Wood 2010

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy
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J amie W ood
The centrality of the Reconquista in the historiography of medieval Spain has meant that there has been little examination of the evidence for interaction on and across political boundaries in pre-Islamic Spain. This article re-examines existing theories about the defence of the Byzantine province of Spania that had been established by Justinian in the 550s and was taken by the Visigoths in 625. The two existing and opposing models for the extent, defence, and therefore the importance of the province to the empire do not explain the evidence convincingly. Rather, a uid zone of interaction was established in which diplomacy and propaganda was the primary means by which opposition was articulated. Introduction In 589/90 Comentiolus, the governor of Spania, the Byzantine province in southern Spain, raised an inscription in Cartagena. Comentiolus had been sent by Emperor Maurice against the barbarian enemy (contra hostis barbarus) in the Visigothic kingdom of Spain with the hope that Spain always rejoices in such a governor as long as the [north and south] poles are being rotated and as long as the sun circles the earth.1 Thirty years later, in 619, the rst canon of the Second Council of Seville, held under Visigothic auspices, stated that lands recently reconquered from the empire had been carried into captive poverty (captiva necessitas) by the barbaric savagery (barbarica feritas) of the Byzantines.2
A. Prego de Lis, La inscripcin de Comitiolus del Museo Municipal de Arqueologa de Cartagena, V Reunin de Arqueologa Cristiana Hispnica (Barcelona, 2000), p. 383: . . . SEMPER SPANIA TALI RECTORE LAETETVR DVM POLI ROTANTVR DVMQ. SOL CIRCVIT ORBEM . . . II Seville, ed. J. Vives, Concilios Visigticos e Hispano-Romanos (Barcelona and Madrid, 1963), I, p. 163.
Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 292319 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
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The Byzantine province of Spania, which incorporated the southern parts of the old Roman provinces of Baetica and Carthaginiensis, was established in the 550s and was overrun by the Visigoths in the 620s. Its history has largely escaped the attention of Anglophone scholars, although it has received considerable coverage in Spain.3 This lacuna is regrettable, since an examination of the history and historiography of the province can tell us a great deal about the ways in which the empire interacted with the barbarian successor kingdoms. While the evidence ostensibly points towards tension and conict between Byzantines and Visigoths, upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that there was actually a signicant amount of diplomatic and cultural exchange accompanying the oppositional rhetoric exemplied by the Cartagena inscription and the 619 synodal canon. Over the past decade it has become increasingly apparent that existing theories about the defence of the Byzantine province in Spain are inadequate. Older theories, based upon the idea that the Byzantines and the Visigoths were consistently hostile to each other, argue that the Byzantines developed a limes-style defence system to protect the southern province from the Visigoths in the north.4 On the other side of the debate, some scholars have suggested that the Byzantines did not penetrate far into the interior of the peninsula and thus that no such frontier can have been established.5 This article argues that the Byzantine territories were more extensive than has recently been suggested and that, rather than constructing a fortied frontier, the Byzantines defended Spania largely through diplomatic means. By taking a fresh look at the extant textual evidence for the administration of the province, it is demonstrated that Byzantines used diplomatic strategies to defend their possessions in Spain rather than extensive and direct military action or defensive construction. These strategies included interfering in internal
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For bibliography see S. Ramallo Asensio and J. Vizcano Snchez, Bizantinos en Hispania. Un problema recurrente en la arqueologa Espaola, Achivo espaol de arqueologa 75 (2002), pp. 31332. For the classic treatment of the province see P. Goubert, Byzance et lEspagne wisigothique (554711), tudes Byzantines 2 (1944), pp. 578; Ladministration de lEspagne byzantine: les gouverneurs de lEspagne byzantine, tudes Byzantines 3 (1945), pp. 12742; Administration de lEspagne Byzantine, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 4 (1946), pp. 71110; Inuences byzantines sur lEspagne Wisigothique, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 4 (1946), pp. 11134. For artistic inuences see H. Schlunk, Relaciones entre la Pennsula Ibrica y Bizancio durante la poca visigoda, Archivo Espaol de Arqueologa 18 (1945), pp. 177240. The best recent general treatments are those of M. Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua (Ss. VVIII): Un capitulo de historia mediterrnea (Alcal de Henares, 1993) and F.J. Presedo Velo, La Espaa Bizantina (Seville, 2003). A. Barbero and M. Vigil, Sobre los orgenes sociales de la reconquista (Barcelona, 1974). See, for example, G. Ripoll Lpez, On the Supposed Frontier between the Regnum Visigothorum and Byzantine Hispania, in W. Pohl, I. Wood and H. Reimitz (eds), The Transformation of Frontiers from Late Antiquity to the Carolingians (Leiden, 2000), pp. 95115.
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disputes within the Visigothic ruling elite, agreeing treaties with Visigothic rulers, and exchanging embassies. The traditional vision of constant armed opposition between Byzantines and Visigoths, therefore, does not tell the full story. A limes for Spania The history of the Byzantine province of Spania began with Justinians reconquest of the African provinces. Following victory over the Vandals in 534, the Byzantines moved quickly to occupy Septem in North Africa (modern Ceuta, see Fig. 1). A garrison and a naval force were stationed there under the command of a tribune who was responsible for monitoring events in Spain and Gaul.6 The Balearics were also rapidly occupied.7 These actions were vital in securing Africa from possible attack by the Visigoths, in controlling the navigation of the Straits of Gibraltar, and in preparing for a potential offensive against southern Spain.8 Throughout antiquity economic, political and military contact across the Straits of Gibraltar had been commonplace.9 These contacts continued into the Visigothic period: Gelimer, the Vandal king, solicited aid from the Visigoths in his ght with the Byzantines, and there were instances of direct Visigothic action in North Africa.10 Although the possibility of Visigothic interference in Africa from Spain must have been a powerful incentive to action, events of the mid-550s provided Justinian with an opportunity to intervene. According to Isidore of Seville, the rebellion of Athanagild precipitated the Byzantine invasion: Formerly, when his tyranny had already been initiated while he was trying to deprive Agila of power, he [Athanagild] had asked for military assistance from the Emperor Justinian. Afterwards, despite
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Codex Iustinianus I.27.2.2, ed. P. Krueger, Corpus Iuris Civilis, 2 vols (Berlin, 1967), II, p. 79. Procopius, Buildings, viii.1416, trans. H. Dewing, Procopius, 7 vols (London, 1916), VII, pp. 3902. Procopius, History of the Wars IV.v.68, trans. Dewing, II, p. 248. C. Martin, La gographie du pouvoir dans lEspagne visigothique (Lille, 2003), p. 285. J. Arce, El ltimo siglo de la Espaa romana: 284409 (Madrid, 1982), pp. 3162. Procopius, History of the Wars III.xxiv.718; IV.iv.336, trans. Dewing, II, pp. 1968, 244; Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 22 (both redactions), ed. C. Rodrguez Alonso, Las historias de los godos, vndalos y suevos de Isidoro de Sevilla (Lon, 1975), pp. 2068. The Visigothic king Theudis twice attempted to take Septem losing the city to the Byzantines in 534 and failing to retake it in 548: Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 42 (second redaction), ed. Rodrguez Alonso, p. 242. Procopius, History of the Wars VI.xxx.1115, trans. Dewing, IV, pp. 1402: Uraas argued that Ildibaldus should be made Ostrogothic king as Theudis was his uncle and they might expect assistance. We cannot be sure of the exact dates of these events; while the internal chronology of Isidores Historia is secure, but is not reliably connected to any externally veriable dating system, M. Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities (Baltimore, MD, 2004), p. 272, n. 81; for general contacts, pp. 716.
