The Vandals were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned in passing by a small number of Roman writers in the first and second centuries, but became more prominent starting in the late second century during the tumultuous Marcomannic Wars of the Romans against many of the Germanic peoples north of the Danube, when Hasdingi-led Vandals took the side of the Romans, in exchange for territory in or near Dacia. It was also under Hasdingi leadership that large numbers of Vandals later migrated and formed a powerful Vandal Kingdom that ruled Roman North Africa for several generations until it was conquered by the Eastern Roman Empire in 534.
Tribes categorized in the early period as Vandals included the Warini, Gutones, and Burgundians who all then lived near what is now Poland and Eastern Germany, but these tribes were not referred to as Vandals in later records. Archaeologists associate the early Vandals with the Przeworsk culture, which has led to some scholars equating them to the Lugii, who were another group of Germanic peoples associated with that same archaeological culture and region.
In the third and fourth centuries the Dacian Vandals, who were the focus of Roman interest, came under pressure not only from Romans, but also from the increasingly powerful Goths who now dominated the region to their east. In the late 4th century the region was overwhelmed by incoming Goths, Alans and Huns, and in the early 5th century, Hasdingi and Silingi Vandals, together with several neighbouring peoples also led by kings, began a major armed migration of their own, first to Roman Gaul, then further west into the Iberian Peninsula where they created several short-lived kingdoms.
The new Iberian kingdoms came under pressure from Romans and Visigoths, who invaded Iberia in 418, and almost wiped them out. The Alans and Silingi Vandals voluntarily subjected themselves to the rule of Hasdingian leader Gunderic. In 429, under a new Hasdingian king Genseric (reigned 428–477), the Vandals entered North Africa. By 439 they had established the Vandal kingdom which included the Roman province of Africa as well as Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearic Islands. They fended off several Roman attempts to recapture the African province, and they sacked the city of Rome in 455. Their kingdom collapsed in the Vandalic War of 533–534, in which the forces of Emperor Justinian I reconquered the province for the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Renaissance and early-modern writers characterized the Vandals as prototypical barbarians, due to their 14-day Sack of Rome, leading to the use of the term "vandalism" to describe any form of wanton destruction, particularly the "barbarian" defacing of artwork. However, some modern historians have emphasised the role of Vandals as continuators of aspects of Roman culture, during the transitional period from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.
The ethnonym is attested as Wandali and Wendilenses by Saxo, as Vendill in Old Norse, and as Wend(e)las in Old English, all going back to a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as *Wanđilaz. The etymology of the name remains unclear. According to linguist Vladimir Orel, it may stem from the Proto-Germanic adjective *wanđaz ('turned, twisted'), itself derived from the verb *wenđanan (or *winđanan), meaning 'to wind'. Alternatively, it has been derived from a root *wanđ-, meaning 'water', based on the idea that the tribe was originally located near the Limfjord (a sea inlet in Denmark). The stem can also be found in Old High German wentilsēo and Old English wendelsǣ, both literally meaning 'Vandal-sea' and designating the Mediterranean Sea.
The Germanic mythological figure of Aurvandill has been interpreted by Rudolf Much to mean 'Shining Vandal', although this has been rejected in later scholarship. Much forwarded the theory that the tribal name Vandal reflects worship of Aurvandil or the Divine Twins, possibly involving an origin myth that the Vandalic kings were descended from Aurvandil (comparable to the case of many other Germanic tribal names).
Some medieval authors conflated the ethnonyms Vandals and Veneti, applying both to West Slavic peoples and giving rise to the term Wends, which came to denote various Slavic-speaking groups and is still used of the Lusatians. Modern scholarship, however, derives Wend from Veneti and does not equate the Veneti with the Vandals.
The name of the Vandals has been connected to that of Vendel, the name of a province in Uppland, Sweden, which is also eponymous of the Vendel Period of Swedish prehistory, corresponding to the late Germanic Iron Age leading up to the Viking Age. The connection is considered tenuous at best and more plausibly the result of chance, though Scandinavia is considered the probable homeland of the tribe prior to the Migration Period.
Very little is known about the Vandalic language itself, but it is believed to be of the extinct East Germanic linguistic branch, like Gothic. The Goths left behind the only text corpus of the East Germanic language type, especially a 4th-century translation of the Gospels.
Once the Vandals came to live outside of Germania, they were no longer considered Germani by ancient Roman authors.
However, since the Vandals spoke a Germanic language (mainly Vandalic) and belonged to early Germanic culture, they are classified as a Germanic people by modern scholars.
The Lugii, who were also mentioned in early classical sources in the same region, are likely to have been the same people as the Vandals. The Lugii are mentioned by Strabo, Tacitus, and Ptolemy as a large group of tribes between the Vistula and the Oder. Strabo and Ptolemy do not mention the Vandals at all, only the Lugii. Tacitus mentions them in a passage about the ancestry of the Germanic peoples without saying where they lived, and Pliny the Elder in contrast mentions the Vandals but not the Lugii. Walter Pohl and Walter Goffart have noted that Ptolemy seems to distinguish the Silingi from the Lugii, and in the 2nd century the Hasdings, when they appear in the Roman record, are also distinguished from the Lugii. Herwig Wolfram notes that "In all likelihood the Lugians and the Vandals were one cultic community that lived in the same region of the Oder in Silesia, where it was first under Celtic and then under Germanic domination." This may account for the differentiation between the Celtic Lugii and their more Germanic successors the Vandals.
In archaeology, the Vandals are associated with the Przeworsk culture, but the culture probably extended over several central and eastern European peoples. Their origin, ethnicity, and linguistic affiliation are heavily debated. The bearers of the Przeworsk culture mainly practiced cremation and occasionally inhumation.
The earliest surviving written mention of the Vandals is by Pliny the Elder writing in about 70 AD, who used the term Vandili in a broad way to define one of the five major groupings of all Germanic peoples (Latin: Germani). Tribes within this category whom he mentions are the Burgundiones, Varini, Carini (otherwise unknown), and the Gutones.
Writing in about 100 AD, Tacitus mentioned the Vandilii, but only in a passage explaining legends about the origins of the Germanic peoples. He names them as one of the groups sometimes thought to be one of the oldest divisions of these peoples, along with the Marsi, Gambrivii, and Suebi, but does not say where they live, or which peoples are within this category. On the other hand, Tacitus and Ptolemy give information about the position of Varini, Burgundians, and Gutones in this period, and these indications suggest that the Vandals in this period lived between the Elbe and Vistula rivers.
Writing in the 2nd century, Ptolemy mentioned the Silingi, who were later counted as Vandals, as living south of the Semnones, who were Suebians living east of the Elbe, and stretching to the Oder.
The Hasdingi, who later led the Vandal invasion of Carthage, do not appear in written records until the 2nd century and the time of the Marcomannic wars. The Lacringi, who may also have been Vandals, appear in 3rd-century records.