Vandals/Talk

Their name became a byword for meaningless destruction. This propaganda came up many centuries later. Does anyone know, who it was that came up with this and why? I read,that this was started by a 17st or 18st century Frenchmen.

Hmmm. It was generally known that the Vandals had, like the Visigoths, sacked Rome (410, Visigoths; 455, Vandals). In the 16th and 17th century English sources they are usually part of a list (Huns, Goths and Vandals), like Dryden's

 Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude Northern race, 
 Did all the matchless Monuments deface

I don't know how early it turns into *just* Vandals. It might be earlier in French. I'd hesitate to call it propaganda - just exagerration. --MichaelTinkler