詞源與文集 第 24 章

Prologue. 1. Of all lands that are from the setting sun even unto the Indies, thou art the most beautiful, O sacred Spain, ever happy mother of princes and of peoples. By right art thou now the queen of all provinces, from whom not only the West but even the East borrows its light. Thou art the glory and ornament of the world, the more illustrious portion of the earth; in which the glorious fecundity of the Getic race greatly rejoices and abundantly flourishes.

2. Deservedly did more indulgent nature enrich thee with the abundance of all things that are brought forth. Thou art rich in berries, overflowing with vines, joyous with harvests; thou art clothed with corn, shadowed with olives, fringed with the vine. Thou art flowery in the plains, leafy on the mountains, teeming with fish along the shores. Thou art set beneath the most pleasant region of the sky, and art neither scorched by the summer heat of the sun, nor dost thou waste away with icy cold, but girded by a temperate zone of heaven, thou art nourished by happy west winds. For whatsoever fertile thing the fields, whatsoever precious thing the mines, whatsoever fair and useful thing living creatures bear, thou bringest forth. Nor art thou to be reckoned inferior to those rivers which the bright fame of splendid flocks ennobles.

3. To thee shall Alpheus yield in horses, Clitumnus in herds, although Alpheus, sacred with Olympic palms, drive his swift four-horse chariots across the courses, and Clitumnus once immolated mighty bullocks as victims on the Capitol. Thou neither seekest the more fertile glades of Etruria for pasturage, nor dost thou marvel at the groves of Molorchus full of palms, nor wilt thou envy the Elean chariots in the racing of thy horses. Thou art fruitful with rivers poured over thee, tawny with gold-flowing torrents. In thee is the fountain that begets the horse. For thee the fleeces dyed with native shellfish glow to Tyrian reds. For thee the stone flashing amid the darkness of the depths of the mountains is kindled with a radiance next to that of the neighboring sun.

4. Rich therefore in offspring and in gems and in purples, fertile alike in rulers and in the endowments of empires, thou art so opulent for adorning princes as thou art blessed for bringing them forth. Justly therefore did golden Rome, head of the nations, long ago desire thee; and although that same Romulean valor, first as victrix, pledged thee to itself, yet afterward the most flourishing race of the Goths, after manifold victories throughout the world, eagerly seized and loved thee, and enjoys thee even now amid royal fillets and ample wealth, secure in the felicity of empire. 1. That the race of the Goths is most ancient is certain: whose origin certain men suppose to be derived from Magog, son of Japheth, from the likeness of the last syllable, and gathering it rather from the prophet Ezekiel.

But of old learning was rather wont to call them Getae than Gog and Magog. They are described as a most valiant race, destined even to lay waste the land of Judea. 2. The interpretation of their name in our tongue is 'roofed' (tecti), by which fortitude is signified; and in very truth, for no race in the world so wore out the Roman empire as these. For these are they whom even Alexander declared must be avoided, whom Pyrrhus dreaded, whom Caesar shuddered at. (From Orosius.) For through many ages long past they used leaders, and afterward kings, whose times it behooves to set forth in order in brief, and to weave together from the histories, culling out by what name and by what deed they reigned. 3. In the year 12 before the founding of the era, when, for seizing the sovereignty of the republic, Gnaeus Pompeius and Gaius

Julius Caesar had stirred up civil arms, the Goths, to render aid to Pompey, came into Thessaly to fight against Caesar. There, while in Pompey's army the Ethiopians, Indians, Persians, Medes, Greeks, Armenians, Scythians, and the remaining nations of the East, summoned forth, had fought against Julius, these more bravely than the rest withstood Caesar. Troubled by their number and valor, Caesar is said to have meditated flight, had not night put an end to the battle. Then Caesar said that neither did Pompey know how to conquer, nor could Caesar be conquered. For if Pompey had known how to conquer, he would this day, with such fierce men, have overcome Caesar. 4. The era 294.