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having struggled he could not remove those [imperial soldiers] from the borders of his kingdom.11 The continued resistance of cities such as Crdoba to Visigothic rule made the Byzantine invasion easier.12 This was fortunate because in 552 Justinians forces were still bogged down in the Ostrogothic war in Italy. Hence, only a small force was dispatched to Spain, while a second expedition may have been sent in 555, at the end of the Italian campaign.13 The Visigothic nobility, seeing that they were ruining themselves by their own destruction and fearing more, lest the [Byzantine] soldiers might invade Spain with the pretext of giving assistance, killed Agila and made Athanagild king.14 Although the Byzantine invasion met important strategic aims, such as further securing the Mediterranean and Africa, it is unclear whether Justinian intended the total conquest of all Spain or was opportunistically taking advantage of Visigothic disunity as he had done in Ostrogothic Italy and Vandal Africa.15 Given Justinians unwillingness to send troops or other resources even to Italy, together with the uncertainty of the situation throughout the empire, the opportunistic wait and see option seems the more likely.16 The Byzantines had to maintain their newly won control of southern Spain. There are two basic theories about how they accomplished this. By far the most prevalent concept is that there was an organized and fortied Byzantine limes-style frontier in southern Spain. Barbero and Vigil were
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Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 47 (both redactions), ed. Rodrguez Alonso, pp. 24850: His cum iam dudum sumpta tyrannide Agilanem regno privare conaretur, militum sibi auxilia ab imperatore Iustiniano poposcerat, quos postea submovere a nibus regni molitus non potuit. Cf. Isidore, Chronica, c. 399a (second redaction), ed. J.C. Martn, Isidori Hispalensis Chronica, CCSL 112 (Turnhout, 2003), p. 195: The Roman army enters Spain due to Athanagild (In Spaniam per Athanagildum Romanus miles ingreditur). Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 456 (second redaction), ed. Rodrguez Alonso, pp. 2468. Claude, Diplomatischen Beziehungen, p. 18. Recent work has emphasized the increased localization of power in the Iberian Peninsula in the aftermath of the breakdown of central Roman control, perhaps explaining Athanagilds willingness to exchange southern coastal regions that were only loosely tied to his kingdom (if at all) for imperial support; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, pp. 25686; S. Castellanos, The Political Nature of Taxation in Visigothic Spain, EME 12 (2003), pp. 20128; S. Castellanos and I. Martn Viso, The Local Articulation of Central Power in the North of the Iberian Peninsula (5001000), EME 13 (2005), pp. 142. E.A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford, 1969), pp. 3249; Presedo Velo, La Espaa Bizantine, pp. 328, 165. Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 46 (second redaction), ed. Rodrguez Alonso, p. 248: videntes . . . proprio se everti excidio et magis metuentes, ne Spaniam milites auxili occasione invaderent. The capture of some cities (civitates aliquas) by Justinians troops led to Agilas fall, according to Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum X IV.8, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, Gregorii Episcopi Turonensis Libri Historiarum X, MGH SRM 1.1 (Hanover, 1951), p. 140. J. Moorhead, Justinian (London, 1994), pp. 1089; L. Garca Moreno, The Creation of Byzantiums Spanish Province. Causes and Propaganda, Byzantion 66 (1996), pp. 10119. Moorhead, Justinian, pp. 7288, 1019, for conquest of Italy, and esp. pp. 1017 for the effect of lack of resources on Byzantine fortunes in Italy. For more on Justinians nances see, C. Gordon, Procopius and Justinians Financial Policies, Phoenix 13 (1959), pp. 2330.
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the rst to posit the limes theory, attempting to show that the Byzantine defences were the prototype for a Visigothic limes which was later directed against the Basques and Cantabrians in northern Spain.17 The kind of frontier imagined by Barbero and Vigil and their followers is of a double articulation, structured as follows: an interior zone consisting of a network of fortied cities, interspersed with smaller defensive positions and, in more advanced positions, a series of small fortied positions (castra, castella), linked by roads and defended by limitanei soldiers.18 Although Barbero and Vigils conclusions concerning the existence of limes in northern Spain have been criticized, their thesis concerning the ByzantineVisigothic frontier has formed the basis for many subsequent studies. These studies in turn, have formed the interpretative framework within which some distinctly ambiguous archaeological ndings have been situated historically.19 Those who believe that there was a limes frontier in sixth- and seventhcentury Spania base their theories on three literary sources. None of this evidence stands up to detailed examination. Firstly, Paul the Deacons eighth-century Historia Langobardorum states that the wife and son of Hermengild, a sixth-century Visigothic rebel, fell into the hands of Byzantine troops who were residing in the border area opposite the Spanish Goths.20 This reference implies that Byzantine soldiers were stationed on the edges of Spania to defend the province from the Visigoths. However, the Historia was not written until the 790s, in Lombard Italy. Thus its utility in demonstrating the existence of a fortied Spanish limes (such as that envisaged by Barbero and Vigil) two hundred years earlier is nugatory.
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Barbero and Vigil, Los orgenes. Barbero and Vigil, Los orgenes, pp. 714; L. Garca Moreno, Vndalos, visigodos y bizantinos en Granada (409711), in N. Marn Daz (ed.), In Memoriam Agustn Daz Toledo (Granada and Almera, 1985), p. 139; M. Vallejo Girvs, El sistema viario peninsular en los lmites de la provincial bizantina de Spania, Camineria Hispanica. Actas del II Congreso Internacional de Camineria Hispanica, 3 vols (Madrid, 1996), I, p. 95; F. Salvador Ventura, El poblamiento en la provincial de Granada durante los siglos VI y VII, Antigedad y Cristianismo 5 (1988), p. 346. For criticisms of Roman limes in Spain see: Arce, El ltimo siglo, pp. 6772; for acceptance see: L. Garca Moreno, Organizacin militar de Bizancio en la pennsula ibrica (ss. VIVII), Hispania 33 (1973), pp. 522. Visigothic limes, L. Garca Moreno, Estudios sobre la organisacin administrativa del Reino Visigodo de Toledo, Anuario de historia del Derecho Espaol 44 (1974), pp. 5157. For criticisms of the northern limes theory see M. Lovelle and J. Quiroga, De los Suevos a los Visigodos en Galicia (573711); Nuevas hiptesis sobre el proceso de integracin del noroeste de la pennsula ibrica en el reino visigodo de Toledo, Romano-Barbarica 14 (19967), pp. 26580; see J.J. Sayas Abengochea, El supuesto limes del norte durante la epoca bajoimperial y visigoda, Spania: estudis dantiguitat tardana oferts en homenatge al profesor Pere de Palol i Salellas (Barcelona, 1996), pp. 2467 for doubts about the existence of a limes in the north directed against the Sueves and the other northern peoples; he is equally dubious about applicability of the archaeological evidence to the limes in the south. Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum III.21, ed. G. Waitz, MGH Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum 1 (Hanover, 1878), pp. 1034: qui in limite adversum Hispanos Gothos residebant.
