Today in History: The Vandals Sack Rome

On this day (June 2) in 455, the Vandals sacked Rome. The Vandal King, Gaiseric, ruled Northern Africa and had arranged to have his son, Huneric, marry Eudocia, daughter of Emperor Valentinian III, but Valentinian was assassinated and his successor, Petronius Maximus, married Eudocia to his own son. Gaiseric retaliated by invading Italy, knocking down all the aqueducts supplying Rome, and moving to besiege the city. The new emperor tried to flee, but a mob of frightened and angry Romans murdered him. Pope Leo I then begged Gaiseric not to burn the city or murder its citizens and Gaiseric agreed if the gates of the city were thrown open to them. For three days, the Vandals sacked the city, looting its treasures, taking away thousands of residents into slavery, doing some property damage and still murdering many, but the city physically survived This was the third sacking of Rome after the Gauls destroyed the city and all of its records in 390 BCE and the Visigoths sacked the city in 410.