Ataulf’s westward march in 412 is not chronicled. The idea that it was the vast migration of a whole people cannot now be sustained. It was, at most, part of the Goths that formed a division of the Roman army. The number of dependents was limited by the tents and wagons available. It had no siege equipment and could not enter Marseille, defended by the young comes Bonifatius. No major field engagement is recorded, nor was it to be expected since Honorius was glad to see the Goths out of Italy.⁴² Dardanus may well have ignored the oath taken by Honorius to have no dealings with Alaric or his kin. On reaching Narbonne Ataulf offered to bring him the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian. He killed Sebastian and sent Jovinus to Dardanus, who executed him at Narbonne in July 413:the heads were exhibited at Ravenna on August 30. The Goths were camped in the vicinity, but the port was blockaded to prevent them from reaching Africa. Ataulf now thought himself the champion of Honorius, and in January 414 married Galla Placidia with full Roman rites and Attalus singing the epithalamium. The marriage brought him into the imperial family and produced two children, one of them a boy, named Theodosius not Alaric. Apart from Attalus, Placidia’s retinue included a general Candidianus and another who became a monk and carried the story to Jerome in Palestine, where he was known as the ex-duce Domnus. Orosius heard him tell his story, which was that Ataulf had renounced the idea of replacing Romania with Gothia since the Goths would not obey (written) law and had undergone a remarkable change under the influence of Placidia. This was very special pleading. It sufficed to convince St Jerome that the Goths were not intrinsically evil, but were a divine scourge sent to chastise Roman wickedness. This view became the kernel of Orosius’ Seven Books against the Pagans, which examines the whole course of Roman history to prove the thesis. It was finished in 416-417, and was pressed even further by the monk Salvian, a refugee from Trier, who wrote in the monastery of Lerins near Cannes.⁴³
Ataulf’s stay outside Narbonne, however important to the Goths, was soon curtailed for lack of food and land for his people, who were still living off what they could find. Constantius, now well launched on the way to become consul more than once, an honour rarely bestowed on commoners, had the voice in affairs at Ravenna, rather than Dardanus. He was awarded the task of recovering Placidia with the title of patrician and the promise of her hand. Ataulf moved on from Narbonne to Barcelona and camped outside the city, where the death of the infant Theodosius put an end to his imperial illusions. He was murdered by, or on behalf of, one Sigeric, a brother of Sarus, whose own reign was of the briefest. Two weeks later he was in turn removed by the senior dux Wallia.
Lost Roman documents are now rare. The most significant is Honorius’ Letter of Rewards, discovered in a medieval copy and published in 1945 by J. M. Lacarra.⁴⁴
Although undated, it can be placed in May 416, when Honorius came to Rome for his triumph at which sundry usurpers were paraded.⁴⁵ The Letter begins by stating that Constantius was ‘erede’ as patrician to one Sabinian⁴⁶. In the fourth century, the emperor’s father-in-law was distinguished as patrician and entitled to wear a shorter version of the imperial robe. Anthemius was regent for the East and called patrician to Theodosius II, as Jovius for Honorius. O. Seeck in Regesten (1927) translates it as ‘Excellenz’, and omits Jovius, Sabinian and Felix. There was then only one for each Part, but the West refused to accept Olympius and later Felix, appointed from the East.⁴⁷
Constantius returned to Arles in 414 to attempt to recover Placidia. The condition that Honorius was pledged never to recognize the kin of Alaric was annulled by the murder of Ataulf near Barcelona in July 415. If Sigeric was a personal enemy of Alaric, Wallia was a Visigothic nationalist prepared to renounce the claim to enter the imperial family in order to obtain food and land. An agreement was made at the Clausuras, the easternmost Pyrenees, to return Placidia in exchange for a supply of corn and the promise of land after Wallia had crushed the Western barbarians. The agreement assured Constantius of the princess’ hand and the award of his second consulship for 417. The negotiations were conducted by one Euplutius on his behalf and the bargain was verbal, but it would be surprising if Wallia did not secure the promise of a specific territory, which turned out to be Aquitania II, with the cities of Toulouse and Bordeaux, remote from the Mediterranean and Africa, but with a great commercial port. Placidia was reluctant to accept the terms, but yielded and the match produced a daughter, Justa Grata Honoria, and a son, the future Valentinian III, born on July 2 419. As Sidonius remarks, Constantius omnia praestat. He was made Augustus and co-emperor in February 421, but died of pleurisy in September.
Wallia for his part set out to fulfil his undertaking. The western barbarians had crossed the Pyrenees after two years in the Gauls in September or October 409.⁴⁸ The two dates suggest that they did not all cross at once. Hydatius’ annals are the only source for the history of the Suevic kingdom until 469, when he must have died. However, he was not an eye-witness of the arrival of the western invaders. The only recorder of their appearance was Orosius, then a priest probably of Braga. Since the martyrdom of Priscillian, the people of Gallaecia had hailed him as their own. The council of Saragossa had failed to stamp out his beliefs, and the Priscillianist bishops claimed that they were obedient and orthodox. The first Council of Toledo in 400 had broken up in some confusion, and the bishop of Rome – Innocent I –declared the Spains to be in a state of schism. Braga was the seat of Roman orthodoxy, and Orosius was set the task of persuading the Priscillianist clergy of the error of their ways without recourse to force.
He saw the coming of the strange and heathen barbarians who presented a political problem outside his own capacity, and escaped in a mist by sea, pursued to the water’s edge with clubs and stones, to seek the guidance of St Augustine at Hippo, who sent him on to St Jerome in Palestine. His escape is dated 413, and was probably from Oporto, the closest port to Braga, or Tuy on the Minho. He does not say which “strange barbarians” he saw. He was already in Palestine when he heard the monk and ex-duce Domnus tell the story of the change in Ataulf’s behaviour attributed to his marriage.