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The two other literary references derive from Isidore of Sevilles early seventh-century Historia Gothorum: Leovigild (56986) took certain forts (castra) that had been occupied by the Byzantines, and Swinthila (62131) captured Roman forts (castra).21 Garca Moreno has stated that since limitanei troops usually occupied castra in other parts of the empire, one could legitimately suppose the existence of limitanei in Spania and thus the presence of a limes-style frontier.22 However, the validity of comparing Isidores description of Byzantine defences in Spania, of which he is likely to have known very little, with that used to describe fortications in Italy, Africa and the east, about which he must have known virtually nothing, must be questioned. While Isidores denitions of castra in the Etymologies demonstrate that he believed that the structures fullled military functions, he is inconsistent in his usage of the terms. He denes a castra as a place where a soldier would be stationed; but in some cases he sees these as xed positions, in others as temporary and moveable, while in other instances alternative terms are used to describe fortications or population centres in frontier zones.23 Castra of the sort that Isidore tried to dene are thinly attested in historical or archaeological sources; the same may be said for the limitanei and the putative limes. Additionally, it is by no means clear that Byzantine limitanei did always full a frontier-defence role elsewhere in the empire. By the end of Justinians reign, the practical military differences between eld troops and limitanei were unclear; eld units were often permanently garrisoned nearer to the frontier than limitanei.24 Even if the presence of limitanei was securely attributed in Spania, which it is not, their presence is not necessarily indicative of a frontier defence role. In both of these instances, therefore, Isidore simply stated that Romanheld defensive strong points were taken by Visigoths. There is no indication that these defences were constructed or positioned in special relation to one another, to any frontier, or to any other defensive system.
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Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 49 (both redactions): quaedam castra ab eis [the Byzantines] occupata; c. 62 (second redaction): Romana castra perdomuit, ed. Rodrguez Alonso, pp. 254, 274. Garca Moreno, Organizacin militar de Bizancio, p. 9. Isidore, Etymologiae IX.3.44, ed. W.M. Lindsay, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi. Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, 2 vols (Oxford, 1911), trans. S.A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beech and O. Berghof, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 3902: A camp (castra) is where a soldier would be stationed. See also IX.2.99, trans. Barney et al., p. 197 (burgus as frontier forts, related to castra); IX.4.28, trans. Barney et al., pp. 2045 (burgi as dwelling places established along frontiers); XV.2.5, trans. Barney et al., p. 305 (oppidum named from its walls); XV.2.6, trans. Barney et al., pp. 3056 (oppidum named because it gives protection; differs in size from castellum); XV.2.13, trans. Barney et al., p. 306 (ancients called a town sited on a very high place a castra); XV.3.10, trans. Barney et al., p. 309 (the army does not stay in camp grounds metatum but passes through). Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, pp. 67, 69.
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Additionally, the evidence denitely does not prove that the Byzantines built new fortications; they may simply have reused existing structures. However, other literary and archaeological evidence suggests that there had been greater fortication throughout the southern Iberian countryside in the fth century and a movement to settlements sited on hills, suggesting perhaps an increased sense of danger.25 Discerning a Byzantine frontier amongst these changes is virtually impossible. The other strands of the limes theory, the presence of fortied cities in the interior of the province and the use of comparative evidence of a limes system from other parts of the empire, do not survive detailed scrutiny. References to cities in Spania demonstrate the existence of urban centres, but not that they were necessarily fortied, nor that they formed part of a limes structure.26 As observed above, comparative evidence from elsewhere in the Byzantine empire is often adduced in support of the limes theory.27 But, even in Byzantine Africa, the province that is most frequently compared to Spania, the term limes is actually synonymous with a province, or the military circumscriptions of a dux; it therefore dened a geographical area, not a linear boundary.28 More generally, the chief characteristic of the Byzantine defensive system was the permeable frontier; invaders were not stopped at the frontier, nor were they brought to battle, except in the most favourable circumstances.29 As Isaac has argued, in Byzantine usage [a] clear distinction is made between limites and the frontier . . . the term limes refers to specic districts where forts are built rather than to the system of forts itself . . . To my knowledge there is no passage anywhere in Byzantine sources which states that a limes was built or constructed. Reference is made to structures in the limes as distinct from the limes itself . . . there is in Latin no term to indicate what modern frontier studies describe as a limes, a defended border. It must
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John of Biclarum, Chronicon 20 (s.a. 571) ed. C. Hartmann, Victoris Tunnunensis Chronicon cum reliquiis ex Consularibus Caesaraugustanis et Iohannis Biclarensis Chronicon, CCSL 173A (Turnhout, 2001), p. 63: Leovigild took the rebelling city Cordoba (the city may not have been previously occupied by the Visigoths; John may simply be referring to its independence and opposition to the expansion of Visigothic power); and [Leovigild] regained many cities and forts (multasque urbes et castellan . . . revocat); John of Biclarum, Chronicon 46 (s.a. 577), ed. Hartmann, p. 69: Leovigild entered the Orospeda and occupied cities and forts of the same province (Orospedam ingreditur et ciuitates atque castella eiusdem prouinciae occupat). This evidence suggests that these areas were fortied prior to occupation by the Visigoths. Perhaps the Byzantines inherited a similarly fortied area. K. Carr, Vandals to Visigoths. Rural Settlement Patters in Early Medieval Spain (Ann Arbor, 2002), pp. 1426. Contra Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 381. E.g. Garca Moreno, Organizacin militar, p. 9. D. Pringle, The Defence of Byzantine Africa from Justinian to the Arab Conquest, BAR International Series 99, 2 vols (Oxford, 1981), I, p. 97. J. Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 5651204 (London, 1999), p. 69.
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then be asked whether . . . the military organisation, as represented by the physical remains, should be explained along different lines. In other words, there can be no justication for calling any chain of forts on a frontier a limes.30 Hence, the concept of a limes as fortied frontier dividing two clearly dened political entities does not sufce to describe most Roman or Byzantine frontiers.31 The comparative and theoretical terminology adduced in support of the Byzantine limes in Spania has been wrongly interpreted and applied, and the literary evidence used to support the theory does nothing of the sort. The main, recent opponent of the limes theory has been Gisela Ripoll Lpez.32 For her, the geographical extent of the province was fairly limited and no signicant frontier existed between the Visigothic and Byzantine zones of inuence: Spania was centred on several small enclaves that were not united territorially. This theory is attractive because it takes account of the geography of southern Spain that consists of a relatively thin coastal strip, intersected by river valleys and separated from the inland zone by a series of mountain chains.33 Byzantium maintained control of this coastal strip as a result of its dominance of the Mediterranean.34 Ripoll Lpezs criticism of the limes theory is based on the small amount and ambiguous nature of the textual evidence as well as the lack of clearly dened archaeological evidence: archaeologically speaking, no evidence for this supposed limes has ever been traced, neither archaeological sites nor nds to encourage such an interpretation and artefact typologies are insufciently precise to identify Byzantine era objects in Spain.35
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B. Isaac, The Meaning of the Terms limes and limitanei, Journal of Roman Studies 78 (1988), pp. 125, 1367, 146; see also p. 125: modern studies do not hesitate to describe as a limes any set of Roman forts encountered in a frontier zone; B. Isaac, The Limits of Empire. The Roman Army in the East, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1992), pp. 372418 for a generally scathing attack on the tendency to attribute a grand strategic vision to Roman leaders, which is based on a series of assumptions that are themselves inspired by notions of modern strategy and warfare. For a rebuttal of Isaac, see E.L. Wheeler, Methodological Limits and the Mirage of Roman Strategy: Part I, The Journal of Military History 57 (1993), pp. 741; Methodological Limits and the Mirage of Roman Strategy: Part II, The Journal of Military History 57 (1993), pp. 21540. Martin, La gographie, p. 287, thought that the limes in Spain would be best conceptualized as a territorial sector, not as a linear construction. G. Ripoll Lpez, On the Supposed Frontier between the Regnum Visigothorum and Byzantine Hispania, in W. Pohl, I. Wood and H. Reimitz (eds), The Transformation of Frontiers from Late Antiquity to the Carolingians (Leiden, 2000), pp. 99, 107, 115. S. Keay, Introduction: Early Roman Baetica, The Archaeology of Early Roman Baetica, in S. Keay (ed.), Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 29 (1998), pp. 1213. F. van Doorninck, Byzantium, Mistress of the Sea: 300641, in G.F. Bass (ed.), A History of Seafaring Based on Underwater Archaeology (London, 1972), pp. 13358. Ripoll Lpez, On the Supposed Frontier, pp. 1089.
