ON THIS DAY ·
Vandal capture of Carthage
19 Oct 439 — Geiseric seizes Carthage, Africa’s capital, without a siege. In a single day the West loses its richest tax base and Rome loses its grain. The West will not recover from the loss.
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The moment in context
The Western empire needed Africa to pay for its defense. By the time Geiseric led perhaps eighty thousand Vandals and their families across the strait of Gibraltar in 429, war and the loss of control had disrupted revenue from Britain, Spain and Gaul. Africa, by contrast, remained prosperous and comparatively secure. It supplied grain to Rome and may have furnished two-fifths of the revenue still available to the western government, much as Egypt supported the East. Geiseric moved along the coast and took Carthage without a siege on 19 October 439. The government now had to find the money to recover a province whose taxes it had just lost.
From Fall of the Western Roman Empire, chapter 11 of The Rise and Fall of Rome, 264 BC – AD 476 (AD 451).
The place: Vandal capture of Carthage — map and full story →
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — Africa and the army. The western army depended on the combined revenues of Africa, Gaul, Spain and Italy. One estimate puts the cost of a late Roman soldier at roughly…
- The turn — Carthage, 19 October 439. A tradition says that Geiseric entered Carthage while its garrison watched races at the hippodrome; the city fell without a siege. Its capture…
- What it changed — Successor kingdoms. The western provinces became kingdoms governed by Visigoths in Spain, Franks in Gaul, Vandals in Africa and Ostrogoths in Italy. These military…
Then ask the room: Why did the East survive when the West fell? Consider geography, wealth and contingency, and what they imply about the West’s chances. The argued answer is on the chapter page →
The atlas that shows it
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