In the first year of the reign of Valerian and Gallienus, the Goths, descending from the Alpine mountains where they dwelt, laid waste Greece, Macedonia, Pontus, Asia, and Illyricum. Of these they held Illyricum and Macedonia for nearly fifteen years. Then, overcome by the Emperor Claudius, they returned to their own seats. But the Romans, honoring Claudius Augustus with signal glory because he had removed so most valiant a race from the borders of the republic, set up for him a golden shield in the forum and a golden statue on the Capitol. 5. The era 369, in the 26th year of the reign of Constantine, the Goths, attacking the region of the Sarmatians, rushed upon the Romans with most numerous columns, laying all things waste with vehement force by the sword and by plundering.

Against them that same Constantine drew up his battle line, and with a mighty struggle, having barely overcome them, drove them beyond the Danube — so that he was renowned for the glory of valor among diverse nations, but yet more glorious for the victory over the Goths. Him the Romans, the senate acclaiming, followed with public praise, because he had conquered so great a race, because he had reformed his native republic. 6. The era 407, in the 5th year of the reign of Valens, Athanaric was the first to take up the administration of the Gothic race, reigning thirteen years; who, having stirred up a most cruel persecution against the faith, wished to exert himself against those Goths who among his own people were held to be Christians, of whom he made martyrs of very many who would not consent to sacrifice to idols;

but the rest, afflicted with many persecutions, since for their multitude he shrank from killing them, he gave leave — nay rather compelled — to depart from his kingdom and to migrate into the provinces of Roman soil. 7. The era 415, in the 13th year of the reign of Valens, the Goths on the Danube were divided against themselves under Athanaric and Fridigern, laying one another waste with mutual slaughters. But Athanaric overcame Fridigern by the support of the Emperor Valens. For the sake of this, he sent envoys with gifts to that same emperor, and asked for teachers for the sake of receiving the rule of the Christian faith.

But Valens, having strayed from the truth of the catholic faith and being held fast by the perversity of the Arian heresy, sent heretical priests and by the wicked persuasion of his own error joined the Goths to his dogma, and poured a pestiferous poison with a pernicious seed into so illustrious a race; and thus the error which their recent credulity drank in, it held and long preserved. 8. Then Ulfilas, the bishop of these Goths, devised Gothic letters and translated the Scriptures of the New and Old Testament into that same tongue.

But the Goths, as soon as they began to have letters and law, built for themselves churches of their own dogma, holding, according to the same Arius, such teachings concerning the divinity itself, that they believed the Son to be less than the Father in majesty and later in eternity; and the Holy Spirit to be neither God, nor to exist as the substance of the Father, but to be created through the Son, given over to the ministry of both, and made subject to the obedience of both. Asserting also that the person of the Father was one, and likewise His nature; another that of the Son, and another finally that of the Holy Spirit; so that now (not according to the tradition of holy Scripture) one God and Lord was worshipped, but, according to the superstition of idolatry, three gods were venerated.

The evil of which blasphemy they held for 213 years through the passing of times and the succession of kings. Who at last, being mindful of their salvation, renounced their inveterate perfidy and through the grace of Christ came to the unity of the catholic faith. 9. The era 416, in the 14th year of the reign of Valens, the Goths, who had first expelled the Christians from their land, were in turn themselves expelled by the Huns together with their king Athanaric; and having crossed the Danube, since they could not bear the force of the Emperor Valens, they surrendered themselves without laying down their arms, and received Thrace to inhabit. But when they saw themselves oppressed by the Romans contrary to the custom of their own liberty, they were compelled to rebel.

They laid Thrace waste with fire and sword, and having destroyed the Roman army, they burned Valens himself, wounded by a javelin and fleeing to a certain villa, so that he was deservedly burned alive by them in temporal fire, who had delivered so many fair souls to the eternal fires. 10. But in that battle the Goths found the earlier Gothic confessors, whom they had formerly expelled from their land on account of the faith, and they wished to join them to themselves for a partnership in plunder. When these would not consent, some were slain. Others, holding the mountainous places and constructing for themselves refuges of whatever sort, not only persevered as catholic Christians, but also remained in concord with the Romans, by whom they had formerly been received.