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This means that, despite the undoubted richness of the archaeological remains of the sixth and seventh centuries, it is not yet possible to talk with condence of Byzantine artefacts in the areas of supposed imperial occupation during this period.36 In the absence of such diagnostic, dateable evidence, judgements about the ascription of sites to a temporal period or a zone of political control must be suspended. While one can largely agree with Ripoll Lpezs conclusions on the textual evidence,37 material recorded by archaeologists working in this area can add signicantly to the debate. Much of this is, admittedly, ambiguous and overly inuenced by the limes model, but there is some evidence for limited defensive construction in the Byzantine province in the early Middle Ages. Ripoll Lpez states that the sources always mention only urban centres and never make reference to the territories that were conquered or dependant on these cities.38 Firstly, it should be noted that in the period under consideration the obvious way to describe an area was in relation to the nearest city, especially in southern Spain, a landscape dotted with urban centres since pre-Roman times (see Fig. 1).39 Secondly, and more importantly, the textual evidence does actually suggest that the Byzantines controlled some inland territory and therefore that a more thoroughgoing occupation, defence, and particularly administration of the area existed than Ripoll Lpez is prepared to allow. The evidence for Byzantine defences The following section utilizes archaeological, geographical, epigraphic, literary and numismatic evidence to determine the character and possible extent of the Byzantine defences. For analytical purposes it is divided into two parts, each centred on a Byzantine-controlled city: Cartagena and Mlaga (for the following discussion, see Fig. 1). This enables a discussion of the evidence pertaining to the defence of each city and its hinterland, both of which we should expect to have been fortied in the Byzantine period if a limes did exist. Conversely, if the coastal enclave theory is closer to historical reality, we should expect little evidence of a Byzantine presence inland. This section does not analyse the fairly substantial evidence that has been discovered for occupation by Byzantines (or Byzantine material remains) of various sites; it focuses instead on the military-frontier evidence. It should be noted that much of the
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A. Gonzlez Blanco, Romanidad y Bizantinismo en el sudests Hispano durante la Antigedad Tarda, Spania: estudis dantiguitat tardana oferts en homenatge al profesor Pere de Palol i Salellas (Barcelona, 1996), p. 133. Ripoll Lpez, On the Supposed Frontier, p. 98. Ripoll Lpez, On the Supposed Frontier, p. 98. A.T. Fear, Rome and Baetica. Urbanization in Southern Spain c.50 BCAD 105 (Oxford, 1996).
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terminology used by archaeologists and historians who have analysed the sites under consideration is ambiguous; the vocabulary is reproduced here in order to demonstrate the shakiness of much of the evidence base of the limes theory. Reasons for such uncertainty include the possibility that some sites were occupied by the Byzantines and then reused by the Visigoths, or vice versa, or that the attribution to the Byzantine period refers to an ill-dened chronological period (sixth and seventh centuries, or parts thereof ) and not the the period of the actual Byzantine occupation of south-eastern Spain.40 Cartagena Cartagena, the likely capital of Spania, has the best evidence for defensive construction.41 Parts of the Byzantine wall and a semi-circular tower have been discovered in excavations in Calle Soledad / Calle Nueva, while excavations at Calle Orcel revealed a continuation of the same wall.42 Terra sigillata pottery of a type usually dated to the period 580620 has been discovered in the excavations, raising the possibility that these are the fortications erected by Governor Comentiolus in 589/90, described by contemporaries as the high summits of the towers and the entrance of the city, strengthened by a double gate to the right and to the left, supported by two pairs of arches, above which is placed an arched vaulted roof .43 Additionally, the hill called Cerro de la Concepcin, a site which often played a defensive role in the past, may have been reoccupied in the sixth and seventh centuries.44 According to Isidore, the Visigoths nally took and devastated Cartagena in 624.45
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Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, pp. 384, 387; Salvador Ventura, El poblamiento, p. 346. For urban archaeology of Cartagena see S. Ramallo Asensio, Aproximacin al urbanismo de Carthago Nova entre los siglos IVVII D.C., Spania: estudis dantiguitat tardana oferts en homenatge al profesor Pere de Palol i Salellas (Barcelona, 1996), pp. 2018, who notes that the archaeological evidence suggests that the life of the city and its Hispano-Roman population continued as it had before the Byzantines arrived with wealth based on its status as an important port and was only interrupted with Visigothic conquest in the 620s. S. Ramallo Asensio and R. Mndez Ortiz, Forticaciones tardoromanas y de poca bizantina en el sureste, Historia de Cartagena 5 (Murcia, 1986), pp. 828; Ramallo Asensio, Aproximacin al urbanismo de Carthago Nova, p. 204. Ramallo Asensio and Mndez Ortiz, Forticaciones tardoromanas y de poca bizantina, pp. 8894; Prego, La inscripcin de Comitiolus, pp. 91100, 383: QVISQVIS ARDVA TVRRIVM MIRARIS CVLMINA / VESTIBVLVMQ. VRBIS DVPLICI PORTA FIRMATVM / DEXTRA LEVAQ. BINOS POSITOS ARCOS / QVIB. SVPERVM PONITVR CAMERA CVRVA CONVEXAQ. / The inscription was interfered with at some point; the transcription above is the best current reading of the rst part of the text; cf. J. Vives (ed.), Inscripciones cristianas de la Espaa romana y visigoda, 2nd edn (Barcelona, 1969), n. 362. Ramallo Asensio, Aproximacin al urbanismo de Carthago Nova, p. 207. Isidore, Etymologiae XV.1.67, trans. Barney et al., p. 305.