The barbarians were the Hasdingian Vandals, who were allocated territory in Gallaecia under their King Gundered. The Silingian Vandals (who have left their name in Silesia between East Germany and Poland) were placed in Baetica; the Alans were assigned to Lusitania and Cartaginensis; and the Sueves placed in the far west near the Ocean. These last were the only ones to remain in the territories assigned to them, the districts of Braga and Oporto in northern Portugal. Hydatius says that they had been marauding for two years when the allocation took place, therefore in 411. It had the approval of some local authorities, but not that of Ravenna. This does not explain how they came to cross the Pyrenees in the first place. Constantine III had not enough troops to occupy south-western Gaul, though his prefect Apollinaris was anxious to see his country free of them. It is probable that they were told of the agger on the middle Douro set aside to maintain the old Seventh Legion in Leon, and that the Hasdingians hoped to settle there, since Leon had its own peasantry. The Alans were mounted scouts, though their dependents in wagons lingered behind: they were less numerous and more accustomed to Roman service, but could not have occupied the whole of the two vast provinces assigned to them. The Silingians in Baetica represented the most serious threat to Rome by its proximity to Africa. It remains uncertain whether the Sueves were from the Rhineland or were Quads from the edge of Pannonia, or both.⁴⁹
If Wallia started from Barcelona his main object was to clear Baetica. The Silingian king Fredbal was captured by a trick and sent to Honorius. In 417 Wallia had slaughtered so many Silingians that the survivors joined the Hasdingians in the north, and Gundered became ‘king of the Vandals and the Alans’. The Mediterranean coast had been cleared and Wallia returned to claim his reward in the promised land, Aquitania. Constantius was anxious to be sure of his prize, entry into the imperial family. He had not exposed himself unduly, and was in good standing at Ravenna. Wallia may have consumed the large quantity of corn he had been given, and the united Vandals were much more formidable than the kings he had defeated. Orosius says that he turned back at the Straits. The Romans did not want him to stay in the Spains.
Constantius had broken an important Roman law, that no barbarians should settle on Roman soil without abandoning their independent kings and customs. Theodosius I had been spared from infringing ancient practice when King Athanaric died at Constantinople. A law of 398 agreed by Rome and Constantinople laid down that when defenders were required to protect Roman citizens, the guests might claim one-third of their hosts’property. It might take some time to ensure that barbarians adopted Roman customs, so that the essential thing was that they renounce their own kings. The situation in Toulouse was confused, but Constantius was in a strong position so long as he stayed close to Honorius. There is much speculation about how the settlement was made at Toulouse. It was more formal than the unofficial concessions made to the Vandals and Sueves. King Wallia died soon after reaching Toulouse, and his crown passed to Theodoric I (418/9-451), whose long reign served to fix relations between Goths and Romans and to assure the succession in an age when the Theodosian dynasty was foundering.
A glimpse of the settlement at Bordeaux is provided by Paulinus of Pella, the wealthy and idle heir to a former governor of Macedonia, in his verse autobiography Eucharisticus (the Thanksgiving). It was written in c.459, when he was old and impoverished. His family estate was at Vasatis, Bazas, and his impressions are clear even if his chronology is not. He had been made treasurer by Attalus, who had no treasure. When the Goths occupied Bordeaux, he and his wife went to Bazas. Their land was plundered, not by Goths but by young neighbours and stewards. He went to Bordeaux to complain to the king: he does not say which. But the Goth did not want to know Attalus’ associates. While Goths and Romans were negotiating, the walls were unmanned, but ringed by Alan wagons laden with their dependents.⁵⁰ Other Gallo-Romans were protected by Gothic acquaintances, but he was exposed to charges of collaboration, with no appeal. He thought of going to Macedonia, where his mother had had estates, but his wife did not want to risk the danger of travel. He eventually sold an estate at Marseille to a Goth, and became a devout and orthodox Christian.
Goths were not city-dwellers, and if they made their homes near Toulouse it was so that the king might collect the taxes and dispose of them among his optimates. These companions or comites were rewarded by their ruler, and they in turn rewarded their dependents. Some Romans abandoned their estates and were replaced by Goths. Other Goths served landowners as guards or bucellarii.⁵¹ Gothic discipline was strict, like the Roman on which it was modelled. Comites and duces settled disputes among their own followers and they alone might lay disputes before the king. The Goths enjoyed freedom of movement, and the wearing of sword-belts placed them in the officer class. The Visigoths remained in Aquitania II for almost a century, and it was not envisaged that they should return to the Spains, unless in small groups as federates.
There remained one former usurper unaccounted for. Maximus, the domesticus of Gerontius, the British commander killed at Vienne, had escaped to join the remains of the ‘Celtic’ legions, who were pardoned for their services to Honorius in 416. They had been placed on the north coast of Gallaecia, near the present episcopal city of Mondoñedo. They were expressly named to be treated as well as other loyal troops in the Spains though they were not part of the Roman army there. They retained for several centuries their identity as the Britones in Gallaecia. One feature of the British Christians was that the abbot of the chief monastery was also bishop of the diocese. The abbey church of the British was the monastery of Maximus, here a proper name, not an adjective.⁵² The ex-emperor and usurper lived modestly, dropping his pretentions and perhaps taking refuge in the church as bishop. Prosper, writing of the years to 433, confirms that Maximus kept his life and lived in humility.⁵³ There is no reason to suppose that the church of Maximus was not named after Maximus, its founder. There is no reference to the Britones having been in the Spains at any earlier date. In the time of St Martin of Dume the bishop of the Britones bore the Celtic name of Malioc, the governor of a still alien community.⁵⁴
Bishop Hydatius was a native of the Limici, who give their name to the River Limia in Spanish, Lima in Portuguese, flowing into the Ocean at Viana do Castelo. He was taken to the east to be educated and knew Jerome and other Christian divines. He does not say when he returned to the west, probably before 420, since he says that he cannot find the date of the death of Jerome. His task was to resume that of convincing the Priscillianists, still numerous in the north-west. Hydatius says that he was consecrated bishop in 424, when his annals were probably begun: he does not say of where, but his annals say ‘of Gallaecia’. His seat was at Aquae Flaviae, now Chaves, not previously a diocese, but the Suevic kings made their hall at Dume outside Braga, on the site of one or more Roman villae. The Sueves were too close for comfort to Braga, and still heathen. As well as opposing Priscillianism, Hydatius had the task of representing the Gallaeco-Romans in their dealings with them.⁵⁵ He was the historian of the kingdom of the Sueves until 469.
