Etymologies & Works 24 part 2/3

During his reign, when the kings of the Franks had come together into Spain with countless forces, and were ravaging the province of Tarraconensis with war, the Goths, under the general Theudisclus, having blocked the passes of Spain, laid low the army of the Franks with much admiration at the victory. The same general, upon prayer and an immense sum of money offered to him, afforded to the remaining enemy a way of flight for the space of one day and one night. The rest of the wretched multitude, to whom the passage of the allotted time did not present itself, fell cut down by the sword of the Goths. After the success of so happy a victory, the Goths conducted themselves imprudently across the strait.

Finally, when they had crossed the straits of the Ocean against the soldiers who had, when the Goths were driven out, invaded the town of Ceuta, and were storming that same fortress with great force of combat, at the coming of the Lord's Day they laid down their arms, lest they should defile the sacred day with battle. Having found this occasion, therefore, the soldiers, attacking with a sudden onset, so laid low the army — hemmed in on every side by sea and land, idle and unarmed — that not even one remained who might pass beyond the destruction of so great a disaster. And without delay the death owed to him overtook the prince. For he was wounded by a certain man in the palace, who had long since feigned the appearance of madness, in order to deceive the king.

For he feigned madness by craft, and ran the prince through; by which wound that one was laid low and fell, and breathed out his indignant soul by the force of the sword. Moreover it is said that, amid the effusion of his blood, he conjured that no one should slay his assailant, saying that he had received a fitting recompense for his desert, because he too, while a private man, having been solicited, had slain his own commander. In the era 586, in the twenty-third year of the reign of Justinian, when Theudis had been slain, Theudisclus, general of the former prince, was set over the Goths, reigning one year and three months; and since he stained the marriages of very many nobles with public prostitution, and on this account prepared his mind for the murder of many, he was forestalled by the hand of the conspirators, and was slain at Seville amid the banquets, and, pierced through by the sword, was destroyed.

In the era 587, in the twenty-fourth year of Justinian, when Theudisclus had been destroyed, Agila was established as king, reigning five years. This man, moving a battle against the city of Córdoba, when, in contempt of the catholic religion, he inflicted injury upon the most blessed martyr Acisclus, and, as a profaner, polluted the sacred place of his sepulcher with the blood of enemies and of beasts of burden, joining battle against the citizens of Córdoba, he merited fitting punishments, the saints inflicting them. For, struck by the vengeance of the present war, he both lost his son slain there together with a host of the army, and lost all his treasure together with his splendid riches. He himself, conquered, and put to flight in wretched fear, withdrew to Mérida.

Against him, after the interval of some space of time, Athanagild, seizing tyranny out of desire to reign, when he had by military valor laid low Agila's army sent against him at Seville, the Goths, seeing themselves overthrown by their own destruction, and fearing all the more lest the Roman soldiers should invade Spain on the occasion of aid, slew Agila at Mérida and handed themselves over to the rule of Athanagild. In the era 592, in the twenty-ninth year of Justinian, when Agila had been slain, Athanagild held the kingdom which he had usurped for fourteen years. He, when, having long since assumed tyranny, he was endeavoring to deprive Agila of the kingdom, had asked from the emperor Justinian the aid of soldiers for himself, whom afterward, though he strove to remove them from the borders of the kingdom, he could not.

Against these there was fighting up to this time. Cut down in frequent battles before, they are now indeed broken and finished by many mischances. But Athanagild died at Toledo by a natural death, the kingdom being vacant for five months. In the era 605, in the second year of the reign of Justin the Younger, after Athanagild, Liuva was set over the Goths at Narbonne, reigning three years; who, in the second year after he had gained the principate, established his brother Leovigild not only as his successor but also as a partner of the kingdom, and set him over the administration of Spain, while he himself was content with the kingdom of Gaul. And thus the kingdom took two rulers, since no power is patient of a partner. But to this king Liuva only one year is reckoned in the order of the times; the rest are numbered to his brother Leovigild.

