'Vandal,' 'vandalized,' 'vandalism'—these are words that evoke images of damaging, ruining, destroying... But perhaps the Vandals weren't as bad as these terms suggest. Certainly, their first encounter with the Balearic Islands was far from amicable: in 425 AD, 1,600 years ago, they sacked these islands, then under Roman rule, and a few years later incorporated them into their domains. Thus began the darkest and least known period in the archipelago's history, until the destruction of their kingdom by General Belisarius, to whom the adopted Mallorcan Robert Graves dedicated one of his historical novels.