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The Cartagena region has received much attention from archaeologists. This has led to the identication of several potential defensive sites. However, many of these sites need further excavation to conrm the assumptions that they were Byzantine in origin and use. Castillo de los Garres and Castillo de la Puebla, to the west of Cartagena, both control passes and may have been bases in the defence of Cartagena. Alternatively, they could have been constructed by the Visigoths to defend Cehegn.46 The ceramic record of Mula suggests continuity of occupation from the fourth to the ninth centuries, and some of the material matches that found at other Byzantine sites. However, it is not yet possible to identify Byzantine phases at Mula, and the ceramic material cannot be clearly ascribed to them.47 The sites of Castillo del Ro and Zambo may have been defensive positions dominating routes between Aspe and Elda, although this cannot be conrmed without excavation. Ascription to either side, or even secure dating to our period, is thus impossible.48 At the strategically located city of Lorca, excavations have revealed that the hill of Cerro del Castillo was occupied by a fortress between the fth and seventh centuries. The material remains at the site are similar to those discovered at Cartagena. These two pieces of information led to the assumption that the site played an important role during the imperial occupation, although this can be conrmed denitively by neither the archaeological nor the documentary records.49 It is easy to suppose that the strategically located city of Baza had some sort of military function, since it was the furthest point of Byzantine penetration into the interior and dominated roads west from Cartagena. Although there is no denitive evidence that this was the case, our sources report that Leovigild took the city in 569.50 There is virtually no archaeological evidence for the construction of a military frontier in the Vinalop Valley (around Elche), although discoveries at some sites suggest a Byzantine context. For example, the unusual concentration of late sixth- or seventh-century African Red Slipware and Byzantine period amphorae and the absence of fourth- to mid-sixthcentury African Red Slipware on the highland site of Cerro de San Miguel (near to modern Orihuela) suggests that it was a Byzantine
46 47
48 49 50
Ramallo Asensio and Mndez Ortiz, Forticaciones tardoromanas y de poca bizantina, pp. 956; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 387. S. Ramallo Asensio and E. Ruiz Valderas, Cartagena en la arqueologa bizantina en Hispania: estado de la cuestin, V Reunin de Arqueologa Cristiana Hispnica (Barcelona, 2000), pp. 31819. P. Fuentes Hinojo, Sociedad, ejrcito y administracin scal en la provincia bizantina de Spania, Studia Histrica: Historia Antigua 16 (1998), p. 317 ascribed the site to the Visigoths. Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 388, Vistalegre, may also have been a defensive position. Ramallo Asensio and Ruiz Valderas, Cartagena en la arqueologa bizantina en Hispania, p. 320. John of Biclarum, Chronicon, c. 12, (s.a. 569), ed. Hartmann, p. 62.
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outpost guarding an entrance to the valley.51 At Elche a Justinianic coin (a follis), minted at Carthage in 539/40, was discovered and may be evidence of a military presence there since such coins were probably minted to pay the Byzantine invasion forces of North Africa; they are not found in Byzantine layers at Carthage itself and are restricted to military contexts.52 However, the invasion of Spain did not occur until over a decade after the minting date, and a solitary coin could easily have found its way to Spania through other means.53 It has also been argued that the defences of Denia, the city controlling the coast north of Cartagena and securing the Balearics, were reinforced in the earlier sixth century, sometime before the Byzantine invasion, and may therefore have been reused by the Byzantines.54 In sum, Cartagena itself witnessed signicant defensive construction in the Byzantine period, probably owing to its importance as capital of the province and its strategic role in maintaining control of the Mediterranean. Although the vast majority of the evidence for the defence of the region is inconclusive, many of the potential sites in the interior show some signs of Byzantine inuence, if not denite occupation, and were closely associated with key strategic positions, controlling roads, river valleys and the coast. The evidence for the Cartagena region is therefore insufcient to suggest that an organized, fortied limes system existed in Spania, although it does suggest more Byzantine inuence in the area than Ripoll Lpezs theory allows.55 Mlaga Mlagas strategic location to the north-east of the Straits of Gibraltar, its harbour and its easily defensible situation means that it is likely to have been well protected. This might explain why it did not fall when attacked by King Leovigild in 569.56 However, there is no denite evidence that new fortications were built there by the Byzantines.57 It has been supposed that the original Byzantine occupation of Mlaga led to
51 52 53 54 55 56 57
P. Reynolds, Settlement and Pottery in the Vinalop Valley (Alicante, Spain) AD. 400700, BAR International Series 588 (Oxford 1993), p. 21. Reynolds, Settlement and Pottery, p. 21. Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 382, posited that the late Roman walls of Elche were reused by the Byzantines, although this has not been conrmed archaeologically. Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 382. Ripoll Lpez, On the Supposed Frontier, pp. 1089. John of Biclarum, Chronicon, c. 12, (s.a. 569), ed. Hartmann, p. 62; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, pp. 150, 17980, 382. I. Navarro Luengo, et al., Malaca bizantina: primeros datos arqueolgicos, V Reunin de Arqueologa Cristiana Hispnica (Barcelona, 2000), p. 272, in the Byzantine period structures were built against the Roman wall, making it unlikely that in certain sectors the wall was reused defensively.
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Ta jo
TOLEDO
LUSITANIA
Sagunto Valencia
Balearic Islands
MRIDA Villanueva de la Fuente

BAETICA
Gua d a lq u iv ir
CARTHAGINENSIS
Denia
El Tolmo de Minateda Cehegn
Elda Aspe Elche Orihuela
Crdoba cija SEVILLE Teba Pizarra Las Delicias Gigonza Medina Sidonia Algeciras Ceuta Cabra Montefro Antequera
Orospeda
Mula Lorca Vistalegre CARTAGENA
Baza Guadix Granada
Villarcos
100
200 km
Fig. 1 Byzantine and Visigothic Spain in the sixth and seventh centuries: places mentioned in the text
the conquest of inland cities such as Illiberis (near to modern Granada) and Guadix. For example, Qastiliya, a site near Granada, has been interpreted as forming part of the Byzantine defences on the basis of later Islamic sources, and Byzantine-type discoveries.58 The necropolis of Montefro has elicited varying interpretations: some see it has having held a Byzantine garrison; others, due to its northerly position, interpret it as Visigothic; still other scholars are non-committal.59 The area around Illiberis was probably taken by the Visigoths during Leovigilds campaign of 569 because it is sited between the two cities he is known to have attacked in that campaign, Mlaga and Baza, the second of which he captured. However, in the cases of both Guadix and Illiberis, we possess no denitive evidence that they ever belonged to the Byzantine province.60 Medina Sidonias strategic location, together with literary evidence, suggests that it was of some signicance to the defences of western
58 59 60
Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 387. Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 387; Salvador Ventura, El poblamiento, p. 342. Salvador Ventura, El poblamiento, p. 340. Garca Moreno, Vndalos, visigodos y bizantinos en Granada, p. 143 believes that there may have been a Byzantine presence at Illiberis; Salvador Ventura, El poblamiento, p. 341, is more dubious.
