killed due to his personal rivalry with Flavius Aetius in 455. Petronius Maximus became emperor and married Valentinian's widow, Licinia Eudoxia, and had his own son Palladius marry Eudocia to strengthen his bond with the Theodosian dynasty. Licinia Eudoxia, however, in revenge for her husband's murder and the usurpation of the throne, conspired with the Vandals against Maximus. Genseric proclaimed that the broken betrothal between Huneric and Eudocia invalidated the peace treaty and exploited the situation as a casus belli to invade Rome, gathering a large force and sailing from Carthage. News of a Vandal invasion reached Rome early, causing the city to enter a state of panic and thousands of its residents fleeing into the countryside. Support from the Visigoths, which Maximus had earlier sent Avitus to acquire, failed to materialise in time. Maximus decided not to mount a defence and began organising his own escape.

On 31 May, the Vandals landed at Ostia, located at the mouth of the Tiber only a few miles southwest of Rome.^[3] Before approaching, they knocked down the aqueducts that supplied water to the city. At the sight of the approaching Vandals, Maximus tried to flee Rome, but he was abandoned by his soldiers and left to fend for himself. The emperor was spotted by an angry mob and lynched outside the city, possibly together with his son Palladius.^[4] According to the chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine, upon the Vandal arrival, Pope Leo I pleaded for mercy for the ancient city and its inhabitants. Genseric agreed and the gates of Rome were thrown open for his forces to enter the city.^{[citation needed]} While Genseric kept his promise not to burn and slaughter, he did carry off some inhabitants as slaves, and also managed to capture Eudoxia and her daughters Eudocia and Placidia as they tried to escape.^[5] The Vandals sacked the city for two weeks before returning to Africa, during which the imperial government of the Western Roman Empire was effectively paralysed. They marched south through Campania, devastating the region, and attempted to sack Neapolis but failed as the city had better defences.

Genseric and his army looted great amounts of treasure from Rome, damaging monuments such as the Temple of Jupiter by stripping away the gilt bronze roof tiles, hence the modern term vandalism.^[6][7] The two-week Vandal sack of 455 is generally considered more destructive than the three-day Visigoth sack of 410.^[8] Victor of Vita records that several shiploads of slave captives arrived in Africa from Rome, who were then divided between the Vandals. Deogratias, the Bishop of Carthage, bought the freedom of some of the Romans by selling all of the valuables from his church. Deogratias hosted and fed them in larger churches in Carthage until they could be repatriated back to Rome.

After Rome's sack, the Visigothic king Theodoric II proclaimed Avitus as emperor, who allowed the Visigoths to enter Suebian-controlled Hispania in return for Theodoric's support. Avitus was popular with the Germanics, but he proved to be unpopular with the Roman aristocracy and struggled to gain control of the government. The Roman civil war of 456 soon broke out, with Avitus being overthrown by Majorian and his ally Ricimer in 457, as Theodoric was too preoccupied with his campaign in Hispania to support him.

Despite the popular image of the Vandals as destroyers, the severity of the sack is debatable, with claims that it inflicted little murder, violence, or arson. This interpretation seems to stem from Prosper's claim of the promise of leniency which Pope Leo I coaxed from Genseric. The Byzantine historian Procopius reported the burning of a church.^{[citation needed]} Some modern historians like John Henry Haaren maintain that temples, public buildings, private houses and even the emperor's palace were sacked.^[9] The Vandals also took immense quantities of gold, silver, jewels and furniture, destroyed works of art, and killed a number of citizens.^{[citation needed]}

• Muhlberger, S., The Fifth Century Chroniclers: Prosper, Hydatius and the Gallic Chronicler of 452 (Leeds, 1990) – for Prosper's hagiographic portrayal of Leo.
• Procopius, "The Vandalic War" in The History of the Wars, Books III & IV, trans. H. B. Dewing (Cambridge; Mass. 1916)
• Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal Persecution, trans. J. Moorhead (Liverpool, 1992).
• Ward-Perkins, B., The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation (Oxford, 2005) pp. 17 & 189.