Aetius, general and patrician, fraudulently summoned alone within the palace, is killed by the hand of the emperor Valentinian himself. And along with him, certain men of rank, admitted one by one through his sword-bearer, are slain. These things done, Valentinian sends envoys to the nations, of whom Justinian came to the Sueves. 31. In the fourth year of the reign of the emperor Marcian, by two barbarians, intimates of Aetius, the emperor Valentinian is killed at Rome on the Field (of Mars), with the army standing around, in the thirty-sixth year of his age and the thirty-first of his reign. After him soon Maximus, of consular rank, is proclaimed 43rd Augustus at Rome:
who, when, having been made emperor, he had taken the widow of Valentinian to himself as wife, and had given the daughter of Valentinian in marriage to his own son Palladius (whom he had made Caesar) by a former wife, distorted by the disturbance of the great upheavals which he feared, and because, in the case of those slain by Valentinian and in the very death of Valentinian, he had contributed wicked counsels in his ambition for the throne, when he wished to abandon both the empire and Rome, scarcely four months of his reign being completed, is killed within the city itself by a tumult of the people and a military sedition. In that same year in the Gauls, Avitus, a Gallic citizen, proclaimed Augustus by the Gallic army and by the men of rank, first at Toulouse, then at Arelate (Arles), proceeds to Rome and is received.
Up to Valentinian the lineage of Theodosius held the principate. Of the Romans the 43rd, Marcian, now in the fourth year of his reign, holds the monarchy. 1. (Olymp. 309.) Through Avitus, who had been both called forth and received as emperor by the Romans, envoys are sent to Marcian for the unanimity of the empire. Gaiseric, instigated by the widow of Valentinian, as evil rumour scatters about, before Avitus became Augustus, enters Rome, and, the wealth of the Romans having been plundered, returns to Carthage, leading off with him the widow of Valentinian and her two daughters, and the son of Aetius, Gaudentius by name. The Sueves plunder the Carthaginian regions which they had restored to the Romans. Marcian and Avitus, in harmony, enjoy the principate of the Roman empire.
Through the Augustus Avitus, the count Fronto is sent as envoy to the Sueves. Likewise also from Theodoric, king of the Goths,—because he was faithful to the Roman empire,—envoys are sent to the same (Sueves), so that, both with him and with the Roman empire, since they were bound together by one bond of peace, they should keep the promises of the sworn treaty. The envoys of both parties having been dismissed and every principle of law violated, the Sueves invade the province of the Tarraconensis which was subject to the Roman empire.
Of the nation of the Heruls, several conveyed by seven ships landed on the shore of Lucus, about four hundred men lightly armed; by the sudden onset of a gathered multitude they are put to flight, with only two of their number slain, who, returning to their own seats, most cruelly plundered the coastal places of the Cantabriae and the Vardulliae. The envoys of the Goths come again to the Sueves: after whose arrival the king of the Sueves, Rechiarius, with a great multitude of his own, invades the regions of the province of the Tarraconensis, plundering being carried out there, and a great captivity being led off to Gallaecia. Soon Theodoric, king of the Goths, enters the Spains with his huge army, and with the will and ordination of the emperor Avitus.
Against him king Rechiarius, advancing to meet him with a multitude of the Sueves at the twelfth milestone from the city of Asturica, at the river named Urbicus, on the third day before the Nones of October, on the sixth weekday (Friday), is, battle being soon joined, overcome: his ranks being cut down, several taken captive, and very many put to flight, he himself, wounded, scarcely escapes as a fugitive to the furthest seats of Gallaecia. King Theodoric, pressing on with his army to Bracara, the furthest city of Gallaecia, on the fifth day before the Kalends of November, on the Lord's Day, although bloodless, there nevertheless takes place a quite mournful and lamentable sacking of that same city.
A great captivity of Roman captives is carried off, the basilicas of the saints broken into, the altars taken away and shattered, the virgins of God indeed led off thence, but their integrity preserved, the clergy stripped to the bareness of shame, persons of both sexes with little children, the whole people dragged away from the holy places of refuge, the sacred place filled with the horror of beasts of burden, cattle, and camels: thus what is written concerning Jerusalem recalled in part the examples of heavenly wrath. 2. Rechiarius, a fugitive at the place which is called Portucale, is brought as a captive to king Theodoric: he being consigned to custody, and the rest who had survived from the earlier contest surrendering themselves to the Sueves—several none the less being killed—the kingdom of the Sueves was destroyed and ended.