Cdiz
Villanueva del Rosario Mlaga Crtama
an ne a r er it
a Se
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Spania. John of Biclarum (550/6621/31) writing in 590 described it as fortissimam civitatem when it fell to Leovigild in 570.61 Sagontia (Gigonza) was probably a forward post for Medina Sidonia, since it controlled the road inland to Seville and Isidore stated that the Visigoths had captured some Byzantine soldiers there during Witterics reign (60311).62 If Isidores comment reects the presence of a garrison at Sagontia rather than a reference to the capture of mobile forces, it would imply that the Byzantines had subsequently retaken Medina Sidonia and then re-established forward defensive positions. Byzantine material has been discovered at Gades (Cdiz: Byzantine coinage) and Carteia (Algeciras: an epitaph in Greek dated to 616; Byzantine ofcial weights), both of which are coastal sites with good harbours.63 These sites are likely to have been closely connected to Septem (modern Ceuta in North Africa), which was garrisoned by naval and land forces, and whose commander was required to observe events in Spain. Numerous sugestions have been made about a large number of sites on the coast around Mlaga and in the interior. For example, it has been argued that Antequera may have been a defensive position on roads running through the mountains north of Mlaga, while numismatic and legal evidence suggests that the city of Barbi, seven kilometres to the west of Antequera, could have been reconquered late in the reign of Gundemar (61012).64 The sporadic reuse in the late sixth century of a necropolis at the strategic site of Teba that is situated in the same mountain range, together with the scarcity of burials from the period of reuse, has encouraged the supposition that it was a Byzantine defensive position, although others interpret it as part of the Visigothic frontier.65 Las Delicias, which was on an important strategic route linking Mlaga with the Baetican interior, has elicited controversy. Fuentes Hinojo interpreted the site as a Byzantine garrison, owing to the Byzantine inuence on the grave-goods and a small number of infant burials; other scholars, such as Garca
61 62
63
64
65
John of Biclarum, Chronicon, c. 17, (s.a. 570), ed. Hartmann, p. 63. Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 58 (second redaction), ed. Rodrguez Alonso, pp. 268. Fuentes Hinojo, Sociedad, ejrcito y administracin scal, p. 316; Vallejo Girvs, El sistema viario peninsular, p. 100. Carteia: J.B. Curbera, Two Greek Inscriptions from Spain, Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 110 (1996), pp. 2912; P. de Palol, Ponderales y exagias romano-bizantinas en Espaa, Ampurias 11 (1949), p. 133. Gades: T. Marot, Aproximacin a la circulacin monetaria en la Pennsula Ibrica y las Islas Baleares durante los siglos V y VI: la incidencia de las emisiones vndalas y bizantinas, Revue Numismatique 152 (1997), p. 183. Vallejo Girvs, El sistema viario peninsular, p. 100. P. Bartlett and G. Cores, The Coinage of the Visigothic King Sisebut (612621) from the Mint of Barbi, Gaceta numismtica 158 (2005), pp. 1317. Fuentes Hinojo, Sociedad, ejrcito y administracin scal, p. 316; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 385.
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Moreno, have seen it as part of the Visigothic defences.66 The same conjunction of circumstantial evidence has led to the necropolis of Villanueva del Rosario (MlagaGranada boundary) and another site situated in the Sierra de la Alhamilla being interpreted as imperial frontier castra.67 A late Roman settlement with possible fortications and defensive towers has been discovered at Villarcos, on the coast between Cartagena and Mlaga. Although controlling this site would have been strategically desirable, there is no denitive proof that it was used by the Byzantines.68 Contrary to the ambiguous nature of much of the archaeological material, evidence from the Second Council of Seville, held in 619, demonstrates that the Byzantines did control a signicant amount of the territorium of Mlaga. This council resolved disputes between the bishops of Mlaga, cija, Illiberis and Cabra. Apparently, the latter three had taken control of territory and churches that had previously belonged to Mlaga. Elsewhere in the acta, the assembled bishops devoted a great deal of attention to refuting the opinions of Gregory, an eastern bishop who was described as belonging to the heresy of the Acephali.69 It is thus highly likely that the conciliar acts record the efforts of the Visigothic church of the province of Baetica to reorganize into administrative and pastoral networks territories recently reconquered from the Byzantines. The city and its environs had to be reintegrated into the traditional ecclesiastical structure in the face of opposition from those inside the Visigothic church who had beneted from the division of the bishopric of Mlaga: Concerning which matter it is pleasing that all of the parishes which were proved by ancient authority to have been held by their church [Mlaga] before the military hostility should be restored to its privilege.70 There were, thus, three identiable stages to the Visigothic conquest of the Mlaga region from the Byzantines. In 56970 Leovigild took the outposts in the mountains to the north and Medina Sidonia to the west.
66
67 68
69
70
Fuentes Hinojo, Sociedad, ejrcito y administracin scal, p. 316; Salvador Ventura, El poblamiento, p. 342, 345; Garca Moreno, Vndalos, visigodos y bizantinos en Granada, p. 143. Fuentes Hinojo, Sociedad, ejrcito y administracin scal, p. 316 did not name the second site. Vallejo Girvs, El sistema viario peninsular, p. 100; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, pp. 382, 387; Pizarra and Crtama may have been defensive positions associated with the road network. For the Second Council of Seville see L.S.B. MacCoull, Isidore and the Akephaloi, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 39 (1998), pp. 16978; for Isidore and the Acephali more generally see J. Wood, Heretical Catholics and Catholic Heretics: Isidore of Seville and the Religious History of the Goths, in D. Hook (ed.), From Orosius to the Historia Silense. Four Essays on Late Antique and Early Medieval Historiography of the Iberian Peninsula (Bristol, 2005), pp. 1750, at pp. 405. II Seville, I, ed. Vives, pp. 1634: Pro qua re placuit ut omnis parrochia quae ab antique ditione ante militarem hostilitatem retinuisse ecclesiam suam conprobaret eius privilegio restitueretur.
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There seems to have been some military action during the reign of Witteric (60311) when the Visigoths captured some Byzantine troops at Sagontia, and which may imply that the Byzantines had re-established their control or at least some operational capability inland. In 613 15/16 Sisebut captured the city of Mlaga itself.71 There is some circumstantial evidence for the existence of frontier defences on the borders between Mlaga and Granada. However, without denite textual references or further excavation it is impossible to conrm whether these sites had distinctive Byzantine or Visigothic phases, or even if they had a military function at all. Similarly, in the absence of evidence for the fortication of Mlaga during its Byzantine phase, the existence of an interior defensive line behind Mlaga based on cities proves ephemeral. In the case of the Mlaga region, as with Cartagena, there is no denitive evidence for a limes-style frontier but neither is there support for the minimalist position. Zones of interaction Numismatic evidence also has a bearing on the limes debate. Kurt has demonstrated that much of the minting in the south of the peninsula in the late sixth and seventh centuries was associated with Visigothic Byzantine military interaction.72 The Visigoths set up mints at places such as Barbi, Acci (modern Guadix) and Seville, close to those areas in which they were especially active in defence or offence against the Byzantines, in order to pay troops and remint imperial coinage. As the centres of their military operations shifted so also many of the mint sites went out of use, especially in smaller or strategically unimportant towns. Although this material suggests that the Visigoths made a serious effort to take Spania and reminted Byzantine gold, it does not support the existence of a fortied frontier on the Visigothic side and can tell us nothing about whether it was opposed by a limes-style frontier on the Byzantine side. However, Kurts demonstration that the nodal points of Visigothic efforts to disrupt the impact of Byzantine political and economic power were signicantly inland does suggest that Byzantine inuence was felt
71
72
Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 288. L. Garca Moreno, Historia de Espaa visigoda (Madrid, 1989), p. 149. Fredegar, Chronicon 33, ed. J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar and Continuations (London, 1960), p. 21: Sisebut captured several of the imperial cities along the seaboard and razed them to the ground (plures civitates ab imperio Romano Sisebodus litore maris abstulit et usque fundamentum destruxit). Fredegar goes on to add that Sisebut was deeply disturbed by the slaughter of the Romans. A. Kurt, Visigothic Minting and the Expulsion of the Byzantine from the South in the Early Seventh Century, The Picus (1996), pp. 13366; A. Kurt, Minting, State and Economy in the Visigothic Kingdom ca. 418ca. 713, Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto (2002).
