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To: lqclamar
In fact, Roman rule never officially ended in Spain save for the transition of power to the Visigoths. The hereditary claim was transferred through Honorius' half-sister, who wed the Visigothic king Athaulf in 414.

If Roman rule never officially ended in Iberia, you should demonstrate that rather than merely claiming it. A first step would be to show how the Roman governorships in Iberia were transferred to the Visigoths. A second step would be to demonstrate how and when these appointed positions became hereditary.

Valia became king in 415, and openly supported Honorius' rule in Rome. By 418 the Visigoths were in Gaul, and the two empires were openly allied with each other.

It seems as if you are describing two separate but allied states. Such a description challenges your assertion that "Roman rule never officially ended in Spain."

328 posted on 01/21/2007 11:33:03 PM PST by zimdog
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To: zimdog
If Roman rule never officially ended in Iberia, you should demonstrate that rather than merely claiming it.

I quote my previous statement:

"Roman rule never officially ended in Spain save for the transition of power to the Visigoths."

A first step would be to show how the Roman governorships in Iberia were transferred to the Visigoths.

As already noted, the last Roman governing authority in Iberia was granted by Honorius to his half-sister Galla Placidia. She married Athaulf, the Visigothic king, and allowed his people to settle in Iberia. Athaulf was assassinated in Barcelona in 415. His throne briefly seized by the assassins, but the Visigothic succession was quickly restored under Wallia. Wallia became a close ally of Roman Emporer Honorius and was recognized by treaty as a Foederatus of the empire with settling rights in Iberia, thus completing the cession as Rome withdrew. As Gibbon describes it:

"A solemn treaty was stipulated and observed; Placidia was honorably restored to her brother; six hundred thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry Goths; and Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of the empire. A bloody war was instantly excited among the Barbarians of Spain; and the contending princes are said to have addressed their letters, their ambassadors, and their hostages, to the throne of the Western emperor, exhorting him to remain a tranquil spectator of their contest; the events of which must be favorable to the Romans, by the mutual slaughter of their common enemies. The Spanish war was obstinately supported, during three campaigns, with desperate valor, and various success; and the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire the superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province of Btica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani; and the remains of those Scythian wanderers, who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterwards confounded. The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi, yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous multitude of Barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted, were driven into the mountains of Gallicia; where they still continued, in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercise their domestic and implacable hostilities. In the pride of victory, Wallia was faithful to his engagements: he restored his Spanish conquests to the obedience of Honorius; and the tyranny of the Imperial officers soon reduced an oppressed people to regret the time of their Barbarian servitude."

A second step would be to demonstrate how and when these appointed positions became hereditary.

Through the hereditary line of the Visigothic kingdom. The line continued through Roderic, who was slain by the mahometan invaders in 711. The line eventually passed to Pelagius of Asturias, the highest nobleman to survive, whose reign founded most of the dynasties that became parts of the Spanish crown today.

345 posted on 01/22/2007 10:19:18 AM PST by lqclamar
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