Smart answer. I have to imagine part of commandeering Carthaginian merchant marine involved capturing all of the people required to operate the vessels as well. Then, the Vandals' elite warriors essentially behave like U.S. Marines - somebody else gets them to a theater that they operate on land in.

I think this boils down to a fundamental popular misunderstanding by most people about who the various barbarians were and what they actually wanted. The goths and vandals were both highly integrated into the Roman system and wanted to join it rather than tear it down; they made alliances sealed with marriages to strengthen their position and often only attacked Rome when a new emperor tried to renege on those deals.

Yeah, it was actually better for the North African inhabitants for the North African centre of power to be in... North Africa. They basically had been eating shit for awhile and the Romans were unable to do much, so fuck it, why not give the Vandals a chance? Hence there was little in the ways of rebellion.

The Germanic tribes didn’t genocide the former Roman subjects in their new territories. In fact civil life in much of the empire didn’t change drastically at all immediately post imperial collapse.

If a tribe conquered a territory with a maritime tradition and naval infrastructure they would inherit the naval capabilities that came with it.

>But how could the Vandal military go from a roaming war band/army through continental Europe to becoming a hegemonic entity in the western Mediterranean, with no prior experience or knowledge in ship building or naval logistics?

Let's not forget the Romans in the beginning weren't much of a seapower either, up until the Punic Wars. In the case of the Vandals, their earlier conquests and Roman concessions in Hispania (Spain) gain them access to maritime ports and naval bases such as Carthago Nova (Cartagena). From there it was only a matter of incorporating local naval experts and ship crews into their military. Even before capturing Carthage, they were already conducting naval activities in and around the Balearic islands from theses Spanish bases.

Absorbing defeated enemy troops and specialists was not an uncommon thing to do in those days, and the Vandals and other Germanic groups weren't the mindless brutes that late-Roman writers will have you believe (especially given that they recruited these same folks into their legions and even gave them high-ranking military positions).

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"Researchers from several institutions, led by Ernst Pernicka, scientific director of the Curt-Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry (CEZA) at the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim and director of the University of Tübingen’s Troy project, applied a portable laser ablation system (pLA) to analyse samples of Bronze Age jewellery found in Troy and Poliochni.

Troy (also called Ilios or Ilion and Ilium) in present-day Hisarlik in Canakkale, Turkey – comprises of a multi-period site, now partially buried in an artificial tell illustrating the gradual development of the city in north-western Asia Minor. Troy was the famous setting for Homer’s Iliad (one of the oldest extant works of Western literature) that tells the story of the city being sieged by a coalition of Greek states.

Poliochne, often cited under its modern name Poliochni, was an ancient settlement on the east coast of the island of Lemnos. It was settled in the Late Chalcolithic and earliest Aegean Bronze Age, and is believed to be one of the most ancient towns in Europe, preceding the construction of Troy I."

Speculation:

How did the Mongols go from being nomadic steppe horsemen to being the preeminent siege warfare specialists and imperial power so quickly?

They captured experts, integrated the experts into their military and social structures and rewarded them for their successes.

I imagine something similar was done by the Vandals. When a new power rolls through town and conquers you, they typically want you to output some level of economic value, and shipbuilding is most certainly valuable. The Vandals may have put their own spin on existing naval tactics too.

Wasn't there some miracle plant that worked so good as a contraceptive that the Romans picked it out of existence?

Silphium, or whatever?

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To add on this, they were murdered by political opponents to the previous regime when they came into power. Any lingering family members from previous leaders represented a real threat from which other actors could rally behind.

Those who did not engage in the practice of killing their old political rivals children often came to regret the decision. Unless they were married into the current regimes family tree with the outward notion of unity.

I'm pretty sure the problem was murder, murder, murder, and more murder.

Many children died of illness back in ancient times, so poisoning them was a very effective means of ensuring the current emperor didn't have an heir, and there were so many poisons that just looked like a natural death from disease.

And not to mention a lot of their heirs by blood or adopted heirs were generals and which made "assassination on the field of battle" an option.

So yeah, both biological heirs tended to die en masse and even the adopted ones. Usually by the time the next emperor was selected, it was the emperor's fourth or fifth choice. Not the one they would have preferred.

Only 1/3rd of Roman emperors died of natural causes, the rest were murdered or killed in battle.

Bastards were not as much of a thing in Roman times. Like another comment said, you just adopt. Bastards being an issue in succession were products of other times and other regimes and is not a universal issue in all eras.

Infant mortality was high (one estimate is that the average Roman woman had to have 5 children just to keep the population constant), and higher still in urban areas. A large urban area like Rome would have been particularly unhealthy. Throw in a very competitive political environment, the tendency of younger emperors to be killed before they could marry and that emperor remained always an office (open to anyone who had enough support among the military 'electorate'), rather than a hereditary position, and 'dynasties' rarely lasted more than 2-3 generations.

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Often the adopted children were nephews/cousins/etc, as well, so practically it was a means of keeping power and prestige in the family even if your own line died off, as well.

That doesn't matter so much. That's why you adopt them.

Infant mortality in this era was approximately 50%. There was a significant amount of inbreeding among the elites. And it wasn't just lead pots...but all of the water pipes were made of lead as well.

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I've got a bunch of books on Modern Chinese History, but I don't really know if I'm missing anything crucial. I've Jung Chang's Mao and her other book on the three sisters. I've got Frank Dikkoter's trilogy along with his new book "China after Mao". I've got "Imperial Twilight" and the Spring and Autumn book the same writer made. "Empress Dowager Cixi" is in my collection along with "The Generalissimo". What am I missing?

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Several reasons:

• Infant Mortality in the ancient world was high.
• Very few contemporary accounts of emperors actually exist- most surviving histories were written well after their reigns and many personal details are lost as a result.
• Many emperors didn't die peacefully in their beds. That meant his children were often murdered in order to secure the successor's throne.

The result is you get someone like Marcus Aurelius. We know Commodus, his son, succeeded him. But what is generally not known is Marcus and his wife had thirteen children. Nine didn't survive infancy or very early childhood, and 3 of the survivors were girls.

BTW, don't put much stock into the lead pipe thing. The Romans knew lead was problematic and used clay pipes most of the time. Additionally, chemical reactions with minerals in the water created calcium carbonate deposits in lead pipes which would prevent the lead from leeching into the water. The studies that looked at the lead in wine (from its production) had some issues, including the failure to account for the fact Romans mixed wine with water and that copper vessels were used in winemaking as well.

Points for adding baby t-rex.

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