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quite far from the coast and therefore that the coastal enclave theory goes too far. Some scholars have discerned the development of a religious frontier between the Visigoths and Byzantines. Poveda linked the foundation of the see of Elo (Elda) by the Visigoths to their attempts to reconquer Spania, suggesting that the see was founded in the late sixth century in military and ecclesiastical opposition to the well-established and Byzantine-controlled see of Illici (Elche).73 Following the Visigothic conquest of Illici, the two sees coexisted until 681, when Elo disappeared from the conciliar records, presumably because it was subsumed by the older bishopric.74 Similarly, based upon the building techniques and materials that were used in renewed fortications at Begastri (near modern Cehegn) in the decades around 600, it has been argued that military construction was related to conicts between the Byzantines and the Visigoths, and the raising of the city to episcopal status by the Visigoths was a challenge to nearby Cartagenas traditional status as the metropolitan bishopric of Carthaginiensis.75 It has been suggested that the Byzantines initiated similar policies on their side of the frontier because of the evidence for urban renewal and refortication at Ilunum (modern El Tolmo de Minateda).76 This would have made strategic sense because the site controlled the most direct route from Cartagena to Toledo, the Visigothic capital.77 Although the putative ecclesiastical frontier is another powerful indicator of the considerable efforts that the Visigoths and the Byzantines made to ensure their control of the local populations, the issue does not signicantly illuminate the limes debate. A zone of interaction thus developed between the Byzantine and Visigothic spheres of inuence. The nature of the interactions that took place within this zone varied. Although many were oppositional, and sometimes military in nature, a limes frontier did not develop. The zone varied in nature, extent and over time. As the Visigoths were in very loose
73
74 75
76
77
A. Poveda Navarro, La creacin de la sede de Elo en la expansin toledana de nales del s.VI en el S.E. Hispnico, Actas del XIV Centenario del III Concilio de Toledo (5891989) (Toledo, 1991), pp. 61517. XII Toledo, ed. J. Vives, p. 401. L. Abad Casal and S. Gutirrez Lloret, Iyih (El Tolmo de Minateda, Helln, Albacete). Una civitas en el limes visigodo-bizantino, Antigedad y Cristianismo 14 (1997), p. 597; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, pp. 2402. G. Garca Herrero and A.J. Snchez Ferra, Iberos, Romanos, Godos y Bizantinos en el marco histrico de Begastri, Antigedad y Cristianismo 1 (1984), p. 35. A. Gonzlez Blanco, El decreto de Gundemaro y la historia del siglo VII, Antigedad y Cristianismo 3 (1986), pp. 15970 suggested that it was refortied by the Byzantines and then reused by the Visigoths. Abad Casal and Gutirrez Lloret, Iyih (El Tolmo de Minateda, Helln, Albacete), pp. 592, 5947. These changes were similar to those taking place in Cartagena at the same time: Ramallo Asensio and R. Mndez Ortiz, Forticaciones tardoromanas y de poca bizantina, p. 96. Abad Casal and Gutirrez Lloret, Iyih (El Tolmo de Minateda, Helln, Albacete), pp. 592, 596.
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control of southern Spain in the early sixth century, direct military contact between the two sides would have been minimal in the immediate aftermath of the Byzantine invasion in the 550s. Once greater contact had occurred, especially after Leovigilds operations in 56970, the zone is likely to have become more fortied. However, warfare seems to have consisted of the raiding of enemy territory, without much effort being made to gain extended control over specic strong points. The 569 attack appears to have been just such a raid, while Reccared, Witteric and Gundemar are all described as acting against Spania but are only recorded as having taken Gigonza between them. Additionally, in the 610s the Byzantines captured Bishop Cicilius of Mentesa (modern Villanueva de la Fuente), whose see was inside Visigothic territory.78 If military interaction was sporadic and low-level, the construction of a systematic frontier may have been less important than the control of the road network and the construction of places of refuge for the local population, for which we have some evidence (for example, fortication of defensive plateaux such as El Tolmo de Minateda).79 There are strong grounds for supposing that the interior line of the limes system was never established, although the defences of some urban centres were improved. Cartagena denitely saw fortication under Byzantine rule, while, on the basis of its geographical situation and John of Biclarums description, it is almost certain that Medina Sidonia was a strong point on the western frontier. Although it is probable that Mlaga was fortied, we cannot yet discern whether any construction there resulted from the Byzantine occupation. Away from the cities, sites denitely associated with Byzantium were usually either coastal or linked to the road network. This was probably because Byzantine troops were thinly spread, and speed of movement and supply would, therefore, have been essential; troop positions did not necessarily have anything to do with a permanent frontier. Ripoll Lpezs suggestion that the Byzantines did not control any territory in the interior is too extreme: Medina Sidonia and the territory surrounding it lie inland, as do Baza and a signicant part of the territory of Mlaga. Given the lack of hard evidence for the existence of a limes and the likelihood that Spania was more extensive than Ripoll Lpez has allowed, it is necessary to suggest an alternative hypothesis about the ways in which the Byzantines defended Spain and interacted with the Visigoths.
78
79
The Byzantine treatise on strategy, the Strategikon, dated between 575628 gives the impression that raiding of an opponents territory was at least as frequent an activity as long sieges, Maurice, Strategikon X, ed. G.T. Dennis, Das Strategikon des Maurikios, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 17 (Vienna, 1981), pp. 33650. Abad Casal and Gutirrez Lloret, Iyih (El Tolmo de Minateda, Helln, Albacete), pp. 591600.