Hydatius gives the date for the first settlement of the western barbarians as 411, after two years of dreadful famine, with cannibalism and women eating their own babes. He notes the fame of St Augustine and his success in dealing with the Donatists of Africa. For the division he uses the term sortes, ad habitandum, which might suggest that they drew lots as between the Sueves and others, or simply that the land was awarded for settlement, adding that the Hispani who had suffered so much but had survived in the cities and fortified towns, resigned themselves. He records the murder of Ataulf near Barcelona and the succession of Wallia in 416, when Fredbal the Silingian king was captured and sent to Honorius, and his own conversio. Under 418, he records the eclipse of the sun on 14 kal Aug, and Wallia’s extinction of the Silingians in Baetica. He does not mention that at Ravenna it was decided to create a Council of Seven Provinces of southern Gaul, which in any case could not meet because of the troubles of the times, and when it did so, appears only intermittently. Hermeric, king of the Sueves, is named in 419, when the much increased Hasdingian Vandals of King Gundered began to clash with the Sueves in the Narbasian Mountains, either the Montes de León or the serras’ of Bragança. Pressed by the vicarius named Maurocellus, the comes of the Spains, Asterius, made them desist from the blockade of the Sueves. They killed some as they moved southwards through Braga, towards Baetica, leaving Gallaecia. This was as Honorius awarded Constantius his third consulship, making him Augustus in February 421. When he died, military affairs passed to the magister militum Castinus, who raised a large army including a contingent of Goths to make war on the Vandals. He almost surrounded them near the Straits and reduced them by starvation, but they broke through when he rashly risked a battle and forced him to retire to Tarragona. He was able to blame the auxiliaries for betraying him. Future experience confirms that the Goths fought best under a king of their own.
When the Emperor Honorius died at Ravenna in February 423, the Western court responded by bestowing the purple on John, the highest civilian minister, who had the support of Castinus and Asterius. The sole legal emperor was Theodosius II, who had not given his consent. He reacted only when Placidia fled with her infant son Valentinian to Thessalonica and appealed to him. He made the boy Caesar and sent an army with Alans to take Italy for him. When it had succeeded, he declared Valentinian III Augustus, with Placidia as regent and an easterner Felix as patrician. Among those loyal to Placidia was the comes Bonifatius, who had defended Marseille and made himself comes of Africa. The name of Placidia meant something to the Visigoths, but neither they nor the Vandals had much respect for womenrulers or child-emperors. The Vandals sacked Baetica, where they have left their name in Vandalicia, now Andalusia, though they were there for less than a decade. They took the great ports of Seville and Cartagena, and disposing of ships, raided the Balearic Isles. Those who became Christians adopted the Arian version which enhanced the authority of their king. They were not city-dwellers: Vandalism was the defacement or demolition of walls, sacred to Roman emperors, in order to make themselves secure.
The basin of the western Mediterranean, Mare nostrum, was at the mercy of the Vandals. The Roman fleet which had blockaded the ports against the Goths included ships of Carthage, grossly exaggerated by Orosius. Bonifatius, comes of Africa, had to contend with the landowners of Libya, who drew their wealth from sales of corn to Rome. His second wife was an Arian and he approached King Gundered to engage a contingent of Vandals, without result. But when the king died and was succeeded by his half-brother Gaiseric, things changed. Gaiseric seized the opportunity to migrate to Africa with all his people and dependents. They crossed at the Straits and took the coastal road through Mauretania. They were besieging Hippo when St Augustine died there on August 28 430.⁵⁶
As the Vandals prepared to leave Baetica in May 429, the Sueves pursued them and they turned back to resist. The Suevic leader Hermegarius was drowned in the Guadiana near Mérida. He may have been the heir of King Hermeric bent on a youthful exploit: Hydatius does not explain, but for him the Sueves, still pagan, desecrated the shrine of St Eulalia, the most Roman city of Ulterior.
The strong man in the west was now Aetius, a Roman of Scythian descent, who defended the northern frontier with the help of Salian Franks, still heathen: those who became Christian were orthodox: the Arian variant struck no roots among them. Placidia received conflicting advice, but relied first on Bonifatius in Africa. Her western court could accept a boy emperor, but not a patrician appointed from the East. Felix was killed in 430 after a scuffle in Italy. Aetius governed the northern Gauls, Gallia crinita, while the civilian pretorian prefect was at Arles. Some Goths marched on Arles with a view to taking Narbonne, the scene of Placidia’s marriage. The prefect Avitus appealed to Aetius for troops and he sent his deputy Litorius, who cleared Arles but could not prevail over Theodoric at Toulouse, who adhered to the foedus with Rome. Aetius profited by his successes in the north to become magister of both services. His career was to last until 453, outliving Theodoric and Placidia, itself a remarkable feat of endurance, during which Theodoric conformed to what was required of him, to support the prefect at Arles, police the province of Aquitania in putting down rebellious serfs and supplying contingents when urgently needed, watching the excesses of his Vandal rivals under King Gaiseric, who had the advantage of sea-power and a policy of ruthless diplomacy.