11. The era 419, in the 3rd year of the reign of Theodosius the Spaniard, Athanaric, arranging a covenant of right and friendship with Theodosius, soon proceeded to Constantinople, and there, on the fifteenth day after he had been honorably received by Theodosius, he died. But the Goths, their own king being dead, beholding the kindness of the Emperor Theodosius, having entered into a treaty, delivered themselves to the Roman empire and were with the Romans for 28 years. 12. The era 420, in the 4th year of the reign of Theodosius, the Goths, refusing the patronage of the Roman treaty, set up Alaric as king for themselves, judging it unworthy to be subject to Roman power and to follow those whose laws and empire they had long since rejected, and from whose alliance, triumphing in battle, they had turned away.

In the era 437, in the fifth year of the reign of Honorius and Arcadius, the Goths, divided under Alaric and Radagaisus, while they were tearing themselves apart in the two portions of their kingdom with mutual slaughter, were made of one mind for the destruction of the Romans, and established a common plan; and with equal purpose they divided the regions of Italy among themselves for plundering. In the era 443, in the eleventh year of Honorius and Arcadius, Radagaisus, king of the Goths, a Scythian by birth, given over to the worship of idolatry, most savage in the ferocity of barbaric monstrousness, assailed the parts of Italy with fierce devastation together with two hundred thousand armed men, promising, in contempt of Christ, to pour out the blood of the Romans to his gods as a libation, if he should conquer.

His army, surrounded by Stilicho, the Roman general, in the mountainous places of Tuscany, was destroyed by famine rather than by the sword. The king himself was at last captured and slain. In the era 447, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Arcadius, when Radagaisus had been destroyed, Alaric, sharer of the kingship — a Christian indeed in name, but a heretic by profession — grieving that so great a multitude of the Goths had been destroyed by the Romans, waged war against Rome in vengeance for the blood of his people; and having besieged it, he broke in by assault, by fire, and by the sword. And thus the City, victress over all nations, was conquered and laid low by Gothic triumphs, and, taken captive and subjugated, became their servant.

Yet the Goths there showed themselves so merciful that they first made a vow that, if they should enter the City, whoever of the Romans should be found in the places of Christ should not be delivered over to the devastation of the City. Therefore, after this vow, when they had entered the City, both life and freedom from captivity were granted to all who fled to the thresholds of the saints. But even those who were outside the places of the martyrs, if they invoked the name of Christ and of the saints, these too they spared with like mercy. In the rest, however, although the plunder of the enemy lay open, nevertheless the monstrousness of the slaying was held in check.

Now while the Goths were rushing about the City in that devastation, when a certain powerful man had come upon a consecrated virgin of advanced age, and had courteously admonished her that, if she had any gold or silver in her keeping, she should produce it, she, with faithful conscience, brought forth what she had; and when he marveled at the shape and beauty of the vessels, from that ancient opulence of the Romans, the virgin said: «These vessels have been entrusted to me from the sanctuary of the apostle Peter; take them, if you dare. I do not dare to hand over the sacred offering.» That Goth, greatly terrified at the name of the apostle, reported this to the king by a messenger; and the king at once ordered that everything be carried back to the sanctuary of Saint Peter by that virgin with the utmost reverence, saying:

«I have waged war with the Romans, not with the apostles of God.» So the virgin returned, honored with most reverent attendants; and there returned with her all who had joined themselves to her, carrying back upon their heads those golden and silver vessels with hymns and canticles, with guards drawn up on every side by the king's command for the protection of the armed men. From every side the throngs of Christians ran together from their hiding places at the voices of the singers. The pagans too ran together and, mingled among them, while they pretended to be servants of Christ, even they escaped the destruction of the calamity. In this storm the Goths captured at Rome Placidia, daughter of the emperor Theodosius, sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, together with a vast treasure of gold and silver;

