Evergetismo pubblico e lusso privato nella Cartagine dei Vandali

This paper examines a number of poems contained in the Anthologia Latina which celebrate acts of evergetism performed by the Hasding kings and weave praise of Vandal nobles who delighted in surrounding themselves with sumptuous symbols of wealth and opulence. Beyond the rhetorical veneer that characterises them – their mannerism and the redundant verbosity underpinning the aemulatio of earlier models – these compositions appear to attest to a progressive adaptation on the part of the Vandals to Roman lifestyles. The image of a Carthago florens, mother of the Hasdings, seemingly restored to new life and adorned with splendid new buildings as well as the restoration of others, stands in contrast to the evidence provided by Catholic sources in general, which lament the destruction and devastation, and to the testimony of Procopius’ De aedificiis. According to the historian of Caesarea, Justinian, following the reconquest of Africa, initiated a careful programme of reconstruction, deemed necessary to remedy the damage wrought during the Vandal century