Hydatius’ immediate task was with the Sueves, who oppressed his Roman flock in Gallaecia. He went to appeal to Aetius, while the Goths sent one Vetto to seek an understanding with the Sueves in vain. In 432 Aetius, having tamed the nearer Franks, sent him back in the company of a comes Censorius, appointed to govern the Romans. An agreement was made with the Sueves, but once Censorius left it was soon breached. Hydatius gives only a broken picture of the Spains. In former times, the landowners of Tarraconensis were connected with those of southern Gaul, and there had been only one army in the Spains, the Seventh Legion at Leon replaced by detachments spaced across the limes to the Ocean, and now Hispanized. Cartaginensis, Baetica and Lusitania were regarded as Roman and under the administration of the vicarius of the western prefect at Seville. The pacified south was defended only by the sea and the limes beyond the Straits south of Volubilis at the level of Fez and Marrakush.
The Sueves occupied the conventus of Braga and Oporto, which have the only concentration of Germanic place-names in the Peninsula. As successors to the Roman army, they had no close regard for provincial divisions, though they knew the difference between Ulterior and Citerior and considered Mérida to lie in their zone. Goths had been granted Aquitania II and Toulouse and Bordeaux and looked to the prefect at Arles. They had not proved successful in the Spains, in part, because they had a stronger impulse for domination through unity than other barbarians; if Romania was to be superseded, it should be by Gothia, not by Germania.
Among their rivals were the Burgundians, who submitted to Aetius after he had subdued the Salian Franks. He used them to free Narbonne from the Goths, and rewarded them with land in Sapaudia, Savoy, west of Lake Leman. Their leader forwent the title of king for a time and was satisfied to be a magister, a general in the Roman army. They equivocated between Arianism and orthodox Christianity, adopted by their leader’s wife. These victories brought Aetius the title of comes and of magister of both services, together with a consulate. Placidia and her court mistrusted his ambitions. His only rival was Bonifatius, whom she recalled from Africa to her side. Hippo had held out for a year, but it was clear that Carthage itself could be saved only by negotiation. Boniface attempted to dismiss Aetius but, having resorted to arms, was soon defeated and killed. His son-in-law Sebastian attempted to succeed him but fled to the east to bide his time, while Aetius received the title of patrician. Although Placidia sought to placate the Vandals, she was unable to prevent Gaiseric from occupying Carthage, making a provision that supplies to Rome should not be affected.
Hydatius noted under 434 the consecration of Sixtus III in Rome (July 432-March 440). He obtained news from an Arab priest named Germanus and ‘other Greeks’, which suggests that ships from Alexandria reached his distant diocese. He heard of the attempts by eastern bishops to persuade Theodosius II against the Nestorian heresy. In 436 he received letters including Bishop Cyril’s protest to Nestorius. He says nothing of the youth Valentinian III, and little of Placidia, who resigned her regency in 437, when her son reached eighteen. He approved of Aetius, whom he had known, but not of the Goths, less still of the Sueves, who were nearest, and least of all the Priscillianists, who still adhered to their martyr. The orthodox bishop of Lugo was unable to prevent the consecration of two Priscillianists in Gallaecia in 433. The patrician Aetius intervened when some Goths laid siege to Narbonne in 436, and he records its liberation in the following year, also mentioning that he had killed 20,000 Burgundian rebels. Censorius, accompanied by one Fretimund, was sent as envoy to the Sueves in 437. It became usual to send both a Roman and a Goth on these missions, which were frequent. The Romans were not yet disposed to admit a Gothic force to be stationed in the Spains, perhaps because they were in negotiation with the Vandals whom they hoped to befriend. The Vandals in Africa were taking over the estates of Roman landowners and putting down the numerous small Christian communities, each with its own bishop.
The Suevic king Hermeric fell ill in 438, and was ready to make peace before handing over his authority to his son Rechila. He survived, still incapacitated, until 441. Rechila established his own reputation by entering Baetica and crushing one Andevotus with his army or guard on the Singilis, the Genil, and taking his gold and silver, while in Africa Gaiseric finally occupied Carthage ‘by treachery’: oral contracts by barbarians were of little duration unless sealed by the exchange of hostages and a marriage. The Sueves were at least consistent in their hostility towards the Vandals.
When Hydatius says that Aetius killed so many Goths in 438, he probably refers to a punitive expedition after the attack on Narbonne. In the following year, Litorius launched an attack on Theodoric at Toulouse, using a force of Huns. This was followed by a peace, the terms of which are not given, Hydatius recognizes that Litorius had been rash, and this may imply that the prefect at Arles disowned him. Theodoric remained loyal to the foedus: he was able at least to hold his own.