and having obtained many of the riches of the Romans, on the third day, after the City had been set on fire and overthrown in parts, they departed. Then, having boarded ships, when they were arranging to cross over to Sicily, which is divided from Italy by a narrow strait, imperiled by a hostile sea they lost a great part of their army. Yet so great was their glory at the seizure of the city of Rome that, in comparison with it, they reckoned that they had suffered no evil in that tempest, compensating the losses of the shipwreck with the outcome of victory. The death of Alaric followed at once; he died in Italy in the twenty-eighth year of his reign. In the era 448, in the seventeenth year of the reign of Honorius, and the first of Theodosius the Younger, when Alaric had died after the capture of the City, Athaulf was set over the kingdom of Italy by the Goths for six years.

This man, in the fifth year of his reign, withdrawing from Italy, went to the Gauls, and took as his wife Placidia, daughter of the emperor Theodosius, whom the Goths had captured at Rome. In her some believe that the prophecy of Daniel was fulfilled, who says that the daughter of the king of the South was to be joined to the king of the North, yet with no offspring surviving from his seed. Just as the same prophet adds in what follows, saying: «Nor shall his seed stand.» For no child was born from her womb who might succeed the father in the kingdom. But Athaulf, while, having left the Gauls, he was seeking the Spains, was slain by one of his own men at Barcelona amid familiar conversations. In the era 454, in the year...

of the reign of Honorius the twenty-second, after the death of Athaulf, Sigeric was chosen prince by the Goths; but he, while he was most ready for peace with the Romans, was soon slain by his own people. In the same era and year as above, Wallia, succeeding Sigeric, held the kingdom for three years; he was made prince by the Goths for the sake of war, but by divine providence was appointed for peace. For as soon as he began to reign, he struck a treaty with the emperor Honorius, honorably restored to him his sister Placidia, who had been captured by the Goths at Rome, and promised the emperor that, for the sake of the commonwealth, every conflict should be waged. And so, summoned to the Spains through the patrician Constantius, he inflicted great slaughters upon the barbarians for the cause of the Roman name.

He destroyed all the Silingian Vandals in Baetica by war. The Alans, who held sway over the Vandals and the Sueves, he so cut down that, when their king Attaces had been slain, the few who survived, forgetting the name of a kingdom, submitted themselves to the rule of Gunderic, king of the Vandals, who had settled in Gallaecia. Therefore, when Wallia had finished the war in Spain, while he was preparing, with a naval fleet drawn up, to cross into Africa, he was broken in the strait of the Gaditanian sea by the force of a most severe storm; and mindful also of that shipwreck under Alaric, he abandoned the peril of the voyage, left the Spains, and returned to the Gauls. And there was given to him by the emperor, on account of the merit of his victory, Second Aquitaine, together with certain cities of the neighboring provinces as far as the Ocean.

In the era 457, in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Honorius, when king Wallia had died, Theuderid succeeded to the kingdom for thirty-three years. He, not content with the kingdom of Aquitaine, refused the treaty of Roman peace, seized very many Roman townships neighboring his own seats, and besieged and assaulted Arles, the most noble town of Gaul, with great force. From the siege of it, at the threatening valor of Aetius, general of the Roman soldiery, he withdrew not unpunished. Therefore, when Aetius had been removed from military power by the order of the emperor Valentinian, while Theuderid was harassing the city of Narbonne with a prolonged siege and famine, he was again put to flight by Litorius, general of the Roman soldiery, with the Huns aiding him.

But Litorius, when at first he had achieved prosperous things against the Goths, again deceived by the signs of demons and the responses of soothsayers, rashly entered into war with the Goths; and having lost the Roman army, he was miserably overcome and perished. And he made it understood how much that multitude which perished with him could have profited, had he preferred to use faith rather than the deceptive portents of the demons. Therefore, when Litorius had been destroyed, and peace had thereupon been made by Theuderid with the Romans, he again fought in open battle, with Aetius the Roman general aiding him, against the Huns who were laying waste the provinces of the Gauls with savage plundering and overthrowing very many cities, on the Catalaunian fields; and there, fighting, he fell as victor.

