As the Western Roman Empire was falling apart, a Germanic tribe known as the Vandals, having established a North African kingdom based at Carthage in what is today Tunisia take Sicily in 440 under the rule of their king Geiseric.

The Vandals had already invaded parts of Roman France, Spain and Portugal, asserting themselves as an important power in Western Europe.

However, they soon lose these newly acquired possessions to another East Germanic tribe in the form of the Goths.

The Ostrogothic conquest of Sicily (and Italy as a whole) under Theodoric the Great begins in 488; although the Goths are Germanic, Theodoric seeks to revive Roman culture and government and allow freedom of religion.