The Hasdingi, Asdingi or Hastingi were a group categorized as Vandals during the Roman era. The name referred to both a specific ruling dynasty or clan, and also sometimes to the population they led.
The Hasdingi are known from Graeco-Roman sources for leading a series of migrations, starting with a settlement of former-Roman Dacia in the second century, and ending with the establishment of the powerful Vandal Kingdom which ruled Roman North Africa in the 6th and 7th centuries, and had its capital at Carthage in what is now Tunisia. The royal dynasty of this kingdom continued to be referred to as Hasdingi.
The Hasdingi were sometimes simply referred to as Vandals and the exact relationship between the two categories during classical times, and how it evolved, is not clear. [1] The 6th century writer Jordanes referred to Visimar, who was king of the "Vandals" centred in Dacia in the time of Constantine the Great as someone who was "of the stock of the Asdings" (Asdingorum stirpe), noting that among the Vandals this was seen as a very warlike people (genus). [2] The Roman senator Cassiodorus, who was an older near-contemporary of Jordanes, and one of his main sources. [1] He used the same terminology as Jordanes in a diplomatic letter to the Vandal kingdom in Carthage, which is one of the only classical records which includes an "h" in the spelling, writing that the royal family is of the hasdingorum stirpem. [3]
In the 1st century AD, Roman authors Pliny the Elder and Tacitus mentioned the Vandals only as a category of Germanic peoples (Latin : Germani). Within this category Pliny mentioned the Burgundiones, Varini, Carini (otherwise unknown) and Gutones. [4] Based on the geographical descriptions of Tacitus and Ptolemy, the Varini, Gutones and Burgundiones lived between the Elbe and Vistula near the southern coast of the Baltic Sea.
The Vandal peoples are also believed to have spoken an East Germanic language related to the Gothic language, which existed in the Ukraine region from approximately the 3rd century. In the 6th century, Procopius stated that the Vandals, Goths and Gepids all spoke the same language in his time.
The name of the Hasdingi is believed to be Germanic, and to refer to a people who wore long hair or "women's hair" (reconstructed Germanic *hazdaz ). [5] The -ing ending is well-known in Germanic languages as a suffix referring to groups united by a sense of belonging, for example because of a common descent.
According to Dio Cassius, during the Marcomannic Wars in the late 2nd century, the Hasdingi and Lacringi helped the Romans in their wars against the Marcomanni, Quadi, Iazyges, and their allies, and were able to settle in lands closer to the Roman empire. Led by their chiefs Raüs and Raptus, the "Astingi" (Αστιγγοι) "entered Dacia with their entire households, hoping to secure both money and land in return for their alliance". When this did not work they conquered the land of the Costoboci in the north of Dacia, but then proceeded to cause problems in Roman Dacia again. The Lacringi feared that the Roman governor of Dacia might let them into land which they were inhabiting. They therefore attacked the Hasdingi and won a decisive victory. "As a result, the Astingi committed no further acts of hostility against the Romans, but in response to urgent supplications addressed to Marcus Aurelius they received from him both money and the privilege of asking for land in case they should inflict some injury upon those who were then fighting against him." Dio Cassius emphasizes that the Hasdingi really did fulfil such promises. [6]
The Crisis of the Third Century was a period of weakness and chaos in the Roman Empire, and saw the rise of the Goths as a new power in Eastern Europe. Jordanes, writing centuries later in his Getica , reported that the "Astringi" were among the many allies of the Gothic king Ostrogotha when he attacked the Roman empire during the reign of Philip the Arab (reigned 244-248). [7] Jordanes referred more generally to Ostrogotha as a ruler who lorded it over the previously powerful Vandals, Marcomanni and Quadi, and even demanded tribute from the Roman Empire. [8]
A fragment from the 3rd century history of Dexippus mentions that the emperor Aurelian (reigned 270-275) defeated a large group of Vandals on the Danube frontier, and their kings and rulers came to an agreement with him to supply 2000 horsemen to the Romans. Modern scholars date this to the spring of 271 and believe that these vandals were most likely the Hasdingi known to be living in Dacia at this time, which is north of a major bend in the Danube. [9]
During the reign of Constantine the Great (reigned 306-337), Jordanes also reported that the Vandals, under the leadership of an Hasdingi king named Visimar, were holding a large empire which stretched as far as the ocean and included the former Roman province of Dacia, which was no longer under Roman control. However they were defeated by the Goths under King Geberic and those who were not warriors requested to settled in Roman Pannonia, where they remained as legal residents for 60 years — until about 395, which is the death year of emperor Theodosius I. They then became mobile and invaded Gaul. [10]
According to the version of Jordanes, the Hasdingi were summoned to Gaul by the Roman military leader Stilicho, who was reputed to have Vandal origins, and once there they were a mobile group who plundered Roman Gaul. [10] Another 6th-century writer, Procopius believed that they were forced by hunger to move to travel west and cross the Rhine. However, he believed that the Vandals had at this time been living near the Sea of Azov, like their allies who entered Gaul with them, the Alans. [11] Other sources give more indications of events around 395 in the area of Pannonia.
In 378 the Romans suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Adrianople, which was caused by a sudden movement of peoples including Goths, Alans and Huns coming from present-day Ukraine to the east. The emperor Valens died in the defeat. According to Ammianus, the Pannonian region was among the areas first affected by "a savage horde of unknown peoples, driven from their abodes by sudden violence".