Meanwhile the landowners in the Spains were still in need of police to suppress their rebellious serfs, whose plight has something to do with the continuing need for victuals to supply both Roman armies and their federates. This was particularly the case in the great villae of Tarraconensis, but less so in the poorer parts of Gallaceia, troubled by the Priscillianists, whose teachings were adapted to the under-privileged. Hydatius leaves little doubt that he favoured the urban and landowning class which found shelter in the cities and walled towns and appealed to the rector or judge in Lugo or to himself against barbarian intrusions. But on the great estates round Saragossa, which prided itself on its numerous martyrs, and Pamplona, a Roman city in the midst of the Vascones, the peasants formed leagues with those independent Vascones, who, though subdued by Rome, had never adopted the Christian religion or abandoned their ancient language. The rebels were bacaudae or bagaudae.⁵⁷
In Gallaecia Priscillianism remained rife. The Sueves built or rebuilt their ‘new castle’ at Oporto, on the site of the present city near the mouth of the Douro. The place-names Suegos, Suevos, near Corunna, and Monte Suevo on the Cantabrian coast suggest that contact by sea with the Gauls was maintained. King Rechila followed his raid into Baetica by occuping the city of Mérida. When Censorius came again to negotiate he was surrounded at Mértola and obliged to capitulate. On his father’s death in 441 Rechila attempted to cast his mantle over Baetica and Cartaginensis, appointing his own bishop at Seville. His people remained strongly hostile to the Vandals, and his presence may not have been so unwelcome as Hydatius thought. The situation in Tarraconensis was a different matter. The revolt of the bagaudae was serious enough to call for Asturius to be sent with the high rank of magister of both services and a contingent of Gothic auxiliaries. He slaughtered many, and when he was recalled, his son-in-law Merobaudes fell on the bagaudae at Araceli, not far from Pamplona. Merobaudes was soon recalled and later reputed as a poet , recipient of a statue in Rome. Sebastian, the heir of Bonifatius, returned from the East and attempted to establish himself at Barcelona, but was driven off and sought refuge with the Vandals. Gaiseric followed his annexation of Carthage and its fleet by raiding Sicily and laying siege to Palermo, where he found Arian sympathizers. Only the Eastern fleet could have driven him off, but it compromised and he withdrew. As late as 445, Vandals raided Toronio, the district of Tuy at the mouth of the Minho, where they carried off a number of families.⁵⁸
In 446 Vitus was sent as magister with a large contingent of auxiliaries to occupy Cartaginensis and Baetica. On the appearance of Rechila and his army, the Goths went over to them and Vitus was forced to depart. Once more the Goths were not led by their king, and were not disposed to fight against fellow-Germans. Hydatius’ quarrel with the Priscillianists was kept alive by Pope Leo I (440-461), who despatched instructions to Astorga about the pursuit of heretics. Hydatius was able to arrest suspects, a task facilitated when Rechila died and was succeeded at Mérida by his son Rechiarius, the first barbarian ruler to become an orthodox catholic. This was either through having a catholic mother or from the exertions of Bishop Antoninus of Mérida or both. He reigned from August 448 to 456. If Hydatius does not exult, it was because he soon took a Gothic Arian to wife, and his reign ended in grief.
The Roman dynasty in the West also came to an inglorious end. Valentinian III married a daughter of Theodosius II, Eudocia, who gave him daughters but no son. Theodosius himself had daughters and no heir. Placidia lived on in Rome until November 450. She had not lost her mistrust of the patrician Aetius. Her son was much influenced by his cubicularii or chamberlains, who formed an inner cabinet within the palatine order. They were fortified by the existence of a strong and long-lived bishop in Leo, who had experience of lay administration. Theodosius himself was inclined towards peace with the Vandals of Africa, as was Placidia. Gaiseric had at his side Sebastian, the heir to Bonifatius, until he fell out with him and had him executed in 450.
Meanwhile, the Roman patron of Theodoric and the Visigoths of Toulouse was Avitus, prefect of Arles and Gallia togata. In July 450 Theodosius died after falling from his horse in Constantinople. He was 49, and was succeeded by his sister Pulcheria, who married the senior general Marcian, a soldier-emperor at last, but one who had family by a previous marriage and was a member of the reigning dynasty only by his second marriage. The link was even more attenuated when Pulcheria died in 453.
Theodoric had kept in touch with the Sueves by various missions, and now sought an alliance with King Rechiarius by offering him a daughter in marriage. Although the accession of an orthodox Christian made it possible to send suspects of heresy for trial to Mérida, Rechiarius’ succession was not unanimously approved by his people, or even his own family. In Seville, the Roman comes Censorius was executed by one Agiulf.⁵⁹ In February 449 Rechiarius went to meet his Gothic father-in-law. On the way he raided the Vascones. Hydatius’ phrase ‘to inaugurate his reign’ suggests that this was an exploit to prove his mettle against pagans. His route may have taken him by way of Pamplona where Merobaudes had put down the bagaudae in 443. One Basilius gathered the bagaudae and killed the (Gothic) federates, attacking the church at Taracena further south, where Bishop Leo was wounded in his church and died. But on his return in July Rechiarius joined with Basil to ravage an area round Lérida, which was entered by a trick and hostages taken.⁶⁰
The emperor Theodosius and his aunt Placidia were already dead when Attila and his Huns broke into northern Gaul. They took Metz in April 451 and laid siege to Orleans. Aetius appealed urgently to the prefect Avitus and assembled the Gothic king, the Salian Franks, the Burgundians and others to fight the crucial battle of the Catalaunian Fields near Troyes on June 20. Attila was defeated and withdrew eastwards, but was still able to sack Aquileia before his death in 454. King Theodoric I died gloriously in the fray. The victory belonged to Aetius, who urged the heir Thurismund to return at once lest others usurp his crown. It was good advice, for he reigned only until 454 when his brothers assassinated him and took his place. The Goths regarded the triumph as theirs, and it became the starting point for a policy of expansion with or without the approval of Rome. For Hydatius the new age was announced by an earthquake and alarming celestial phenomena.⁶¹
When Attila was killed, it was not by Aetius alone, but with the intervention of troops sent by Marcian. But Aetius was patrician and commander-in-chief in the West and, apart from the imperial marriage, in as good a position as Marcian. In September 453, Valentinian III was persuaded by his chamberlains to kill him with his own hand. The young emperor sent the usual double embassy headed by Mansuetus, comes for the Spains, to explain the case to the Sueves, but it was now that the Goths took over the policing of Tarraconensis. Thurismund’s brother, Frederic, slaughtered the bagaudae in the name of Rome: no more is heard of them. Thurismund was murdered by his brothers Theodoric II and Frederic, as accomplice.