In the era 606, in the third year of the reign of Justin the Younger, Leovigild, having gained the principate of Spain and Gaul, resolved to enlarge the kingdom by war and to increase his wealth. For by his zeal, the army concurring with favor, he obtained many things brilliantly in his victories. For he gained the Cantabri; he took Aregia; all Sabaria was subdued by him; very many rebellious cities of Spain also yielded to his arms. He also routed the soldiers in various battles, and, fighting, recovered certain fortresses that had been occupied by them. Then he overcame his son Hermenegild, who was playing the tyrant against his rule, after besieging him. At last he waged war against the Sueves, and transferred their kingdom to the jurisdiction of his own nation with marvelous swiftness, having gained possession of Spain for the greatest part.

For before, the nation of the Goths was confined within narrow bounds, but the error of impiety in him obscured the glory of so great valor. Finally, filled with the fury of Arian perfidy, in a persecution stirred up against the catholics, he banished very many of the bishops into exile. He took away the revenues and privileges of the churches; he also drove many by terrors into the Arian pestilence, and deceived very many, enticed without persecution, by gold and by goods. He dared also, among the other contagions of his heresy, even to rebaptize catholics — and not only from the common people, but even from the dignity of the priestly order, such as Vincent of Zaragoza, made from a bishop an apostate, and, as it were, cast down from heaven into hell.

He proved also destructive to certain of his own people, for whomever he saw most noble and most powerful he either beheaded, or, their wealth being taken away, proscribed, and sent the proscribed into exile. He was also the first to enrich the fisc, and the first to increase the treasury from the plunder of citizens and the spoils of enemies. He was also the first among his people to sit upon a throne covered with royal raiment. For before him both the attire and the seating were common, alike for the people and for the kings. He also founded a city in Celtiberia, which he named Recopolis from the name of his son. In the laws too he corrected those things which seemed to have been enacted without order by Euric, adding very many laws that had been passed over, and removing very many that were superfluous. He reigned, moreover, for eighteen years,

and died a natural death at Toledo. In the era 624, in the third year of the reign of Maurice, when Leovigild had died, his son Reccared was crowned in the kingdom, endowed with the practice of religion, and far unlike his father's ways. For that one was irreligious and most ready for war; this one was pious in faith and renowned for peace; that one, by the arts of arms, extended the dominion of his nation; this one, glorious, exalted the same nation by the trophy of the faith. For in the very beginnings of his reign, having embraced the catholic faith, he calls back the peoples of the whole Gothic nation, the taint of ingrained error being abandoned, to the worship of the right faith. Then he gathers a synod of bishops for the condemnation of the Arian heresy, from the various provinces of Spain and Gaul.

At this council that most religious prince himself was present, and confirmed its acts by his presence and his subscription, renouncing, together with all his own people, the perfidy which up to this time the people of the Goths, with Arius teaching it, had learned; and proclaiming the unity of the three persons in God: that the Son was consubstantially begotten of the Father, that the Holy Spirit inseparably proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that there is one Spirit of both, whence also they are one. He also gloriously waged war against hostile nations, with the aid of the faith he had received. For when the Franks with forces of nearly sixty thousand armed men burst into the Gauls, Claudius the general having been sent against them, he triumphed with a glorious outcome.

Never in the Spains was there a victory of the Goths either greater in war or like to it. For many thousands of the enemy were laid low and captured; but the remaining part of the army, turned to flight beyond hope, with the Goths pursuing at their backs, was cut down even within the borders of their own kingdom. Often too he moved his arms against the insolences of the Romans and the incursions of the Vascones. Whence he seems not so much to have conducted wars as rather to have exercised his nation, as though in the training of a wrestling-school, for the practice of combat. Moreover, the provinces which his father had won by war, this man preserved by peace, disposed with equity, and ruled with moderation. He was, moreover, placid, mild, of outstanding goodness;

and he had so much grace in his countenance, and bore so much kindness in his soul, that, flowing into the minds of all, he drew even the wicked to the affection of his love. So liberal was he that he restored to their proper right the wealth of private persons and the estates of the churches, which his father's ruinous course had annexed to the fisc. So merciful was he that he often relaxed the peoples' tributes by the largess of his indulgence. He also enriched many with goods, and exalted very many with honors. Storing up his wealth in the wretched and his treasures in the needy, knowing that a kingdom had been conferred upon him for this, that he might enjoy it wholesomely, he attained a good end from good beginnings. For the faith of right glory, which he received at the beginning of his reign, he lastly crowned by a public confession of penitence.

