To seal the agreement Gaiseric’s son, Haneric, married Eudoxia, the daughter of the Western Empress, and moved to Rome. The ‘barbaric” Vandal kingdom was in fact very sophisticated, moral and upright compared with some other Christian ones. They enjoyed the theatre, poetry and produced fine mosaics. A large number of kilns have been found from this time producing fine and utilitarian pottery, including amphorae. In some cases Roman baths were converted into potteries. When Emperor Valentinian III was murdered in 455 AD Gaiseric took an army to Rome reputedly to free his daughter-in-law and her mother. He sacked Rome over a two-week period, pillaging (including Roman booty from Jerusalem) but not intent on killing or destroying buildings. Gaiseric ruled the Vandals for some 50 years. Eventually, in 534 AD the Byzantine Romans reconquered North Africa and it became a province once more.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Huns, Attila (born 406 ruled 433-453 AD) and his brother, united other tribes, such as the Ostragoths, to form a large Empire in Central Asia.

Map of Europe and Middle East 450 AD -
source Wikipedia via roke

Initially they came to a financial arrangement with both the Western and Eastern Roman Empire.  In 441 AD a significant part of the Byzantine army was in North Africa fighting the Vandals, so Attila took the opportunity to invade and loot a number of cities. When the Byzantine army returned, the stronger Eastern Empire stopped paying the tribute of 700 pounds of gold per year, so the Hun army invaded in 443 AD and conquered previously impregnable fortresses, using technology acquired from the Romans such as siege towers. He was bought off with a single gold payment of 6000 lbs and a tripling of the annual tribute to 2,100 lbs of gold. In 445 AD Attila killed his brother to concentrate power in himself. After another excursion into the Eastern Roman Empire in 447 AD, he turned west targeting Orleans, after a slight over an offer of marriage from the Western Roman Emperor’s sister. The Franks hated the Huns so they joined with the Romans and Visigoths and defeated Attila’s forces at the battle of Troyes in 451 AD. Attila retreated, but returned to invade Italy in the next year, but was persuaded to turn back by the Pope paying tribute. However, his army had also suffered considerably from famine and disease. Two years later Attila was dead suffering a haemorrhage celebrating his last marriage. He clearly deserved the title of the “Scourge of the Romans”. Attila’s sons squabbled over their inheritance and the Hun Empire soon dissipated as the various tribes broke away, and by 469 AD it had disappeared.

In 476 AD, weakened by further internal power struggles, the Western Roman Empire finally ended when one of the German chiefs deposed the last Emperor and proclaimed himself king. Several new kingdoms had been created by this upheaval. The Vandals controlled North Africa, the Visigoths Spain and part of Gaul, the Franks and Burgundians Northern Europe and the Ostragoths Italy, when the latter’s leader, Theodoric, declared himself king of Italy in 494 AD. He constructed an Arian Christian church in Ravenna with magnificent mosaics probably by artists from Byzantium. Generally the invading tribes were only a small, ruling minority of the inhabitants. At the end of the 5th century the last Roman was expelled from Soissons by Clovis the king of the Franks, who also killed the king of the Visigoths in 507 AD. The demise of the Roman Empire is ascribed to incompetent rule, lack of morale and lack of focus – all features that can turn on the impact of a single outstanding leader. It is said that the Imperial robes were sent to Constantinople with the message “not needed any more”! Between 500 and 700 AD towns and trade declined in the West, and from 700 to 1000 AD their economy was mainly agrarian.