On March 16 455, the clients of Aetius avenged their master by assassinating Valentinian III at a military parade. The West was left with the Empress Eudocia and her daughters. A senator, Petronius Maximus, twice consul, married the widow, who was perhaps reluctant. One daughter was promised to the heir of the Vandal king, Huneric, who already had a Gothic bride. Petronius was proclaimed immediately in Rome, apparently a passive accomplice to the murder. He scarcely reigned, for in May a Vandal fleet seized Rome to demand a share of the imperial inheritance and Petronius was stoned by a mob. Gaiseric occupied the city on behalf of his son on June 2.⁶² The Imperial claim would pass through Valentian’s other daughter Placidia to her husband, the senator Anicius Olybrius. None of the contenders possessed a sufficient land-army, and only the East had a fleet able to match the Vandals, who retired from the city taking with them the ex-empress and her daughters.
Nor were the Goths ready to be outshone by the Vandals. The prefect of Arles had the support of Theodoric II, and he was proclaimed by a session of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy at Ugarnum, Beaucaire, on the Rhone in July 455. He was welcomed in Rome in September. An enthusiastic panegyric was delivered by the young poet and leader of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, Sidonius. In an undated letter to the emperor’s son, Sidonius provides a unique description of a barbarian king at the height of his power. He found Theodoric accessible and patient, tallish and shaven, with the Gothic ‘tresses’ over the ears, bushy eyebrows and drooping moustachios. His body was muscular and fit, his knees bare with horse-hide boots tied with single cords and loose ends. At his table the cooking was excellent: there was no haste to replenish the wine-bowls. The conversation was commonplace (Sidonius knew no Gothic). There were no entertainers unless perchance a string-player. The household was orderly and not luxurious. The king began his day with his priests: Sidonius thought his devotions perfunctory rather than spiritual. He visited his stables and treasury. When he went hunting, he never carried his own bow: he was a good shot. He enjoyed a gambling-game and liked to win: it was prudent to let him do so. He was guarded night and day.⁶³
In Italy Avitus sought an understanding with Marcian against the Vandals and mobilized the barbarians, now free of Huns. He sent a mission to Rechiarius to urge the Sueves to respect the treaties. The Goths did the same, but the Sueves claimed to be protectors of Cartaginensis and Tarraconensis. Rechiarius was prepared to defy the Goths, and Theodoric II marched against him with a motley army under the guise of Avitus’ favour. It met Rechiarius on the River Órbigo in October 455 and forced him to retire wounded to Oporto. Theodoric took Braga, which he sacked and Rechiarius was killed, perhaps by his own dissidents, for Agiulf was left to govern the Sueves, while Theodoric proceeded to occupy Mérida, a decision that proved important since the capital of Lusitania has remained with Spain while the Suevic kingdom is the nucleus from which Portugal was born. If Hydatius hoped for an improvement in his fortunes, he was disappointed. The later years of his annals are replete with sinister omens.
During the onslaught Recharius had issued coins in his own name, silver siliquae of Honorius surcharged ‘by order of Rechiarius king’ and the mark Br for Braga, as if to recall that the monarchy of the Sueves had legal and Christian consent. This was unique for barbarian rulers, who did not risk authorizing forgeries. Agiulf did not long survive in Oporto but, when he was removed, the Sueves remained divided. In 455 a band of 400 Herules, sea-borne marauders form the north, landed in seven longships on the coast of Lugo. On being driven off they raided the Cantabrian coast as far as Vardulia, the future Castile, a foretaste of later Viking exploits.
If Theodoric himself intended to hold Roman Lusitania, he retired in some haste. Hydatius ascribed this to the intervention of St Eulalia, but she was assisted by news from Gaul and Italy. The Vandals had sent a fleet of sixty ships against Italy. They were driven off by Riccimer, the son of a Sueve and a daughter of King Wallia, now comes of the barbarian contingents in Italy. These also demanded to be paid, but Riccimer had control of the armed forces since the Roman guards could no longer operate without the consent of the barbarians. Avitus attempted to disband the auxiliaries, and failing, set out for Gaul for Gothic help. He was defeated near Piacenza on October 17 456 and made bishop there: he perished when he again tried to reach Arles.
The next emperor was Majorian, commander of the imperial guard, who was put forward by Riccimer. He was proclaimed on February 2 457 but was not received by the senate until December, partly because the Eastern emperor had died and was succeeded by another soldier Leo (457-474), who engaged numerous Ostrogoths, paid for by oppressing his own tax-payers. The Ostrogoths had two kings who occupied the valley of the Danube and Pannonia. In the West, Aetius had allowed the Franks and others to settle. His successor Aegidius, holding Soissons, kept the support of the Salian Franks, friendly pagans, and the Burgundians, who entered the province of Lyon, though its capital remained Roman. Majorian’s aim was to reunite the west against the Vandals of Carthage. At Lyon, he heard a panegyric from Sidonius, its most famous son, and proceeded to appease the Goths before assembling a fleet at Cartagena. It was destroyed by a sudden attack from the Vandal navy and he was obliged to retire to Italy. There Riccimer turned against him and killed him in November 461. Riccimer then permitted the senate to put forward Libius Severus, who, being a mere candidate of the barbarians with no military record, was not recognized by Leo.
Theodoric had claimed to support Majorian, the last serious Roman contender, and had sent Sunyeric to intervene in the north-west. Hydatius reports the comings and goings from the death of Agiulf in June 457, with a large number of entries for 460 and/or 461 and nothing at all for 462 to 464.⁶⁴
Hydatius offers a sorry picture of the march of the barbarian horde across northern Spain in 457. They entered Palencia and Astorga by trickery, pretending to be the friends of Rome, sacking the cities and devastating the countryside, though they could not enter the fort of Coyanza, now Valencia de Don Juan. In Gallaecia, the disorders continued. Maldras, who had seized Oporto, was himself killed at the end of February 460, a fate Hydatius thought he deserved. At Easter, Sueves suddenly attacked Lugo and killed its rector when the Romans thought they were safe. Sunyeric and Nepotian sent a force which despoiled Lugo and its district. The Sueve Frumarius arrested Bishop Hydatius at Chaves and detained him until August when he was released, for which he blamed informers. Another Sueve named Remismund challenged Frumarius and raided his neighbours the Auregenses and the coast of the conventus of Lugo, and this set off a war between him and Frumarius. A peace was patched up and Theodoric II sent a mission, while Sunyeric seized Scallabis, now Santarém, on the Tagus. Hydatius records the return of Majorian and his death at the hands of Riccimer. When Sunyeric was recalled, it was now Theodoric who appointed a successor to Nepotian. In Gallaecia, the cocks crowed at sunset, and the moon was blood-coloured. The conventus of Braga saw the portentous birth of two monsters, and it was heard that a similar phenomenon happened at Leon. For Hydatius, the Arians were in the ascendant, and there were two Arian powers in the stronghold of the Roman faith.
