Gelimer
Gelimer (Geil Amir) was 530 to 534 of the sixth and last king of the kingdom have the Vandals in North Africa . He was the son of Geilarith , the grandson of Gento and the great-grandson of King Geiseric .
Life
Gelimer came to power in 530 when King Hilderich was dethroned . The details of the change of the throne are not clear, but it is clear that it did not correspond to the Vandal succession. The Eastern Roman historian Prokopios of Caesarea reports that Gelimer, who was a capable warrior, but otherwise domineering and cunning, was able to convince the Vandal upper class to transfer the crown to him because Hilderic was too weak and was defeated by the Berbers . Hilderich was also accused of wanting to ally with the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. He also tolerated Catholicism , while most of the Vandals adhered to Arianism . A Vandal army, which was defeated by the Berbers who invaded the Byzacena landscape , must have returned to Carthage and deposed Hilderic. He was incarcerated with his closest relatives and died in prison. In any case, Emperor Justinian was able to use the change of power as a reason for his intervention and thus justify the campaign against Africa. In the beginning, the Eastern Romans were probably not interested in a (re) conquest (this is also supported by the small number of only 15,000 soldiers deployed), but in the installation of a king that would please the emperor.
Belisarius defeated Gelimer in 533 near Carthage on the tenth milestone ( lat. Ad Decimum ) before Carthage (→ Battle of Ad Decimum ) and for the second time in the Battle of Tricamarum . Gelimer withdrew to a fortress in the Atlas Mountains , which the Romans then besieged. He finally surrendered in early 534 and was led in a triumphal procession through Constantinople , where he had to throw himself in the dust before the emperor. He is said to have mumbled: vanity, vanity, everything is vanity . He received an estate in Asia Minor , where he died a few years later - quite wealthy and with imperial honorary titles. The special honorary and court title patricius was not awarded to him, however, because he refused to renounce the Arian creed.
On a silver bowl found in Italy (today Cabinet des Médailles , Bibliothèque nationale de France , CIL 8, 17412 ) is his full title: Geilamir rex Vandalorum et Alanorum (in the Greek version also in Prokopios, Vandalenkrieg , 1,24,3) .
The Vandal Empire was reintegrated into the empire after the surprisingly resounding victory of the Romans. The area around Carthage remained under Eastern Roman rule for 160 years until it was incorporated into the Umayyad Empire as part of the Islamic expansion .
literature
- Helmut Castritius : The Vandals. Stages of a search for clues . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 2007, p. 159ff.
- Andy Merrills, Richard Miles: The Vandals . Blackwell, Oxford-Malden / MA 2010, p. 228ff.
- Roland Steinacher: The vandals. The rise and fall of a barbarian empire. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-608-94851-6 , p. 292ff.
Individual evidence
- ^ See Prokopios, Vandalenkrieg , 1.9.
- ↑ Prokopios, War of the Vandals , 2.9; see. Koh 1,2 LUT
- ↑ "Missorium de Geil Amir, roi des Vandales" . Médailles et Antiques de la Bibliothèque nationale de France . Medaillesetantiques.bnf.fr .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Hilderich | King of the Vandals 530-534 |
End of the realm of the vandals |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gelimer |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Geilamir |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | King of the Regnum of the Vandals |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 5th century or 6th century |
| DATE OF DEATH | after 535 |
| Place of death | Asia Minor |