He passed away at Toledo with a peaceful end, having reigned fifteen years. In the era 639, in the nineteenth year of the reign of Maurice, after king Reccared reigns his son Liuva two years, begotten indeed of an ignoble mother, but marked out by the disposition of virtue. Him, in the first bloom of adolescence, Witteric, having assumed tyranny, cast down harmless from the kingdom, and, his right hand having been cut off, slew in the twentieth year of his age, and the second of his reign. In the era 641, in the twenty-first year of the reign of Maurice, when Liuva had been destroyed, Witteric claimed the kingdom, which he had usurped while that one was living, for seven years. He was indeed a strenuous man in the art of arms, but yet devoid of victory. For, though he often set a battle against the Roman soldier, he did nothing gloriously enough, except that he obtained certain soldiers at Sigüenza through his generals.

This man did in his life very many unlawful things; but in death, because he had wrought by the sword, by the sword he perished. For the death of the innocent was not unavenged in him: for amid the banquets of a meal he was slain by the conspiracy of certain men, and his body was basely carried out and buried. In the era 648, in the eighth year of the reign of Phocas, Gundemar reigns two years after Witteric. He laid waste the Vascones in one expedition, and in another besieged the Roman soldier. He departed by a natural death at Toledo. In the era 650, in the second year of the reign of Heraclius, the most Christian Sisebut, after Gundemar, is summoned to the royal dignity, reigns eight years and six months; who, at the beginning of his reign, urging the Jews toward the Christian faith, had indeed zeal, but not according to knowledge;

for he compelled by power those whom he ought to have provoked by the reasoning of the faith. But, as it is written, whether by occasion or in truth, so long as Christ is announced. He was, moreover, polished in eloquence, learned in judgment, and imbued in great part with the knowledge of letters. In his judgments he was strenuous and most excellent in justice and piety, kindly in mind, distinguished in the splendor of the kingdom, and renowned also in warlike proofs and victories. For he brought the Astures, who were rebelling, back into his dominion by sending an army. The Ruccones, hemmed in on every side by steep mountains, he vanquished through his generals.

Over the Romans too he twice triumphed happily in his own person, and by storming certain of their cities he subjected them to himself; the rest, along the strait, he emptied of them all — cities which the nation of the Goths afterward easily reduced under its own dominion. So merciful was he after victory that many who had been reduced to servitude by his army as spoils of war he set free upon payment of a price, and his treasury became the ransom of captives. Some assert that he was killed by his own illness, others by an immoderate draught of medicine, others by poison. His death proved grievous not only to the religious but even to the best of the laity. He left behind his little son Recared, who after his father's death was reckoned prince for a few days, until death intervened. Era 659, in the year.

In the tenth year of the reign of the emperor Heraclius, the most glorious Suinthila by divine grace received the sceptre of the kingdom. He, having obtained the office of general under king Sisebut, subdued the Roman camps and overcame the Ruccones. But after he had ascended to the summit of the royal dignity, he took by battle joined the remaining cities which the Roman power held in the Spains, and carried off, with marvellous good fortune above all other kings, an increased glory of triumph. He alone first gained the monarchy of all Spain within the strait of the Ocean, which had been granted to none of the princes before him. In that battle he increased the title of his valour by the capture of two patricians, one of whom he won by prudence, the other he subdued to himself by the valour of battle.