By 380, one of the armed groups responsible for the defeat, led by Alatheus and Saphrax who were wards of the underage king of the Greuthungi Goths, entered the Pannonian part of the Roman empire with the permission of emperor Gratian, while his new co-emperor Theodosius was out of action with a serious illness. [12] Also in about 380, Jordanes mentions that the Vandals, perhaps those in Pannonia, made an invasion which caused the surviving emperor Gratian to move into Gaul. It is possible that the Vandals invaded Gaul itself already during this period. [13]
After the death of emperor Theodosius I in 395, Saint Jerome listed the Vandals and their long-time neighbours the Quadi and Marcomanni, together with several of the new eastern peoples who were causing devastation in the Roman provinces stretching from Constantinople to the Julian Alps, including Dalmatia, and all the provinces of Pannonia: "Goths and Sarmatians, Quadi and Alans, Huns and Vandals and Marcomanni". [14] The poet Claudian described them crossing the frozen Danube with wagons, and then setting wagons rigged around themselves like a wall at the approach of the Roman commander Stilicho. He says that all the fertile lands between the Black Sea and Adriatic were subsequently like uninhabited deserts, specifically including Dalmatia and Pannonia. At the same time, the Gothic general Alaric I, who had loyally served with his Gothic troops under Theodosius I at the Battle of Frigidus only a few months early, was beginning his rebellion, and started leading his army south, first towards Constantinople, and later towards Greece. This was triggered by internal Roman conflicts after the death of Theodosius. While some later writers blamed Stilicho, Claudian claimed that they were all incited by an Eastern Roman consul and enemy of Stilicho, Rufinus. [15] The exact connection between Alaric and those who crossed the Danube remains unclear. [16]
In 401, Claudian described how Raetia was troubled by the local Vindelici there while Stilicho was preoccupied in Italy with the invasion of Alaric, a Gothic military leader from inside the empire. According to Claudian, non-Roman peoples (gentes) broke their treaties (foedera) and, encouraged by the news of trouble in Italy, had seized parts of Roman Vindelicia (in Raetia) and Noricum. The text says that Stilicho's victorious forces earned "Vandal spoils" (Vandalicis ... spoliis), and so assuming he was not referring to the local Vindelici, many scholars believe Vandals were involved. Furthermore, there are proposals that they included the same Vandal groups who later went to Hispania, including both Silingi and Hasdingi Vandals. Some scholars have interpreted this to mean that Vandals had already moved and were headed towards the Rhine. [17]
In 406, the year of the Rhine crossing of the Vandals and Alans, Radagaisus, a Gothic leader from outside the empire, attacked Italy with a very large force from the Middle Danube itself. By August he was defeated. Modern scholars have proposed various connections between these events and the movement westwards of the Vandals and others. [18] At the end of 406, the Hasdingi participated together with Silingi Vandals and Sarmatian Alans in an historic crossing of the Rhine, entering Roman Gaul. The king of the Hasdingi, Godigisel, lost his life in battle against the Franks, who attempted to block the crossing into Gaul. [19]
In another letter by Saint Jerome from 409, many of the Pannonian peoples, including legal residents of the empire itself, were confirmed as invaders occupying Roman Gaul at that time: "Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni and—alas! for the commonweal!—even Pannonians". [20]
In 409, the same year as Jerome's letter, the Vandals moved from Gaul into Roman Hispania — the Iberian Peninsula. [21] In 411, the rebel Roman military leader of Hispania, Gerontius agreed to allocate large parts of Hispania to several barbarian peoples who entered from Gaul. The Hasdingi settled in eastern Gallaecia, the Suebi settled to their west on the ocean coast of Gaellicia, the Silingi settled in the south in Baetica, and the Alans settled in a large area including Lusitania and Carthaginiensis. [22] [23] These can be seen as some of the earliest Barbarian kingdoms to be founded before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, although they probably began as normal Roman military billeting arrangements.
In 411, after granting these kingdoms, Gerontius was attacked by Roman forces, lost power in Hispania, and committed suicide. In 416, Alaric I's Gothic people were given their own kingdom in Aquitania in southwestern Gaul, by agreement with the central Roman government. In 417 or 418, as allies of Rome they entered Hispania, destroyed the Silingi, and killed the king of the Alans. [22] [24]
Survivors of the Silingi and Alans appear to have accepted Hasdingi leadership after their defeats, and the brothers Gunderic and Geiseric, Godegisel's successors as rulers of the Hasdingi, attacked the Suevi. In 419-420 the Roman military leader in Hispania Asterius (comes Hispaniarum) brought relief to the Suevi and defeated the Vandals in battle. The Vandals, as the merged group is normally called, fled to Baetica in southern Iberia. [25] In 422 the Vandals narrowly defeated the Roman general Flavius Castinus, apparently because some of his Gothic troops deserted. [22] [26]
Gunderic was killed and succeeded by his brother Gaiseric in 428 AD, who, according to Procopius, was a co-ruler up until then. [27] These Vandals subsequently fled from Iberia to North Africa where they eventually established the Vandal Kingdom at Carthage. The newly merged people of this kingdom are not normally referred to as Hasdingi. One exceptional case was when Cassiodorus, in a diplomatic letter, used the term to refer to the royal family of the African Vandal Kingdom. [28]
