Victor of Vita: History of the Vandal Persecution

An accurate translation into English of a 5th-century Latin text for which there is only an Italina translation currently in print. The text is a lay source for the history of the Vandals, barbarian people who adhered to Asian Christianity and occupied Roman Africa, unleashing a persecution of Catholic Christians which has led to them generally being seen as the most vicious of the barbarian peoples who settled on roman territory. An introduction and footnote commentary discusses issues raised by the text. As so often, the History of Victor of vita casts light not just on its topic but the attitudes of its author, and properly understood it is revelatory of the attitudes of Catholic Africans. Their traditions had been ones of combat from the time of the pagan Roman Empire, and the book suggests that bad relations between the Vandals and Catholics may have been caused by the unyielding traditions of the latter as well as the nefarious nature of the former.