At the very beginning of his reign he also undertook an expedition against the incursions of the Vascones, who were harrying the province of Tarraco; there the mountain-roaming people were so struck with terror at his coming that at once, as though acknowledging a debt of obedience, they laid down their weapons and stretched out their hands freed for supplication, and as suppliants bowed their necks to him, gave hostages, and built at their own cost and labour the city of Ologicus for the Gothic garrisons, promising to obey his kingdom and dominion and to carry out whatever was commanded.

Besides these praises of military glory, there were in him very many virtues of royal majesty: faith, prudence, industry, care in examining lawsuits, strenuous solicitude in ruling the kingdom, outstanding munificence toward all, and a readiness of mercy toward the needy and the poor — so that he deserved to be called not only prince of peoples, but even father of the poor. His son Racimir, taken into the fellowship of the kingdom, rejoices with his father upon an equal throne; in whose infancy so great a splendour of sacred disposition shines forth that in him, both in merits and in countenance, the image of his father's virtues is already foreshadowed.

For him the Ruler of heaven and of the human race is to be entreated, that just as he stands, by his father's grant, a partner in the kingdom, so after the long reign of his parent he may be most worthy also of the succession of the kingdom. Reckoning, therefore, the times of the Gothic kings from the beginning of king Athanaric down to the fifth year of the most glorious prince Suinthila, the kingdom of the Goths is found, by God's favour, to have extended over 256 years. Likewise, a recapitulation by the same Isidore in praise of the Goths. The most ancient origin of the Goths was from Magog, son of Japheth, whence also the race of the Scythians arose. For these same Goths are proved to have been born of Scythian origin, whence too they differ not far in name; for by a letter changed and dropped, the Getae, as it were Scythae, were so named.

These, then, dwelling upon the icy ridges of the North around the Scythian realms, possessed together with other nations whatever heights of the mountains there are. Driven from these seats by the onslaught of the nation of the Huns, and having crossed the Danube, they gave themselves up to the Romans. But when they could not endure the injuries of the Romans, in indignation they chose themselves a king from their own throng, burst into Thrace, laid Italy waste, captured the besieged City, attacked the Gauls, and, the passes of the Pyrenees laid open, reached even to the Spains, and there established the seat of their life and their empire.

A people swift by nature, keen in wit, relying on the strength of self-confidence, robust in bodily vigour, lofty in stature, striking in bearing and dress, ready of hand, hardy under wounds — even as the poet says of them: 'The Getae despise death, praising the wound.' Among them the greatness of wars was so great, and the valour of glorious victory so exalting, that Rome herself, conqueress of all peoples, subjected to the yoke of captivity, gave way before the Getic triumphs, and, mistress of all nations, served them as a handmaid. Before these all the nations of Europe trembled; the barriers of the Alps yielded to them. Even the Vandal barbarism, so often talked of, was not so much terrified by their presence as put to flight by their mere reputation.

By the vigour of the Goths the Alans were extinguished; the Suevi too, hitherto confined within the inaccessible corners of the Spains, felt the peril of their end by their arms as well, and now lost, at a more shameful expense, the kingdom which they had held in slothful torpor — though it is a great marvel that they held it thus far, being able, without any trial of defence, to keep it. But who could tell so great a magnitude of the strength of the Gothic nation, since, whereas to many nations it was scarcely permitted to reign for the sake of prayers and gifts, to these, nevertheless, liberty befell rather from conflict than from peace sought; and where the necessity of warring set itself against them, they employed strength rather than prayers?

Moreover, in the arts of arms they are quite notable, and they fight on horseback not only with spears but also with javelins. Nor do they engage in cavalry battle only, but they advance also on foot. Yet they trust more in the swift onrush of the cavalry, whence too the poet says: 'the Getes, whither he presses with his horse.' For they most delight to exercise themselves with weapons and to rehearse for battle in play. The contests of their games they conduct with daily practice. In this one experience of arms alone were they hitherto lacking, that they were not eager to wage naval wars at sea.