In those same days, through the circumvention of the count Rechimer, it is announced to king Theodoric that a great multitude of Vandals, who had moved from Carthage with sixty ships toward the Gauls or toward Italy, had been slain by Avitus. Hesychius the tribune, sent as an envoy to Theodoric with sacred gifts, comes to Gallaecia, announcing to him what is stated above, that a multitude of Vandals had been cut down in Corsica, and that Avitus had advanced from Italy to the Gauls at Arelate. He announces that the ships of the Easterners coming to Hispalis were cut down by the army of Marcian. Rechiarius having been slain in the month of December, king Theodoric advances from Gallaecia to Lusitania. In a part of the conventus of Bracara the plundering of brigands is perpetrated. Aiulf, deserting the Goths, settles in Gallaecia.
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SueviquiremanserantinextremaparteGallaeciae, MassiliaefiliumnomineMaldramsibiregemconstituunt. TheudoricusEmeritamdepraedarivolens, beataeEulaliaemartyristerreturostentis. III. AvitustertioannoposteaquamaGallisetaGothisfactusfueratimperator, caretimperio, Gothorumpromissodestitutusauxilio, caretetvita. InOrientispartibusseptimoannoimperiisuimoriturMarcianus. RomanorumXLIV, MAJORIANUSinItalia, etConstantinopoliLEOaugustiappellantur. I. Theudoricusadversissibinuntiisterritus, moxpostdiespaschae, quodfuitquintokal.
The Sueves who had remained in the furthest part of Gallaecia set up for themselves as king the son of Massilia, by name Maldras. Theodoric, wishing to plunder Emerita, is terrified by the portents of the blessed martyr Eulalia. 3. Avitus, in the third year after he had been made emperor by the Gauls and by the Goths, is deprived of his rule, abandoned by the promised aid of the Goths; he is deprived also of his life. In the parts of the East, in the seventh year of his reign, Marcian dies. Of the Romans the 44th, Majorian in Italy and Leo at Constantinople, are proclaimed Augusti. 1. Theodoric, terrified by tidings adverse to himself, soon after the days of Easter, which was on the fifth day before the Kalends
of April, departs from Emerita, and, making for the Gauls, directs part of the multitude of various nations which he had, with their own leaders, to the plains of Gallaecia: who, equipped with deceits and perjuries, just as had been commanded them, enter Asturica—which his own raiders had already entered under the appearance of a Roman commission—lying to the Sueves who had remained that an expedition had been ordered for them, with a feigned peace by the accustomed art of treachery. And without delay a multitude of mixed kind found there is cut down, the holy churches are broken into, the altars plundered and demolished, all the sacred adornment and use carried off. Two bishops found there are led away with all their clergy into captivity: a pitiable captivity of the weaker, of both sexes, is carried off;
and the remaining and empty houses of the city being given to the flames, the places of the countryside are laid waste. The city of Palentia perishes by a destruction like that of Asturica, through the Goths. One fort, the Coviacense, at the thirtieth milestone from Asturica, wearied by a long contest with the Goths, by the aid of God both resists the enemy and prevails: very many being killed from their hand, the rest return to the Gauls. Aiulf, while he breathes after the kingdom of the Sueves, dies at Portucale in the month of June. The Sueves, divided into factions, seek the peace of the Gallaecians: of whom one part names Frantanes, the other Maldras, as king. After the wonted manner of treachery, the part of the Sueves following Maldras plunders Lusitania:
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actaillicRomanorumcaede, praedisquecontractis, civitasUlyxipponasubspeciepacisintratur. FrantanesmoriturperPaschaetPentecosten. JubenteMaldraSueviinsolitamperfidiamversi, regionemGallaeciaeadhaerentemfluminiDuriodepraedantur. QuintoidusJuniasdie, quartaferia, abhoraquartainhoramsextam, adspeciemlunaequintaevelsextae, soldelumineorbissuiminoratusapparuit. II. (Olymp. CCCX.) GothicusexercitusducesuoCyrilaaTheudoricoregeadHispaniasmissusmenseJuliosucceditadBaeticam. LegatiGothorumetWandalorumpariteradSuevosveniunt, etrevertuntur. III. TheudoricuscumducesuoSuniericoexercitussuialiquantamadBaeticamdirigitmanum:
slaughter of Romans being carried out there and plunder amassed, the city of Olisipo (Lisbon) is entered under the appearance of peace. Frantanes dies between Easter and Pentecost. At the command of Maldras, the Sueves, turned to their wonted treachery, plunder the region of Gallaecia adjoining the river Durius. On the fifth day before the Ides of June, on the fourth weekday (Wednesday), from the fourth hour into the sixth, the sun appeared diminished from the light of its orb, to the appearance of a fifth- or sixth-day moon. 2. (Olymp. 310.) A Gothic army, sent under its leader Cyrila by king Theodoric to the Spains, advances in the month of July to Baetica. Envoys of the Goths and of the Vandals come alike to the Sueves, and return. 3. Theodoric sends a considerable force of his army with his leader Suniericus to Baetica:
Cyrila is recalled to the Gauls. The Sueves none the less, part with Maldras plunder the regions of Lusitania, others with Rechimund plunder Gallaecia. The Heruls most cruelly invade several coastal places of the conventus of Lucus, making their way toward Baetica. Maldras kills his own full brother, and that same enemy seizes the fort of Portucale. Between the Sueves and the Gallaecians, several persons of honourable birth being killed, hostile evil is stirred up. Envoys sent by Nepotianus, master of the soldiery, and by the count Suniericus, come to the Gallaecians, announcing that the Augustus Majorian and king Theodoric had sanctioned between themselves most firm laws of peace, the Goths having been overcome in a certain contest. 4. (Euseb. 4480.) Maldras, at the end of the month of February, slain, perishes by a fitting destruction.
Through the Sueves dwelling at Lucus, on the days of Easter, several Romans, with their leader of honourable birth, are slain by a sudden onslaught, heedless of the reverence due to those days. In the month of May Majorian enters the Spains as emperor: as he presses on into the province of Carthaginiensis, several ships which he was preparing for himself for crossing against the Vandals are carried off from the Carthaginian shore by the Vandals, who had been forewarned through traitors. Majorian, thus frustrated of his plan, returns to Italy. A part of the Gothic army, directed by the counts Suniericus and Nepotianus to Gallaecia, plunders the Sueves at Lucus: which (army), through Dictinius [Ms.
plunders the Sueves dwelling at Lucus, which (army), through the informers Dictinius], Spinio, and Ascanius, who were scattering abroad the poisons of their own treachery for the sake of terror, is, after being reported, brought back to its own. And soon, through the same informers as above, Frumarius, urged on with the force of Sueves which he had, having seized bishop Idatius on the seventh day before the Kalends of August in the church of Aquae Flaviae, overthrows that same conventus with great ruin. Rechimund lays waste the places of the Auregenses near to himself, and likewise the coastal parts of the conventus of Lucus. Between Frumarius and Rechimund there arises a dissension concerning the power of the kingdom. A certain shadow of peace between the Gallaecians and the Sueves is woven together. From Theodoric envoys come to the Sueves and return.
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SuniericusScallabimcuiadversabatur, obtinetcivitatem. Idatiusquisupra, tribusmensibuscaptivitatisimpletis, menseNovembri, miserantisDeigratia, contravotumetordinationemsupradictorumdelatorumreditadFlavias. DeregeTheudoricolegatigentisperfidaerevertuntur. GaisericusrexaMajorianoimperatoreperlegatospostulatpacem. V. MajorianumdeGalliisRomamredeuntem, etRomanoimperiovelnominiresnecessariasordinantem, Rechimerlivorepercitusetinvidorumconsiliofultus, fraudeinterficitcircumventum. RomanorumXLV, SEVERUSasenatuRomaeaugustusappellaturannoimperiiLeonisquinto. VI. I. (Olymp. CCCXI.) SuniericusreditadGallias.
Suniericus obtains the city of Scallabis, which had opposed him. The aforementioned Idatius, three months of captivity being completed, in the month of November, by the mercy of God's grace, contrary to the wish and arrangement of the aforesaid informers, returns to Flaviae. From king Theodoric the envoys of the treacherous nation return. Gaiseric the king requests peace from the emperor Majorian through envoys. 5. Majorian, returning from the Gauls to Rome and arranging the things necessary for the Roman empire or its name, Rechimer, stirred by envy and supported by the counsel of the envious, slays by fraud, having circumvented him. Of the Romans the 45th, Severus, is proclaimed Augustus by the senate at Rome in the fifth year of the reign of Leo. 6. 1. (Olymp. 311.) Suniericus returns to the Gauls.
