Gaiseric (died 477) was the ruler of the Germanic tribe of the Vandals who established a kingdom in North Africa and in 455 sacked Rome.

The Vandals were one of several tribes pushed into the Roman Empire by the attacks of the Huns. When Gaiseric, the son of King Godegiselus and a slave, succeeded his half brother Gunderic in 428, the Vandals were settled in southern Spain. However, the struggle for power among rivals in the Roman government, as in many other cases, provided new opportunities for the barbarians. The Roman governor of North Africa, Boniface, was under attack by forces of Emperor Valentinian III, and as Boniface's defeat seemed imminent, he was accused, perhaps unjustly, of calling in the Vandals in 429 to counter the Romans.

Gaiseric proved to be one of the most formidable of the barbarian leaders, skillful in both war and diplomacy. A contemporary account describes him of...