Hydatius reports that Gaiseric sent the widow Eudocia back to Constantinople while her other daughter married the senator of Rome, Olybrius. In Gallaecia, villae were struck by lightning and the flocks burnt, and twins, who could not be separated, were born. The comes Agrippinus, a Gaul, quarrelled with Aegidius and allowed the Goths to take Narbonne. Aegidius protested to Rome, but Agrippinus was cleared and sent back with equal powers with Aegidius. Among the Goths, Theodoric’s military brother Frederic, who had savagely put down the bagaudae in Tarraconensis, tried to challenge Aegidius in northern Gaul. With divine aid and that of the Armoricans, Frederic was defeated and killed in the neighbourhood of Orleans. For Hydatius, Aegidius had been a noble warrior whose works had divine approval. The Gallaeco-Romans now attempted to deal directly, sending a mission to Theodoric: it met with one led by Cyril and both returned to Lugo. Cyril brought with him a Sueve Remismund, causing ‘undisciplined perturbation’ or anarchy. Aegidius had approached the Vandals: his nobility was tarnished when he himself was killed; Hydatius did not know if he was poisoned or betrayed. Meanwhile, Remismund, the son of Maldras, secured arms, presents and a wife from Theodoric, and obtained possession of Conimbriga in Portugal, seizing the property of the noble Cantaber. Remismund’s envoys brought news of the death of Severus in November 465. Conimbriga remained with the Sueves.
Hydatius’hope of saving the souls of the Sueves vanished when they received an Arian bishop named Ajax, who imported the ‘pestiferous plague’ from the Goths.⁶⁵ His own end was filled with foreboding. When the Vandals were defeated in Sicily, Riccimer asked the Emperor Leo to appoint a colleague in the West. He was Anthemius, a grandson of the patrician of Arcadius, who had married a daughter of Marcian by his first marriage. He was made Augustus in Rome on April 12 467 and gave a daughter in marriage to Riccimer, who received some authority for his claim to be patrician. Sidonius’ optimism was aroused and he composed a final panegyric for Anthemius. Hydatius had less cause to rejoice, particularly when a mission sent to the Sueves returned to find that Theodoric II had been assassinated by his brother Euric at the end of 466 or opening of 467.⁶⁶ The principal change was that Theodoric had at least publicly upheld the foedus, while Euric, like many Visigothic optimates, wanted open independence. They had held Aquitania II from the empire: when there was no emperor they continued to hold it by their own law, suo jure. If Euric was less Romanized than his brother, he nevertheless had Roman jurists who formulated his own code for his Roman subjects and for their relations with the Visigoths. It embodied Roman concepts and was largely the work of Leo of Narbonne: it is now known from fragments and was probably in place by 474. When Sidonius wrote to Leo, he noted his responsibility for gathering information about the world’s affairs and advising on legal matters, deserts, rewards, treaties and wars. The awkward dualism had changed. At some point the Roman two-thirds in Aquitania had become one-third and the Gothic share increased. The prefect at Arles, Arvandus, was arrested as a traitor for having advised Euric to march northward against the Franks. He was sent to Rome to answer a charge of malversation and it emerged that the critical letter existed. Sidonius went to Rome to speak for him but says that Arvandus destroyed his own case before the senate, by appearing with no sign of contrition and boldly asserting that he had nothing to answer for. He was condemned to death, and the sentence deferred by exile.
Sidonius was not the only member of the senatorial class to become a bishop with little or no training in theology. He wrote little verse but continued to address letters to his friends. He resisted Euric and was exiled for two months to the high Pyrenees. When he returned he was required to go to Euric at Bordeaux. He saw the king only once in two months. Euric had become the ‘wolf of our times’. He had taken up the sword and shattered the foedus, to be feared more for his assault on Christian laws than on city walls. The very word ‘catholic’ was repugnant to his lips and he fancied that he owed more to the truth of his superstition than to his virile energy. The sees of Bordeaux and other places were vacant on the death of the incumbents, who had presented men to the lower orders, so that a tract of desolation had been created. This opened the prospect that heretics would take over as people sank in despond, with church roofs falling in, doors overgrown with brambles and the chancels a resting-place for cattle : Bishop Crocus of Nîmes and others had been removed, but Arles, Lerins and Marseille were staunch. He personally had refuted a Goth named Madihaurius.
