The Sixth Age: A Medieval History Podcast
Jul 24, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min · 11 segments
Ever wondered where the term "vandalism" came from? Listen to this podcast to find out. I cover the Vandal tribes, from their first appearance in written records through the Vandal Sack of Rome in 455…
The oldest written account of the Vandals comes to us from Pliny the Elder, the Roman natural historian who wrote briefly about the Vandals in the 1st century AD.
Pliny provides very little information about the Vandals.
He just kind of name drops them.
This is perhaps a sign that they were known by name in the Roman world, but people didn't know that much about them.
Either that or Pliny thought that they weren't important enough to warrant a longer description.
These smaller tribes that fell under the Vandal umbrella each had their own unique tribal identities.
They probably had different tribal leaders, different kings, and so their political entities were separate from one another.
But they did seem to share a common Vandal heritage.
How they expressed this heritage isn't something we know for sure, but if I had to guess, I would say that they had a common language that was distinct from other Germanic languages, and that they probably shared a cultural and mythological heritage.
They probably worshipped similar gods, or if not the same gods, and they probably had similar cultural practices, similar dress, produced similar artwork, weapons, that kind of thing.
The Vandals are next mentioned in the Roman historian Tacitus' book Germania, which was published in 98 AD.
And again, Tacitus had very little to say about the Vandals, aside from the fact that they were one of the larger Germanic groups.
The Vandals next appear in Roman records during the Marcomannic Wars, and that's the period of time when the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was fighting to keep hostile Germanic tribes from crossing the Danube River, Danube frontier, into Roman territory.
Some Vandal tribes served with the Romans.
They actually served on the side of the Romans as mercenaries.
The The Romans would do this.
They would employ mercenaries.
They called them federates or federati.
And the idea was that, you know, you could bolster your own forces by hiring mercenaries.
And at that point, you're just paying one group of barbarians to kill another group of barbarians.
And this was just a great idea for the Romans because it meant that they could preserve their own people and let someone else do the fighting.
Anyways, back to the Marcomannic Wars.
It does seem that there could have been vandals on both sides of this conflict.
The oldest written account of the Vandals comes to us from Pliny the Elder, the Roman natural historian who wrote briefly about the Vandals in the 1st century AD.
Pliny provides very little information about the Vandals.
He just kind of name drops them.
This is perhaps a sign that they were known by name in the Roman world, but people didn't know that much about them.
Either that or Pliny thought that they weren't important enough to warrant a longer description.
These smaller tribes that fell under the Vandal umbrella each had their own unique tribal identities.
They probably had different tribal leaders, different kings, and so their political entities were separate from one another.
But they did seem to share a common Vandal heritage.
How they expressed this heritage isn't something we know for sure, but if I had to guess, I would say that they had a common language that was distinct from other Germanic languages, and that they probably shared a cultural and mythological heritage.
They probably worshipped similar gods, or if not the same gods, and they probably had similar cultural practices, similar dress, produced similar artwork, weapons, that kind of thing.
The Vandals are next mentioned in the Roman historian Tacitus' book Germania, which was published in 98 AD.
And again, Tacitus had very little to say about the Vandals, aside from the fact that they were one of the larger Germanic groups.
The Vandals next appear in Roman records during the Marcomannic Wars, and that's the period of time when the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was fighting to keep hostile Germanic tribes from crossing the Danube River, Danube frontier, into Roman territory.
Some Vandal tribes served with the Romans.
They actually served on the side of the Romans as mercenaries.
The The Romans would do this.
They would employ mercenaries.
They called them federates or federati.
And the idea was that, you know, you could bolster your own forces by hiring mercenaries.
And at that point, you're just paying one group of barbarians to kill another group of barbarians.
And this was just a great idea for the Romans because it meant that they could preserve their own people and let someone else do the fighting.
Anyways, back to the Marcomannic Wars.
It does seem that there could have been vandals on both sides of this conflict.
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