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spain: the suevic kingdoms, 425,584 121
the more powerful of the two surviving Merovingian monarchs, but on his
own death when aged only twenty-five, his realm was redivided between his
two young sons, Theudebert II (596–612) and Theuderic II (596–613).
iv. spain: the suevic kingdoms, 425,584
The Sueves who entered the Iberian peninsula in 409 benefited from the
elimination by the Visigoths of two of the other components of their confederacy,
the Siling Vandals and the Alans, in 417/18, and then from the
removal of the other remaining ally, the Hasding Vandals, into Africa in
429. This left them free to expand their authority from the north-west of
the peninsula, where they had first established themselves, over most of the
south and the centre as well. Under their king Rechila (438–48) the provinces
of Baetica and Lusitania were conquered by 441, and from 439
Mérida became the Suevic capital. A last imperial attempt to regain these
regions was defeated in 446. Rechila’s son Rechiarius (448–56) was the first
Germanic king to become a Catholic Christian, and his decision would
suggest that the Sueves, previously noted for their plundering of the
Galician civilians, were looking towards better relations with their new
Hispano-Roman subjects and with the vestigial imperial government. After
conducting raids in the Ebro valley in 448 and 449 Rechiarius made a treaty
with Rome in 452, which was renewed in 454. However, when in 455
Rechiarius invaded the province of Tarraconensis, the last portion of the
peninsula to remain under rule from Rome, his brother-in-law, the
Visigothic king Theoderic II, was sent against him by the emperor Avitus
(455–7). In 456 Rechiarius was defeated in a battle on the river Orbigo, captured
and executed (see p. 113 above). In the aftermath the Visigoths established
their rule over much of the former Suevic kingdom in the south and
the east, leaving a series of rival Suevic leaders to fight for dominance in
the north-west. One of these, Rechimund (459–61), may have been related
to the previous royal dynasty, but the other competitors – Maldras
(456–60), Framtano (457–8), Frumarius (460–5) and Remismund (464–?) –
probably were not. 20 Under the last of these the Sueves were once more
united, and Remismund is recorded as opening diplomatic links with the
emperor Leo I when faced with renewed conflict with the Visigoths.
The termination of the Chronicle of Hydatius in 469 marks a caesura in
information on the Sueves, and it is not until the mid sixth century that they
re-emerge into historiographical light. Confined to the north-west, in more
or less the boundaries of the province of Gallaecia, the Suevic kingdom
was now surrounded by that of the Visigoths, under whose influence a
20 Chronology followed is that of Muhlberger (1990) 308–11; that in the entries in PLRE ii can be
erroneous.
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