Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

124 5. the western kingdoms
became the first Visigothic king to convert from Arianism to Catholicism,
Leovigild invaded his kingdom. Mérida was taken in 582, Seville in 583 and
Córdoba in 584. Hermenegild, sent into internal exile, was subsequently
killed.
This conflict should not be regarded as a religious war, but it did make
clear the need to resolve the religious divide. Leovigild had reunited virtually
all of the peninsula, a process that culminated in his conquest of the
Suevic kingdom in 585, and had rebuilt the power and prestige of the
Visigothic monarchy. However, the Catholic church, whose bishops were
often the most influential local notables and whose interests were best
served by a strengthened central government, could not rally to the cause
of an uncompromisingly Arian king. Although there were rumours that
Leovigild contemplated conversion in the last phase of his reign, it was left
to his son Reccared (586–601) to take this step. Following the king’s own
personal conversion in 587, most of the Arian clergy followed suit, and in
589 a great ecclesiastical council was held in Toledo to celebrate the formal
conversion of the Visigoths, and to settle any outstanding practical problems.
Some local Visigothic potentates and some of the Arian metropolitan
bishops, who stood to lose their regional authority, tried to resist this
process, and a number of unsuccessful revolts occurred in the years
587–90. From this point on, however, the issue became a dead one.
vi. vandal africa, 429,533
Of the four components of the loose confederacy of peoples that crossed
the Rhine in the winter of 406/7 and entered Spain in 409, the Alans and
the Siling Vandals were perhaps the most powerful, and they established
themselves in the richest parts of the Iberian peninsula. However, they
were destroyed as coherent units by the Visigoths in 416/17, and the survivors
merged with the Hasding Vandals under their king Gunderic
(406–28). They were subjected to attack by imperial armies in 422, and it
may have been their inability to achieve a treaty with the Roman government
that drove them into moving to the potentially greater safety of
North Africa in 429. On the other hand, there may be some truth in the
report of Procopius that they were invited to cross into Africa by its military
ruler Boniface, who was then in conflict with Felix, magister militum in
Italy. 23
Following the crossing of the straits the Vandals, now led by Gunderic’s
half-brother Geiseric (428–77), moved eastwards along the coast, and took
Hippo following a siege in 430. In 435 a treaty was made with the imperial
government, giving them control of coastal Numidia. In 439 Geiseric
23 Procop. Wars iii.3.23–4.
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