But the Goths, with Thorismund, son of king Theuderid, fighting, engaged so bravely that between the first battle and the last nearly three hundred thousand men were laid low in that struggle. At that same time many signs of heaven and earth went before, by whose prodigies so cruel a war was foretold. For, with continual earthquakes occurring, from the region of the East the moon was darkened; from the setting of the sun a comet-star appeared, and for some time shone with immense magnitude. From the quarter of the North the sky was made reddening, like fire or blood, with brighter lines mingled through the fiery redness, shaped into the likeness of glowing spears.

Nor is it a wonder that, at so great a slaughter of the slain, so many manifestations of signs should be displayed by divine power. But the Huns, cut down almost to extermination together with their king Attila, left the Gauls and fled to Italy, having broken into several cities. And there too, struck partly by famine, partly by heavenly plagues, they perished. Moreover, when an army had been sent by the emperor Marcian, they were cut down by a mighty blow, and, greatly afflicted and diminished, they sought their own seats again; and to these their king Attila, as soon as he returned, died. After his death the nation of the Huns further devastated itself by its own destruction. And at once great contests arose among his sons over obtaining the kingdom.

And so the Huns, who before had been diminished by so many disasters, again cut one another down with mutual swords. In these people this is a marvel: that, whereas every battle brings the loss of peoples, these on the contrary profit by falling. But this is so because they are set for the discipline of the faithful, just as is the people of the nation of the Persians. For they are the rod of the wrath of God, and as often as His indignation goes forth against the faithful, through them they are scourged, so that, corrected by their afflictions, they may restrain themselves from the desire and sin of the world, and may possess the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom. Moreover, this nation is so horrid that, when it has suffered hunger in war, it opens a vein of a horse, and thus, by the blood drawn, drives out its hunger.

In the era 490, in the first year of the reign of Marcian, Thorismund, son of Theuderid, was advanced to the kingdom for one year. But since, in the very beginnings of his reign, he breathed things savage and harmful and hostile, and did many things too insolently, he was slain by his brothers Theuderic and Frideric. In the era 491, in the second year of the reign of Marcian, Theuderic, succeeding to the kingdom after the slaying of his brother, reigned thirteen years; and because he had furnished aid to the emperor Avitus, together with the Gauls, in taking up the imperial dignity, he entered from Aquitaine into Spain with a vast multitude of an army, and with the permission of the same emperor Avitus, in the fifth year of his reign.

When Recchiarius, king of the Sueves, met him with a great host, at the twelfth milestone from the city of Astorga, by the river which is called Órbigo, battle being at once joined, he was overcome, the ranks of the Sueves being cut down, some captured, and very many put to flight. The king himself at last, wounded by a spear, fled; and lacking the protection of his own men, he was captured at a place called Portucale, and offered up alive to king Theuderic. When he had been slain, and many who had survived the earlier battle had surrendered themselves, and some nonetheless were butchered, the kingdom was almost destroyed, and the kingdom of the Sueves was ended. But the remaining Sueves who had stayed in the far part of Gallaecia set up for themselves as king Maldras, son of Massila: the kingdom of the Sueves was restored.

When Recchiarius had been slain, Theuderic, advancing as victor from Gallaecia into Lusitania, while he was endeavoring to plunder the city of Mérida, was terrified by the portents of the holy martyr Eulalia, and at once departed with his whole army and sought the Gauls again. Soon thereafter he sent one part of his army, under the general Cyrila, to the province of Baetica, and directed the other part, under the generals Sunieric and Nepotian, to Gallaecia; these laid waste the Sueves at Lugo with savage plundering. But in the Gauls the count and citizen Agrippinus, a rival of Aegidius the Roman count, in order to earn the aid of the Goths, handed over Narbonne to Theuderic. After some while, envoys sent by Remismund, son of Maldras, king of the Sueves, came to Theuderic, asking for peace and friendship.

