Northern Africa 442: Treaty of Carthage

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Jun–Sep 440 Siege of Panormus ▲

On 24 June 440 reports reached Ravenna that the Vandal king Gaiseric had left Carthage with a large fleet, prompting a panicked Valentinian III to arrange for the protection of the Italian coast. The Vandals instead landed near Lilybaeum in Sicily and, after capturing that city, undertook a lengthy siege of Panormus (Palermo) while apparently exploiting religious divisions in the island to persecute followers of the orthodox Nicene Creed. At about the same time, the Vandals raided Sardinia, Bruttium, and elsewhere in Sicily, before returning to Africa in around September. in wikipedia

441 Suebian Spain ▲

In 441, within months of the death of his father Hermeric from his four-year-long battle with illness, the Suebian king Rechila seized Hispalis (Seville) from the Romans. Perhaps convinced by this act of power, the provinces of Baetica and Carthaginiensis fell under Rechila’s control soon afterwards and by the end of the year the Suebi ruled all of Spain except for Tarraconensis and parts of Gallaecia. in wikipedia

441–442 Areobindus’ Sicilian Expedition ▲

In the spring of 441 the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II dispatched a fleet of 1,100 cargo ships carrying a sizeable Roman army under the command of the magister militum praesentalis Areobindus, the magister militum Germanus, and three other generals to deal with the Vandals in Carthage. This force soon landed in Sicily but after this faced constant delays and by the end of the year had made no further moves to regain Africa. Meanwhile, Thedosius, now facing war with the Huns, made peace with the Vandals and in 442 the entire expedition returned to the Balkans, having achieved nothing except to be a tax burden to Sicily. in wikipedia

441? Conquest of Maskut ▲

In c. 440—but probably after the start of the Roman–Persian War of 440/441—a large body of Huns broke through the Derbent Pass and overran the Kingdom of Maskut, threatening the Sasanian Empire of Persia. Although the Persians would reestablish the fortifications of the Derbent Pass by the end of the decade, the Maskuts themselves appear to have been absorbed into the Huns and by the 460s they had vanished from history. in wikipedia

442 Siege of Naissus ▲

In early 442 the Hunnic kings Bleda and Attila crossed the Danube and, after capturing Ratiaria, besieged the large, well-fortified city of Naissus (Niš). In their first recorded use of siege weapons, the Huns deployed multiple siege towers, covered battering rams, and ladders to overwhelm Naissus’ defenders, then proceeded to sack the city so brutally that it would remain unpopulated for a century. Following this, the Huns raided into Thrace at least as far as Serdica (Sofia) before suddenly deciding to withdraw back across the Danube with their booty, possibly in response to the arrival of Eastern Roman troops returning from Sicily. in wikipedia

442 Treaty of Carthage ▲

By 442 the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II had decided to abandon his expedition against the Vandals in Africa in order to focus on the Hunnic threat to the Balkans, effectively forcing the Western emperor Valentinian III to also make peace with the Vandals. At the Treaty of Carthage, Valentinian agreed to recognize the Vandal Kingdom in return for the restoration of the African grain supply to Rome and the dispatch of the Vandal king Gaiseric’s son Huneric to Ravenna as a hostage. The treaty—which saw the Romans implicitly acknowledge the loss of the vital economic center of Carthage—was a major concession for the West, but the ensuing thirteen-year peace with the Vandals would outlast both Valentinian and his magister militum Aetius. in wikipedia