Nepotianus, by the ordination of Theodoric, receives Arborius as his successor. In the province of Gallaecia diverse signs of prodigies are seen. In the year 500 (of the era), on the sixth day before the Nones of March, at cockcrow, from the setting of the sun the full moon is turned into blood. That same day was the sixth weekday (Friday). Antioch the greater of Isauria [Perhaps: of greater Syria], disobedient to wholesome admonitions, the earth gaping open, is engulfed,—only some of that city itself who, obeying, had followed the fear of the Lord, being delivered from the destruction,—with even the tops of towers alone standing forth above the earth. Gaiseric sends back the widow of Valentinian to Constantinople. Her daughters, the one to Genton, son of Gaiseric, the other to Olybrius, a senator of the city of Rome, are joined by right of matrimony.
Agrippinus, a Gaul, both count and citizen, an enemy to the count Aegidius, a distinguished man, in order that he might earn the auxiliaries of the Goths, handed over Narbonne to Theodoric. Against the count Aegidius, master of both branches of the military, a man (as report commends him) pleasing to God by his good works, in the Armorican province Fredericus, brother of king Theodoric, rising up, with those with whom he had been, is overcome and slain. Together with Palegorius, a noble man of Gallaecia, who had been envoy to the aforesaid king Cyrila, coming to Gallaecia, he meets the envoys of Rechimund going to the same king: who, returning in haste, receive Cyrila, who was returning, in the city of Lucus.
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PostcujusmoxegressumdeGallaecia, Suevipromissionumsuarumutsemperfallacesetperfidi, diversalocainfelicisGallaeciaesolitodepraedantur. PerTheudoricumadSuevosRemismundusetCyrilacumaliquantisGothisquipriusvenerant, remittuntur. CyrilainGallaeciaremanente, Remismundomoxrecurrenteadregem, interGallaecosetSuevosindisciplinataperturbatiodominatur. RomanaeEcclesiaeXLIV [Ms. XLIII] praesidetepiscopusHILARUS. VII. II. Nepotianusreceditecorpore. Frumariomortuo, RechimundusomnibusSuevisinsuamditionemregalijurerevocatis, pacemreformatelapsam.
After whose soon departure from Gallaecia, the Sueves, ever false and treacherous in their promises, plunder, after their wont, various places of unhappy Gallaecia. Through Theodoric, Remismund and Cyrila with several Goths who had come earlier are sent back to the Sueves. Cyrila remaining in Gallaecia, and Remismund soon hurrying back to the king, an undisciplined disturbance lords it between the Gallaecians and the Sueves. Hilarus presides over the Roman Church as its 44th [Ms. 43rd] bishop. 7. 2. Nepotianus departs from the body (dies). Frumarius being dead, Rechimund, all the Sueves being recalled into his dominion by royal right, restores the peace that had slipped away.
In the month of May, the envoys of the aforesaid man Aegidius cross over the Ocean to the Vandals, who by the same course return to their own in the month of September. On the thirteenth day before the Kalends of August, on the second weekday (Monday), to the appearance of a fifth-day moon the sun is discerned diminished from its light from the third hour into the sixth. Remismund sends envoys to Theodoric; who likewise sends his own back to Remismund, with an addition of arms and gifts, and the wife whom he had being sent to him. The Vandals through Marcellinus are cut down in Sicily and put to flight from it. Aegidius dies—some say by treachery, others deceived by poison. He ceasing, soon the Goths invade the regions which he was protecting for the Roman name.
The Sueves, having entered Conimbrica by guile, despoil the noble household of Cantaber, and lead away captive the mother with her sons. In the same year, envoys are sent twice by the king of the Sueves to king Theodoric, to whom Arborius too sets out, having been summoned. [8. 3.] The returned envoys of the Sueves announce that Severus had died in the fourth year of his reign, who are sent back to Conimbrica. Ajax, a Galatian by nation, become an apostate and an elder Arian, emerges among the Sueves, by the aid of his own king, as an enemy of the catholic faith and of the divine Trinity. To the Gallican dwelling-place of the Goths this pestilential venom of the enemy man was conveyed. The Sueves rage against the people of Aunona:
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quadecausalegatiaTheudericoadRemismundummittunturincassum, spretiqueabeomoxredeunt. DeConstantinopoliaLeoneaugustoAnthemiusfraterProcopiicumMarcellino, aliisquecomitibusviriselectis, etcumingentimultitudineexercituscopiosi, adItaliamDeoordinantedirectusascendit. RomanorumXLVI, ANTHEMIUSoctavomilliariodeRomaAugustusappellatur, annoLeonisimperiioctavo, menseAugusto. IX. I. ExpeditioadAfricamadversusWandalosordinatametabularumcommutationeetnavigationisinopportunitaterevocatur. PerTheudericumSallalegatusmittituradRemismundumregemSuevorum, quireversusadGalliaseumafratresuoEurico [Inms. Euverico] reperitinterfectum.