Likewise Theuderic sent back to Remismund, with an addition of arms and of gifts, and also sent the wife whom he had. Theuderic also again sent Salla as envoy to Remismund. When he had returned to the Gauls, he found Theuderic slain by his brother Euric. In the era 504, in the eighth year of the reign of Leo, Euric succeeded to the kingdom by like crime as his brother, for seventeen years. Advanced to this honor — and to that crime — he at once directed envoys to the emperor Leo. And without delay he plundered the parts of Lusitania with a great onset. From there he sent another army, which, an army having been dispatched, captured Pamplona and Zaragoza which had been taken, and subjected also upper Spain to his power.

He also overthrew by the incursion of his army the nobility of the province of Tarraconensis, which had resisted him. But returning to the Gauls, by warfare he obtained the city of Arles and Marseilles, and added both to his kingdom. This man, on a certain day, having gathered the Goths in a conference, saw for some time that the weapons which they all had in their hands had, on the side of the iron or the blade, changed their natural appearance of iron — some to green, some to rosy, some to saffron, some to a black color. Under this king the Goths began to have the enactments of the laws in writing, for before they were held only by usages and custom. Euric the king died at Arles, deceased by a natural death. In the era 521, in the year...

in the tenth year of the reign of Zeno, when Euric had died, Alaric, his son, was established as prince at the city of Toulouse, reigning twenty-three years. Against him Clovis, prince of the Franks, aspiring to the kingdom of Gaul, with the Burgundians aiding him, stirred up war; and having routed the forces of the Goths, he at last slew the king himself, overcome at Poitiers. But Theuderic, king of Italy, when he had learned of the death of his son-in-law, at once set out from Italy, crushed the Franks, recovered the part of the kingdom which the hand of the enemy had occupied, and restored it to the jurisdiction of the Goths. In the era 545, in the seventeenth year of the reign of Anastasius, Gisaleic, son of the former king, born of a concubine, was made prince at Narbonne, reigning four years;

as he was most base in birth, so was he supreme in wretchedness and cowardice. Finally, when that same city had been plundered by Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, this man, with much disgrace to himself and with a great slaughter of his own, betook himself to Barcelona; and there he lingered until he was even stripped of the fasces of the kingdom by Theuderic, with the ignominy of flight. Departing thence to Africa, he sought the support of the Vandals, by which he might be able to be restored to the kingdom.

But when he had not obtained aid, soon returning from Africa, out of fear of Theuderic he sought Aquitaine, and lurking there for one year, he returned into Spain; and, battle being joined by a general of king Theuderic at the twelfth milestone from the city of Barcelona, he was overcome and turned to flight, and, captured across the river Durance of the Gauls, he perished; and thus he lost first his honor, afterward his life.

In the era 549, in the twenty-first year of the reign of Anastasius, Theuderic the Younger — since he had long since been created consul and king at Rome by the emperor Zeno, and, when Odoacer king of the Ostrogoths had been slain, and his brother Onoulf defeated and put to flight beyond the confines of the Danube, he had reigned in Italy for forty-nine years — now, when Gisaleic king of the Goths had been destroyed, held the kingdom of Spain for fifteen years, which, surviving, he left to his grandson Amalaric. Then returning to Italy, he reigned for some time with all prosperity; through him also no small dignity was restored to the city of Rome. For he restored its walls, for which reason he merited a gilded statue from the Senate. In the era 564, in the year...

the first of the reign of Justinian, when Theuderic had returned to Italy and died there, his grandson Amalaric reigned for five years. He, when he had been overcome in battle at Narbonne by Childebert, king of the Franks, fled trembling to Barcelona; and, made contemptible to all, he was slain by the army and perished at Narbonne in the forum. In the era 569, in the sixth year of the reign of Justinian, after Amalaric, Theudis was created in Spain, in the kingdom for seventeen years and five months; and although he was a heretic, he nonetheless granted peace to the Church — so much so that he gave leave to the catholic bishops to assemble together at the city of Toledo, and freely and lawfully to arrange whatever things had proved necessary for the discipline of the Church.

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.