This diatribe conceals the fact that Euric was accustomed to naming his own bishops and good catholics would not allow such to present priests to their own churches. Euric appointed a Gallo-Roman Victorius prefect of Arles and allowed Arvernia autonomy in return for keeping Nîmes and part of Provence. As bishop, Sidonius could claim exemption for his own estates and those inherited by his wife, the daughter of Avitus. He learned to accept Victorius as comes and his own son became an ally of the Goths. When he died (in 479?), Euric took over the Auvergne in 480 as well as part of Provence. Sidonius mentions that the port of Bordeaux was frequented by Ostrogoths, Burgundians, and sea-faring Herules and Saxons. Independence brought young Germanic heroes in search of favour and fortune with their bands. This horde sufficed to outnumber the Sueves. The Visigoths had not done well north of the Loire. The Salian Franks were pagans, and catholics often preferred friendly pagans to Arians. The Britons who now populated Armorica between the mouth of the Seine and Loire were Christians who had fought on the side of the Aetius and others against the Huns.⁶⁷
In Euric’s eyes his authority extended to Arles, Narbonne and Septimania. The northward expansion covered Aquitania I, whose capital was at Bourges, but included Albi and Cahors not far north of Toulouse. His garrisons held strategic cities in the Spains. His aim was not to absorb the Sueves, but to harness them to his religion, the basis for an alliance of Arian barbarian monarchies. Hydatius records the strengthening of the Gothic garrison at Mérida in 469, after which the Roman governor of Lisbon Lusidius opened his city to the Sueves. He notes the death of Bishop Hilary of Rome at the end of February 468 and the succession of Simplicius. The Aunonenses of Ourense made peace with the Sueves, who controlled places in Asturiensis and Lusitania. Lusidius led a mission on behalf of Remismund to the emperor. Hydatius does not give its object, or say whether it reached its destination and received any answer. He ends with numerous signs and portents in Gallaecia. Near Lais on the Minho, Christians reported the catching of four strange fish marked with letters in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and some numerals which mounted to 365. It was followed by a fall of bitter green seeds from the sky and wonders too long to mention.⁶⁸
The faded glory of Rome departed when the Greek Emperor Anthemius tried to subdue Euric before reducing the Vandals. He was defeated in 471 without reaching Arles: he was murdered, and in 472 Riccimer also disappeared. The Burgundian king Gundobad, still an Arian, tolerated catholics, and succeeded Riccimer as commander of the barbarians in Italy. Their pseudo-emperor Glycerius lasted a few months in 474, after which they confined themselves to the valley of the Rhone as neighbours to the Visigoths. After the brief episode of the Burgundian Gundobad, the barbarian command passed to Odoacer, who sent the Imperial regalia in chests to the East, less perhaps in triumph than as a recognition that he did not aspire to appoint an emperor of his own making. The Emperor Leo died in 474, leaving his authority to Zeno, an Isaurian who had married his daughter Verina. She had a streak of Leo’s ruthlessness, but Zeno faced the fact that too many barbarian troops had been engaged, whom he could not pacify. Euric was not the only Gothic king: the Ostrogoths had two leaders, both named Theoderic, one more legitimate than the other. Zeno consulted the Eastern senate, never so lofty as the Roman and closer to the merchant-class who paid taxes. When he asked his Ostrogothic general to return to his homeland, he was confronted with the reply that the land no longer sufficed, since Leo had so increased his army.⁶⁹ This made the Ostrogoths take a firm line. Both Theoderics agreed not to fight one another: when one was favoured at the expense of the other his men would go over to the one who was paid: if they negotiated separately the result would be the same. In the event, Theoderic the Ostrogoth, who became the Great (474-526), acquired recognition in Pannonia and Illyricum, and became king of Italy in Ravenna, still receiving subsidies in gold from the emperor. He did not abandon Arian Christianity, but allowed Romans on whom he depended for coin and for administration of his far-flung domains to keep their own faith and customs.
He made formal contact with the Visigoths in Provence before the death of Euric, which occurred from natural causes at Arles in 484. Euric’s son Alaric II was acclaimed at Toulouse, acquiring southern Gaul and sharing the Spains with the Sueves. The Vandals, also Arians, professed to be Romans at heart but oppressed the great estates of the Roman landowners and their catholic inhabitants and numerous clergy. They lost their military tradition: it had been their navy and the opportunism of Gaiseric that made them feared.
Triple gold solidus of Anastasius, 491-518, showing King Theoderic the Ostrogoth.
North of the Loire, the Salian Franks of Clovis (481-511) had defeated the son of Aetius at Soissons in 486 and dominated Gallia crinita. He was a heathen, but his men had never been Arians. The Armorican Britons, who now called the country Little Britain, were Christians and no friends of the Arian Goths. In 496, the Visigoths held Saintes.⁷⁰ In Aquitania I, the Visigothic hold was tenuous. The church survived through the independence of its bishops, who appointed their priests and maintained a network of correspondence when the roads were open. None were now so indiscreet as Sidonius had been, and their themes were usually pious, with only occasional references to political affairs.⁷¹ To his east, Alaric found the Burgundians, whose King Gundobad was not disposed to join an Arian league. The Rhone had been a thoroughfare for the transport of Roman troops, and was used for commerce, which centred on the great port of Marseille. The Ostrogothic occupation of Provence barred their way to expansion southwards and gave Alaric an ally. He married a daughter of Theoderic and his sister married Theoderic’s heir. His reign was longer than that of his father, but the antecedents of his disastrous defeat and death at the hands of Clovis remain obscure. Cassiodorus says that Theodoric attempted to negotiate. He could not prevent the Burgundians from siding with the Salian Franks. In the spring of 507, Alaric issued his revised code of laws, the Breviarium, intended to stress his sovereign authority and to express his equitable treatment of all his subjects. It was too little and too late. Clovis defeated him on the field at Vogladum, Vouillé, near Poitiers. His men dispersed and Clovis entered Bordeaux without difficulty. Alaric’s son Amalaric was recognized at Toulouse, but he was still a child unable to govern.
The Gothic settlement in Tarraconensis had begun even before the defeat of Alaric. The chronicle of Saragossa covers the years 450 to 568. It records that in 494 the Goths entered the Spains and that in 496 one Burdunellus rebelled. In the following year, the Goths settled, sedes acceperunt, in the Spains. Burdunellus was sent to Toulouse, where he was publicly burnt. When the chronicler says ‘the Spains’ he means his own province. The resistance still smouldered in 506, when the Goths entered Tortosa, killing one Peter, whose head was sent to Saragossa, now the headquarters of the settlers.