Spain

tly weakened by repeated attacks of the northern barbarians, as well as by the sloth and effeminacy of its own citizens, her distant provinces soon began to experience dissensions and invasio

her, was also that, if we may believe the chronicles, in which a host of Suevi,

mpelled to pay an enormous ransom, after enduring humiliating siege and capitulation? It came about, however, that the successor of Alaric, Ataulpha, or Atawulf, made captive lovely Placidia, sister of Honorius, whom he married and carried away into Aquitania. Honorius made the best of the matter and granted to Atawulf all southern Gaul and Roman

ve with Hacidia before she was carried off and married by the Goth. Atawulf was basely assassinated by a creature of his court, and Constantius made truce with his successor, on condition that he should be given possession of

ts of Barcelona, one historian tells us; yet he lived but a month to enjoy his ill-gotten throne, and was followed by the real found

decessor, but committed the unpardonable sin, in the eyes of Rome, of keeping his acquisition for himself and the Visigothic kingdom. In the year 428 the Vandals and Suevi, under the renowned Genseric, defeated an allied army of Goths and Romans, for a long

isted by the allied armies of Rome and the Franks, defeated Attila the Hun, that famed "Scourge of God," who

after him to another son, Euric, or Evaric, who defied the waning power of Rome, and f

Tagus, and, as compared with the other invaders, they were cultured and polished. At the same time they were more virile than the Romans, hence had been able to expel the latter and subdue the former. They were not, however, sufficiently civilized to hold

s Goths descended from their northern fastnesses. They were pagans then, enemies of the true faith, until between the years 340 and 380 they were converted to Christianity by one Ulfilas, who invented an alphabet for them and translated much of the New Testament into

the Goths were Arians in their belief, while the Romans of Spain and their converts were Trinitarians. There were other minor differences between them, but so long as this radical discrepancy existed between the two religions, they were always at odds. This trouble was brought to a head in the time of King Leovigild, who reigned from a.d. 567 to 586, and who was such a rigid Ari

onverts, he insisted that all his subjects should become Catholics also, and rooted out the "Arian heresy" wherever he could find it. Recared was the first Catholic king of Spain, but not the last bigot, for he lighted the fires of religious persecution, which bur

ed a voice in royal affairs, and the Gothic monarchy became e

n King Wamba, who, a simple shepherd, was made a king against his will, and then, after he had acquired a liking for the throne, was deposed, also against his will, even after he had performed prodigies of valour for his country. It seems that the clerical party wanted him for king because they thought

e did not die just then-he was almost insane with rage; for, according to the same unwritten law of the Church, once in the cowl, never more could one reign a king; and so poor old Wamba made the best of it, though protesting that it was a very scurvy trick, and retired to a cloiste

a, who between them carried Gothic domination up to the year 710, when the portents were strong for some unknown disaster. Church and state had been in the ma

k reforms; but the kingdom had been so weakened by the foolish and evil deeds of his late predecessors, and he found himself so surrounded by enemies (friends and relations of the former king), that he could not save it from ruin. He was to be known to history as the last reigning sovereign before the kingdom was overthrown by that mighty Moslem host from Africa. Some Spanish chroniclers have sought to account for this overthrow by ascribing to Don Roderick a foul deed done to a daughter of a certain Count Julian, commander

earth, leaving few memorials of its existence save a lasting impress upon the spe

d Visigoth; and to obtain a clear conception of the manner in wh