Mare nostrum vs. Wentilseo: la strategia mediterranea dei Vandali

The aim of this paper is to analyze, in the light of the most recent investigations, the incidence of the presence of the Vandals in what the Romans had called Mare Nostrum. It seems, in fact, now hardly acceptable to the thesis that they should be attributed the role of unconscious wreckers of the trend of trade in the Mediterranean and destabilizers of Roman institutions. The raids carried out by Genseric, the continuous and systematic actions of pillage and the "hit and run" strategy will be examined, in the conviction that it is no longer tenable that they responded to the need to procure agricultural resources or were a manifestation of pure taste, of the intrinsic vocation for plunder. An attempt will therefore be made to understand whether, beyond the most visible aspect, what Chr. Courtois had called the "brigandage sur mer," they were marked by a coherent continuity of strategic direction; whether, in addition to being a means of starving the empire, they also responded to the need to experiment with a defensive strategy, which, especially after the conquest of Africa, aimed to neutralize the economic potential of the maxumae insulae of the Mediterranean.