But after prince Sisebut received the sceptre of the kingdom by heavenly grace, they advanced by his zeal to so great a virtue of felicity that they approach with their arms not only the lands but even the seas themselves, and the Roman soldier, subdued, serves those to whom he sees so many nations and Spain herself in servitude. The history of the Vandals.

In the era 444, two years before the storming of the city of Rome, the nations of the Alans, Suevi, and Vandals, stirred up by Stilicho, crossed the river Rhine, burst into the Gauls, trampled down the Franks, and by a direct onset reached even to the Pyrenees; but the barrier of these being held by Didymus and Veranianus, most noble and most powerful Roman brothers, they were kept off from Spain for three years, and roamed through the neighbouring provinces of Gaul. But after these same brothers, who were guarding the barriers of the Pyrenees with a private garrison, were killed — innocent and guilty of no fault — on suspicion of tyranny, by Constantius Caesar, in the era 446, the aforesaid nations burst into the provinces of the Spains.

In the era 446, the Vandals, Alans, and Suevi, occupying the Spains, wrought slaughters and devastations in bloody forays, burned cities, exhausted the plundered substance, so that human flesh was devoured by the peoples through the force of famine. Mothers ate their own sons; wild beasts too, accustomed to the corpses of those dying by sword, famine, and pestilence, were carried away even to the destruction of the living; and thus, with four plagues raging throughout all Spain, the foreannouncement of divine wrath once written by the prophets was fulfilled. In the era 459, after the dire ruin of the plagues by which Spain was smitten, the barbarians at last, turned by God's mercy to entering upon peace, divide its provinces among themselves by lot into a possession.

For the Vandals and Suevi occupy Gallaecia; the Alans, Lusitania and the province of Carthage; but the Vandals surnamed Silingi, having left Gallaecia, and after they had laid waste the islands of the province of Tarraco, returning, obtain Baetica by lot. But the Spaniards, afflicted by the plagues of the dominating barbarians throughout the remaining cities and fortresses, subjected themselves to their servitude. And first in Spain there succeeded Gunderic, king of the Vandals, reigning in the parts of Gallaecia eighteen years. He, while, the treaty of peace being broken, he was besieging the nation of the Suevi in the Erbasian mountains, abandoning the siege of the Suevi, plundered the Balearic islands of the province of Tarraco.

Then, Carthago Spartaria having been overthrown, he crosses with all the Vandals into Baetica, demolishes Hispalis, and, slaughter being carried out, gives it over to pillage. And when with the authority of royal power he had irreverently stretched out his hands against the basilica of Vincent the martyr of that very city, soon, by the judgement of God, seized by a demon in the doors of the temple, he perished. In the era 466, Geiseric, brother of Gunderic, succeeds to the kingdom for forty years. He, from a Catholic become an apostate, is said to have been the first to pass over into Arian perfidy. He crossed over from the shore of the province of Baetica with all the Vandals and their families to Mauretania and Africa, leaving the Spains behind.

Valentinian the Younger, emperor of the West, not being able to resist him, sends peace, and gave, as it were peaceably, the part of Africa which the Vandals possessed, on conditions of an oath received from him that he should invade nothing further. But he, of whose friendship there was no doubt, having violated the sanctity of the oath, invades Carthage under the guile of peace, and turns all its wealth to his own right, the citizens being tortured with diverse kinds of torments. Then he plunders Sicily, besieges Panormus, introduces the Arian pestilence throughout all Africa, drives the priests from the churches, makes very many martyrs, and, according to the prophecy of Daniel, the mysteries being changed, handed over the churches of the saints to the enemies of Christ.

And he ordered that they should no longer be places of divine worship, but the dwellings of his own people. Against him Theodosius the Younger, emperor of the East, prepared war, which did not come to effect. For, the Huns laying waste Thrace and Illyricum, the army sent against the Vandals was recalled from Sicily to defend the Thracians and Illyrians. But the emperor Majorian, coming from Italy into the Spains, when in the province of Carthage he had prepared for himself a number of ships for the crossing against the Vandals, the Vandals, forewarned by traitors, seize them from the Carthaginian shore. And so Majorian, frustrated of his design, returns to Italy and, circumvented by the treachery of the patrician Ricimer, is slain.

