Battle of Cartagena (460)
The battle took place on the coast of the Roman province of Carthaginiensis (green), but not in front of the provincial capital Cartagena itself, but probably in Portus Ilicitanus ( Santa Pola ) 40 nautical miles (74 kilometers) away.
| date | 13 (?) May 460 |
|---|---|
| place | Portus Ilicitanus (today Santa Pola , Spain ) |
| output | Victory of the Vandals |
| consequences | Destruction of the Western Roman fleet |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Empire of the Vandals |
|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 300 warships | unknown |
| losses | |
|
(almost) all ships |
unknown |
The Battle of Cartagena is the attack by a fleet of the Vandals on the Roman fleet anchored off the coast of the province of Carthaginiensis in 460 , although the details of the time and place of the battle are ambiguous. What is clear, however, is the result of the battle, which ended with the destruction of the Roman fleet.
“ Mense Maio Majorianus Hispanias ingreditur imperator: quo Carthaginiensem provinciam pertendente, aliquantas naves quas sibi ad transitum adversum Wandalos praeparabat, de littore Carthaginiensi commoniti Wandali per proditores abripiunt. Majorianus ita sua ordinatione frustratus ad Italiam revertitur. "
Battle of Elche
After the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455 and further losses was Majorian 457 Western Roman become Emperor, although the really strong man in the western Heermeister Ricimer was. With mercenaries and auxiliary troops of subjugated and allied peoples ( federates ), Majorian was able to temporarily regain most of Gaul and Hispania in the fight against the Burgundians , West Goths and Suebi . The next goal should be to recapture the Vandal-occupied areas in Africa .
For this purpose, Majorian assembled an invasion fleet of around 300 warships in the port of Portus Ilicitanus (today's Santa Pola ), while he himself was advancing from Gaul with newly dug troops (mostly Goths). Portus Ilicitanus was the port for the further inland city of Ilici or Elece ( Elche ), the battle is therefore sometimes referred to as the Battle of Elche . According to some information, only a (large) part of the fleet should have been there. According to other information, Majorian's fleet (or only part of it) anchored in Carthago Nova ( Cartagena ) or Lucentum ( Alicante ) or between Cartagena and Valentia ( Valencia ) in the Bay of Alicante. It is possible that the 300 ships were spread across several ports in the province of Carthaginiensis. Most of the ships coming from Misenum , but also from other Italian and Hispanic ports, were mostly new or at least in good condition, but the crews had also only recently been recruited and were therefore largely inexperienced.
The Vandal King Geiserich , who had learned of Majorian's war preparations, offered peace negotiations, which Majorian refused. In order to forestall the impending invasion, in May 460 a fleet of battle-hardened vandals attacked the Roman fleet lying unprotected in the port - according to different information, this should not have happened until May 461. The Vandals' fleet consisted mainly of (older) Roman ships that they had captured during the sacking of Roman port cities in previous decades. These included former merchant ships that had been converted into warships. Their ships were manned not only with vandals, but also with allied and subjugated Berbers, Moors (Tanians) and Numidians. The vandals, commanded by Geiseric himself, captured the Roman ships, set them on fire and sank them. Most of the Roman ships (all Roman ships according to other sources) were destroyed. A few ships (apparently only slightly damaged) are said to have escaped to Arelate ( Arles ), where Majorian also withdrew. Some other ships are said to have left the fleet on the eve of the battle.
Treason and bribery are said to have played a role in the destruction of the Roman fleet. Whether the traitors were Romans or Goths, whether they had only warned the vandals or told them the whereabouts of the fleet or whether they had not only not participated in the actual battle or whether they even switched sides and even set Roman ships on fire, has been passed down differently. Ricimer might even be behind it.
aftermath
The destruction of the invasion fleet not only made the planned landing in North Africa and the then necessary supply of landed invasion troops impossible, it also permanently demoralized Majorian's army. Without a navy, Rome was no longer able to protect the Italian, Gallic and Hispanic coasts from further raids by the Vandals. Majorian therefore tried to negotiate an armistice with Geiseric, which cost him political support. On the way back from Arles to Rome, the emperor was executed in August 461 on the orders of Ricimer. This also ended the last attempt by Western Rome to recapture the territories lost to the Germanic barbarians on its own. It was not until 468 that the Western Roman Empire was able to muster a new (last) vandal campaign, but this time only with massive Eastern Roman help. After the failure of this campaign, the Visigoths finally fell away from Rome and all of Hispania was lost to the Visigoths and Suebi.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Ian Hughes: Gaiseric - The Vandal Who Destroyed Rome. Pen and Sword, Barnsley 2017, pp. 61, 95 and 151-165.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Friedrich Anders: Flavius Ricimer - Power and Powerlessness of the Western Roman Army Master in the Second Half of the 5th Century . Peter Lang (Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften), Frankfurt (Main) 2010, page 147ff.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Tony Jaques: Dictionary of Battles and Sieges , Part 1 (AE). Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport / London 2007, p. 205.
- ↑ a b c d e f Heinz Neukirchen : Sea power in the mirror of history . Gondrom, Kaiserslautern 1988. Page 85f
- ↑ a b c d e Rigobert Günther , Alexander R. Korsunskij: Germanic people conquer Rome , pages 83f and 86f. Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1988
- ↑ a b c d Michael Kulikowski: Late Roman Spain and Its Cities. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2004, p. 191.
- ↑ a b c Lázaro Lagóstena Barrios: La producción de salsas y conservas de pescado en la Hispania Romana , II a. C. - VI, part 3. Edicions Universitat Barcelona, Barcelona 2001. Page 176
- ↑ a b c d Peter Heather : The Fall of the Roman Empire - A New History of Rome and the Barbarians . Oxford University Press, New York 2006. Pages 398ff, 467 and 485.
- ↑ a b c d Michael Grant : The Roman Emperors . Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach / Cologne 1996, p. 396f.
- ↑ The strength of the fleet is based on Priskos , Fragment 27 (Edition Pia Carolla: Priscus Panita. Excerpta et fragmenta. Berlin 2008).
- ↑ The location of the Battle of Elche goes back to Marius von Avenches ("Eo anno captae sunt naves a Vandalis ad Elecem juxta Carthaginem Spartariam"), while Hydatius and Isidore only generally located it off the coast of the province of Carthaginiensis .
- ↑ a b Helmut Castritius : The Vandals - Stages of a Search for Traces. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2007, p. 114.