Seville > Sevilla Andalucia Spain

The Carthaginians' expansion has brought them into contact with the Southern Iberian kingdom of Tartessus, the only native polity of consequence.

The mineral wealth that enables its rise, through trade with the Greeks, renders control by Carthage inevitable.

The Vandals, Alans, and some Suebi (Suevi), taking advantage of the Visigothic threat to Italy, had crossed into Gaul and then into Hispania, and have ravaged the country for the past two years.

The Siling Vandals have occupied Baetica in the south, making the former administrative center Hispalis (present Sevilla) their capital, and …

The Vandals, following a series of defeats inflicted by the Visigoths, had moved in 417 to the region of present Andalusia, giving the southeastern Spanish province its name.

The Visigoths under Wallia, who had invaded Iberia before receiving lands in Septimania (Southern France), destroy the Siling Vandals and crush the Alans in 418, killing the western Alan king Attaces, the successor of Respendial, who had led the Alans, together with the Vandals and Suebi, on an invasion of the western Roman Empire beginning in 406.

The remainder of his people subsequently appeal to Gunderic, king of the Hasdingi, or Asding Vandals to accept the Alan crown.

Later Vandal kings in North Africa will style themselves Rex Wandalorum et Alanorum ("King of the Vandals and Alans").

A new treaty with Rome results in the widowed Galla Placidia’s return and a pledge by the Visigoths, in exchange for food subsidies, to attack the Alans and Vandals in Spain.

The Visigoths break their peace with Rome in 420, however, by assisting the Vandals in a battle.

Rechila takes Baetica’s provincial capital, Seville, in 441.

These conquests are extremely significant, but nothing of the sequence of events leading to them is known.

The provinces of Lusitania, Baetica, and Carthaginiensis become subject to the Suevi with the exception of the Levante ( the eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula) and the Mediterranean seaboard.

Theudigisel is assassinated by a group of conspirators during a banquet in Seville, according to Isidore of Seville, because he "defiled the marriages of very many powerful men by public prostitution".

Gregory of Tours, although he agrees that Theudigisel died during a banquet, records a different tale of his end: in the middle of the feast, the lights were blown out and an unidentified person killed Theudigisel in the dark.

"The Goths had adopted the reprehensible habit of killing out of hand any king who displeased them and replacing him on the throne by someone they preferred," Gregory concludes.

Some Visigothic king lists skip Theudigisel, as well as Agila I, going directly from Theudis to Athanagild.

Agila had come to power after the assassination of Theudigisel, who had ruled for less than two years.

However, opposition to his rule soon emerges.

First is …

…the revolt of the city of Córdoba, which Isidore of Seville suggests was due to local Roman Catholics objecting to his Arianism: in his account, Isidore mentions that Agila defiled the church of a local saint, Acisclus, by drenching the sepulcher "with the blood of the enemy and of their pack-animals", and attributes the death of Agila's son in the conflict—along with the majority of his army, and the royal treasury—to "the agency of the saints".

(Isidore of Seville, History of the Goths, chapter 47.

Translation by Guido Donini and Gordon B. Ford, Isidore of Seville's History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi, second revised edition (Leiden: E.J.

Brill, 1970), pp.

21.

Heather dates the beginning of this conflict to 550 (Peter Heather, The Goths (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), pp.

278).

Agila himself retreats to …

…Mérida.

Several groups revolted against Agila, as listed by historian Peter Heather: a local dynast, Aspidius, established a hegemony in one mountainous region; the landowners of Cantabria established a "senate" to govern their affairs; there are also the Sappi and Suani mentioned by John of Biclar.

The most important rebel opposed to Agila is Athanagild, whose open revolt begins in 551, following Agila's defeat at Cordoba.

Athanagild takes Seville, capital of Baetica, and presumes to rule as king in opposition to Agila.

Exactly who approached the Empire for assistance and when is also disputed; the primary sources are divided.

Even the name of the general of the imperial army is disputed.

The armies of Agila and Athanagild meet at Seville, where Agila meets a second defeat.

At this point, a third party enters the war between these two: the Empire.

As Peter Heather writes, "One of the two—which is the subject of varying report—summoned a Byzantine army, which duly arrived in southern Spain in 552."

Heather understands Isidore's chronicle states that Athangild summoned the imperial forces in autumn of 551 or winter of 552, while Jordanes implies in his Getica that Agila had asked Justinian for help.