Hilderic became King of the Vandals in 523, after the death of his cousin, King Thrasamund. Besides being the grandson of the first Vandal King of Africa, Gaiseric, son of King Huneric, and cousin of the kings Gunthamund and Thrasamund, Hilderic was also a grandson of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III. While all of the previous Vandal kings had been from the Arian branch of Christianity, Hilderic was a Chalcedonian, like his Roman mother, Eudocia. This boded well for relations with the Eastern Roman Empire, but poorly for internal relations, also not helped by his imprisonment of Thrasamund's widow, Amalafrida, and her brother, Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Hilderic was also reputedly disinterested in military affairs, which added to his unpopularity.

Almost all of what we know about Hilderic comes from Procopius, however, whose main motive was to explain why Hilderic was deposed, as he was, by his cousin, Gelimer, in 533, since Hilderic's deposition and subsequent execution later that year was the Emperor Justinian I's pretext for invasion.

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