When this was learned, Geiseric, not content with the devastations of Africa alone, carried by ships, enters Rome, and, the wealth of the Romans having been plundered for fourteen days, he carried off with him the widow of Valentinian and her daughters, and many thousands of captives. Soon he returns to Carthage; and, peace having been requested through envoys by the emperor, he sends the widow of Valentinian back to Constantinople, one of whose daughters he joined to his son Huneric by the right of matrimony. And so, after the disasters of many provinces, and the spoils and slaughters of Christians, he dies in the fortieth year of his reign.

In the era 506, after Geiseric, Huneric, son of Geiseric, reigns seven years and five months, having in marriage the daughter of Valentinian, whom his father had led captive from Rome with her mother. He himself too, stirred up by Arian fury, persecutes the Catholics throughout all Africa more atrociously than his father: he takes away the churches, sends the priests and the clergy of every order into exile. He also relegated about four thousand monks and laymen to harsher exiles, made martyrs, cut off the tongues of confessors — who, their tongues having been cut off, spoke perfectly to the very end. Then Laetus, bishop of the city of Nepte, is gloriously crowned with martyrdom.

When by various punishments he could not be stained by the blemish of Arian contagion, victorious, he suddenly obtained the heavens. But Huneric, amid the innumerable slaughters of his impieties which he had exercised against the Catholics, in the eighth year of his reign, like his father Arius, all his inward parts poured out, miserably ended his life. In the era 514, to Huneric succeeds Gunthamund, reigning twelve years, who immediately, restoring peace to the Church, recalled the Catholics from exile. In the era 526, Gunthamund having died, Thrasamund reigns twenty-seven years and four months. He, full of Arian madness, harasses the Catholics, closes churches, sends into exile in Sardinia a hundred and twenty bishops from the whole African Church, and dies at Carthage.

In whose time Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, shone forth in our doctrine. In the era 553, after Thrasamund, Hilderic, son of Huneric, born of the daughter of the emperor Valentinian, reigns seven years and three months. He, bound by an oath to his predecessor Thrasamund that he should neither open churches for the Catholics in his kingdom nor restore their privileges, before he reigned, lest he violate the sanctity of the oath, commanded that the Catholic priests be brought back from exile and the churches opened; whom Gelimer, having assumed tyranny, deprives of the kingdom, and consigns with his sons to the custody of prison.

In the era 560, Gelimer seized the kingdom with tyranny, cruelly destroying many of the nobility of the province of Africa, and taking away the substance of many. Against him the emperor Justinian, at the visitation of bishop Laetus, who had been made a martyr by Huneric king of the Vandals, sends an army with Belisarius, master of the soldiery, as leader. And that same Belisarius, battle being joined, kills Gunthimer and Gebamund, brothers of the king, overcome in the first battle, then Gelimer himself, turned to flight. He captures Africa in the ninety-seventh year of the Vandals' entry. But at the very approach of Belisarius, before the encounter took place, the tyrant Gelimer killed king Hilderic together with certain kinsmen of his race.

But Belisarius captures the tyrant Gelimer, and leads him with the riches gathered from the plunderings of the provinces and of Africa to Constantinople, to the emperor Justinian. And so the kingdom of the Vandals, together with its people and stock, is destroyed in the era 564, which lasted 113 years, from king Gunderic down to the death of Gelimer. The history of the Suevi. In the era 447, the Suevi, under prince Hermeric, entered the Spains together with the Alans and Vandals, and occupy all Gallaecia with the Vandals. But when the Vandals crossed over to Africa, the Suevi alone obtained Gallaecia by lot, over whom Hermeric ruled in the Spains thirty-two years. But the Gallaecians used their own kingdom in part of the province.