Hermeric, plundering them with continual devastation, at last, oppressed by illness, made peace with them, and set his son Rechila in his place in the kingdom, who, sent with a great part of the army, laid low Andevotus, general of the Roman soldiery, with many troops, at the river Singilis of the province of Baetica, war being begun, great supplies of his gold and silver being seized. Thence he enters Emerita, which he had besieged, and, having obtained it, associates it to his own kingdom. But Hermeric his father, afflicted for seven years by a lingering illness, died. In the era 479, Hermeric being dead, Rechila his son reigns.

Eight years; who, after his father's death, having obtained Hispalis, brings the provinces of Baetica and Carthage under his power, and thence at Emerita ended his life in the worship, as they say, of paganism. In the era 486, Rechiarius, son of Rechila, having become a Catholic, succeeds to the kingdom for nine years, having taken in marriage the daughter of Theoderid, king of the Goths. At the beginning of his reign he began by plundering the Vasconias; soon, having set out to his father-in-law Theoderid, returning through the region of Caesaraugusta, he lays it waste with the Goths assisting. He invades the province of Tarraco, which was serving the Roman empire. He gives over to plunder the Carthaginian regions, which Rechila his father had restored to the Romans.

At last, when Theoderic, king of the Goths, entered Spain, battle being begun against him, he is first put to flight, then captured and killed. In the era 495, Rechiarius being extinguished, the Suevi who had remained in the farthest part of Gallaecia set up for themselves as king Maldras, son of Massila. Soon divided in two, one part call Frantan, another Maldras king. Without delay, Frantan being dead, the Suevi who were with him follow Rechimund, and, peace having been made with Maldras, they together plunder the parts of Lusitania. But Maldras, in the third year of his reign, is butchered by his own men. In the era 498, Maldras being slain, a dissension arises between Frumar and Remismund over the power of the kingdom;

but Frumar, with the band of Suevi which he had, overthrew with grievous destruction the assembly of the city of Flavia. But Remismund lays waste the maritime regions of the neighbouring assemblies of the Aurenses and of Lucus. In the era 502, Frumar being dead, Remismund, all the Suevi being recalled into his dominion by royal right, restores peace with the Gallaecians, sends envoys of a treaty to Theoderic, king of the Goths, from whom also, through envoys, he received both arms and a wife whom he might have. Thence he crosses to Lusitania. He plunders Conimbria, deceived under peace. Olisipo too is occupied by him, its citizen Lusidius, who was set over it, betraying it.

In his time Ajax, a Galatian by nation, become an Arian apostate, emerges among the Suevi, by the help of his king, as an enemy of the Catholic faith and of the divine Trinity, bringing this pestilent poison from the Gallican region of the Goths, and infecting the whole nation of the Suevi with the blemish of deadly perfidy. Then, with many kings of the Suevi remaining in the Arian heresy, at last Theodemir received the power of the kingdom. He immediately, the error of Arian impiety being destroyed, restored the Suevi to the Catholic faith, with Martin, bishop of the monastery of Dumium, renowned for faith and knowledge, striving thereto; by whose zeal both the peace of the Church was enlarged, and many things were established in ecclesiastical disciplines in the regions of Gallaecia.

After Theodemir, Miro is made prince of the Suevi, reigning thirteen years. He waged war a second time in his reign against the Ruccones. Then he goes to Hispalis in aid of Leovigild, king of the Goths, to subdue his rebellious son, and there closed the term of his life. To him his son Eboric succeeds in the kingdom, whom, while yet a youth, Audeca, having assumed tyranny, deprives of the kingdom, and, having made him a monk, condemns him in a monastery; for whom the sentence was not long deferred. For Leovigild, king of the Goths, soon making war on the Suevi, having obtained that same kingdom, cast down Audeca, and, having shorn him, consigned him, after the honour of the kingdom, to the office of the presbyterate. For so it was fitting that what he himself had done to his own king, he should in turn suffer by a fitting recompense.

But the kingdom of the Suevi, being destroyed, is transferred to the Goths — which is recorded to have lasted 177 years.