on which account envoys are sent from Theodoric to Remismund in vain, and, spurned by him, soon return. From Constantinople, by the Augustus Leo, Anthemius, brother of Procopius, with Marcellinus and other counts, chosen men, and with a huge multitude of a numerous army, directed to Italy by God's ordaining, ascends. Of the Romans the 46th, Anthemius, is proclaimed Augustus at the eighth milestone from Rome, in the eighth year of the reign of Leo, in the month of August. 9. 1. The expedition arranged to Africa against the Vandals is recalled by the exchange of paymasters and the unseasonableness of the navigation. Through Theodoric, Salla is sent as envoy to Remismund, king of the Sueves, who, returning to the Gauls, finds him slain by his own brother Euric [In ms. Euveric].
Euric, by a crime equal to that of his brother, succeeds in the kingdom: who, advanced by honour and by crime, directs envoys to the king of the Sueves, which (envoys) being sent back without delay by Remismund, the envoys of that same king (are directed) to the emperor, others to the Vandals, others are directed to the Goths. Concerning the people of Aunona, against whom the hostility of the Sueves was directed, Opilio, with the men who had set out with him from the king, and with several who had been sent with him, returns. The Goths who had been sent to the Vandals, terrified by the rumour of the aforesaid expedition, return in haste: likewise also the Sueves, who after the envoys, in their wonted manner, had been scattered for plunder through diverse places, are recalled: but a few months later the king of the Sueves himself crosses over to Lusitania. 2. (Olymp.
312.) Conimbrica, deceived in peace, is plundered: houses are destroyed along with a portion of the walls, and, the inhabitants having been captured and dispersed, both the region is desolated and the city. The envoys returned from the Goths (report) portents, several things seen in the Gauls, in view... a sun similar to itself appeared continuously, another sun being seen... at sunset. The Goths too being gathered together on a certain day of their council, the weapons which they had in their hands, on the side of the iron or the edge, some green, some rose-coloured, some saffron, some of black colour, for some time did not have the natural appearance of iron, being changed. In the midst of the city of Toulouse in those same days blood burst forth from the earth, and flowed for the whole course of the day. 3.
A considerable force of Goths, pursuing the return of the Suevic envoys, makes for Emerita. Olisipo (Lisbon) is occupied by the Sueves, its own citizen Lusidius, who was in command there, betraying it. This matter being learned, the Goths who had come invade and plunder the Sueves, and likewise the Romans serving them in the regions of Lusitania. The envoys who had been sent to the emperor return, announcing that in their presence a very great army with three chosen leaders had come down against the Vandals from the emperor Leo, Marcellinus likewise being directed with a great force allied to him by the emperor Anthemius. (They announce) that Rechimer had been made son-in-law of the emperor Anthemius and patrician:
(and) that Aspar had been degraded to private life, his son slain, as they had been detected plotting against the Roman empire, consulting with the Vandals. Hilarus having died, the six years of his priesthood being completed, Simplicius is ordained as 45th bishop of the Roman Church. The Aunonenses make peace with the king of the Sueves, who, plundering, invade certain places both of Lusitania and of the conventus of Asturica. The Goths rage with equal hostility around the same conventus, and plunder also the parts of Lusitania. Lusidius, through Remismund, is directed with his own men of the Sueves to the emperor on an embassy. A year of harshness beyond the usual in the changeableness of the weather and of all the fruits of winter, spring, summer, and autumn is spread abroad at this same time.
Several signs too and prodigies are perceived in the places of Gallaecia. In the river Minius, at about the fifth milestone from the municipality of Lais, four fish are caught, new in sight and appearance, just as those Christian and religious men who had caught them reported, marked with Hebrew and Greek letters, but with Latin in the numerals of the eras, thus comprising the cycle of 365 years, with an equal interval of months. Not far from the aforesaid municipality, in the appearance of a lentil, of a most green colour, like a certain herb in the form of grains, full of bitterness, it flowed down from the sky; and many other portents which it would be tedious to relate.