Gelimer - Your Art History Reference Guide!

ArtHistoryClub Information Site on Gelimer Art History Art History Search        Art History Browse             News        Gallery        Forums        Articles        Weblinks        welcome to our free resource site for all art history lovers!

Gelimer

Gelimer (480-553), King of the Vandals and Alans from 530 to 534, was the last ruler of the North African Kingdom of the Vandals. He became ruler in 530 after deposing his cousin Hilderic, who had angered the Vandal nobility by converting to Catholicism. Most of the Vandals were fiercely devoted to Arian Christianity.

The eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I, who had supported Hilderic, soon declared war on the Vandals, ostensibly to restore Hilderic but really to restore north Africa to the Roman Empire. Gelimer and the Vandals put up a stout resistance to the Roman general Belisarius and his army, but were defeated twice in 533, at Ad Decimium and Ticameron. In 534, realizing he had no chance of regaining his kingdom, Gelimer surrendered to Belisarius in a cowardly way, Gelimer grovelled at Belusarius's feet and accepted the Romans' offer of vast estates within the empire. He achieved some degree of historical fame, according to Byzantine chronicles, by crying out the verse from Ecclesiastes, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' which is mentioned in the works of Gibbon and Fielding.

Preceded by:
Hilderic
King of the Vandals Followed by:
-

Last updated: 10-14-2005 07:16:52
Last updated: 01-04-2007 01:18:57
The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the
GNU Free Documentation License. See original document.
Art History Search | Art History Browse | Contact | Legal info