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Diplomacy and defence Warfare has long been privileged as the dominant mode of interaction between Visigoths and Byzantines. For instance, Claude surveyed every case of contact between the Visigoths and the eastern Roman empire, concluding that military action was more important than diplomatic activity in the minds of contemporaries.80 While this may be true on the level of contemporary perceptions, especially from the ultimately victorious Visigothic perspective, non-military contacts make up the largest proportion of contemporary or near-contemporary references to interaction between Spania and the Visigothic kingdom. From the Byzantine point of view, warfare was often a last resort; although the Byzantines of the later sixth and seventh centuries were willing to use force, they preferred to deal with problems through the use of proxies, diplomacy, or interference in the internal politics of their enemies.81 An anonymous sixth-century Byzantine treatise on strategy states: negotiating for peace may be chosen before other means, since it might very well offer the best prospect for protecting our own interests.82 The authorities in Spania sought to protect their interests by a familiar combination of negotiation and interference. As noted above, Athanagilds rebellion and subsequent request for help from the Byzantines precipitated Justinians invasion. In a number of other cases, the Byzantines may have been involved in, or sought to take advantage of, dissent within the Visigothic kingdom. In 571 and 576 Leovigild suppressed revolts in Crdoba and the Orospeda region respectively.83 Although there is no direct evidence for Byzantine involvement, both of these regions bordered Spania and some kind of direct or indirect interference is possible. A more substantial case for involvement can be made for the rebellion in the early 580s of Leovigilds son, Hermenegild. John of Biclarum is the only Iberian historian to suggest Byzantine involvement, stating that Hermenegild migrated to the empire after his
80
81 82
83
D. Claude, Die diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen dem Westgotenreich und Ostrom (475615), Mitteilungen des Instituts fr sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 104 (1996), pp. 1325. For diplomatic activity in the earlier period see M. Vallejo Girvs, Relaciones del Reino Visigodo de Tolosa con el Imperio. El Papel de las Embajadas, Arqueologa, Paleontologa y Etnografa Monogrco IV. Los Visigodos y su Mundo (Madrid, 1997), pp. 729. For Italian examples, C. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy. Central Power and Local Society 4001000 (London, 1981), pp. 312. The Anonymous Byzantine Treatise on Strategy, c. 6, ed. G. Dennis, Three Byzantine Military Treatises, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 25, Dumbarton Oaks Texts 9 (Washington, 1985), pp. 223; J. Haldon, Blood and Ink: Some Observations on Byzantine Attitudes towards Warfare and Diplomacy, in J. Shepard and S. Franklin (eds), Byzantine Diplomacy (Aldershot, 1992), pp. 284, 294. John of Biclarum, Chronicon 20 (s.a. 571), 46 (579), ed. Hartmann, pp. 63, 69.
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defeat.84 Another contemporary, Gregory of Tours, was sure that the rebellion had been encouraged by the Byzantines. In his account, Hermenegild was united with the generals of Emperor Tiberius (cum ducibus imperatoris Tiberii fuerit coniunctus); while Leovigild gave thirty thousand solidi to the Emperors commander (praefectus imperatoris) in order to secure the recall of the Byzantine army (exercitus).85 Additionally, the sacking of a monastery in the region of Sagunto by Leovigilds troops during the rebellion has been interpreted as a show of strength intended to discourage Byzantine intervention.86 Furthermore, Gregory the Great states that Leander of Seville visited Constantinople in the early 580s to persuade the emperor to support Hermenegild. He is likely to have passed through Cartagena on his return.87 After the rebellion had been defeated, Hermenegilds wife and son ed to the protection of Byzantine troops.88 Signicant events elsewhere, such as Lombard pressure on imperial possessions in Italy and diplomatic entanglements with the Franks, are likely to have changed the imperial attitude towards involvement in Spain and led Emperor Maurice to extricate himself from any commitment to Hermenegild.89 It may be difcult to discern fully the extent to which the Byzantines were directly involved in the rebellion, but they were certainly open to offers from the usurper and, as it turned out, from his father Leovigild. Reccareds decision to convert from Arianism to Catholicism in 587 was closely followed by a series of conspiracies and rebellions (in Mrida, Toledo, Narbonne, and one by Argimund, dux of an unknown province),
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85
86
87
88 89
John of Biclarum, Chronicon 68 (s.a. 583), ed. Hartmann, p. 74: ad rem publicam conmigrante. K. Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain (Liverpool, 1990), pp. 710, 22. For more on Hermenegilds rebellion, J.N. Hillgarth, Coins and Chronicles: Propaganda in Sixth-Century Spain, and the Byzantine Background, Historia 15 (1966), pp. 483508; W. Goffart, Byzantine Policy in the West under Tiberius II and Maurice. The Pretenders Hermenegild and Gundovald (579585), Traditio 13 (1957), pp. 73118. Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum X V.38; VI.18; VI.434, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, pp. 2435; 2878; 31416. Gregory has Hermenegild vocatis Grecis (V.38); plotting by imperial envoys (VI.18); Hermenegild de imperatoris solatio fretus (VI.43). Gregory of Tours, Libri in gloria confessorum 12, ed. W. Arndt and B. Krusch, Gregorii Turonensis Opera MGH SRM 1, 2 (Hanover, 1885), p. 755; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, pp. 2067. Gregory I, Moralia in Job, Epistola, I, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 75 (Paris, 1862), cols 50912; Licinianus of Cartagena referred to Leanders visit to Cartagena, Epistula 1, ed. J. Madoz, Liciniano de Cartagena y sus cartas. Edicin crtica y estudio histrico (Madrid, 1948), pp. 926; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 202 dated the trip 5802. For Gregory the Greats positive depiction of Hermenegild, see A.T. Fear, trans., Lives of the Visigothic Fathers (Liverpool, 1997), p. 92, n. 193. J. Orlandis, Gregorio Magno y la Espaa visigoda-bizantina, Hispania y Zaragoza en la Antigedad Tardia. Estudios Varios (Zaragoza, 1984), p. 97. Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum X VI.44, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, p. 31416; Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum III.21, ed. G. Waitz, pp. 1034. Goffart, Byzantine Policy in the West under Tiberius II and Maurice, pp. 73118.
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at least three of which involved an Arian element.90 The conversion was announced ofcially, after this opposition had been overcome, at the Third Council of Toledo in 589.91 The dispatch of the Governor Comentiolus to Spania and the resulting upsurge in activity there may, therefore, have been part of an attempt to take advantage of disquiet over the conversion. Fortunately for Reccared, he was able to crush the revolts before the Byzantines could destabilize the situation further. The Byzantine administration had a reasonably good idea about what was going on inside Visigothic Spain and as a result was able to take these essentially opportunistic measures when dealing with the Visigoths. At times the Byzantines were able to intervene directly to inuence the situation there and were thus regarded as a real threat by the Visigothic hierarchy. However, in none of these instances is there any necessary implication that Byzantine and Visigothic troops met in battle, but it is clear that the imperial authorities were aware of what was happening in Spain and sought to benet from events there whenever possible. So, in the case of Hermenegild, the emperors Tiberius and Maurice engaged in diplomatic activity, presumably holding out the carrot of military assistance in the hope of gaining advantage later on. Once it was clear that there was limited scope for territorial gain and that it would be better not to antagonize Leovigild, the decision was taken to abandon Hermemegild in return for payment.92 The administration of Byzantine Spania Numismatic evidence supports the proposition that the Byzantine province of Spania was organized in a manner consistent with the rest of the empire. Grierson suggested that Spania minted its own coins like the other western provinces, on the basis of stylistic similarities between coins minted during a period corresponding to the Byzantine occupation, their common differences from coins minted elsewhere in the empire, and various parallels between this group and other Spanish coins of the same period (i.e. similar gold content, stylistic commonalities). The putative existence of a Byzantine mint in Spania has been obscured by the short time for which the province existed and the success of the Visigoths in reminting Byzantine coinage when it entered their realm. Few specimens
90
91 92
John of Biclarum, Chronicon, c. 84 (s.a. 586); c. 87 (s.a. 587); c. 89 (s.a. 588); c. 94 (s.a. 589), ed. Hartmann, pp. 789, 83; Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeritensium V.1012, ed. A. Maya Snchez, Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeritensium, CCSL 116 (Turnhout, 1992), pp. 8194. R. Collins, Dnde estaban los arrianos en el ao 589?, Actas del XIV Centenario del III Concilio de Toledo (5891989) (Toledo, 1991), p. 211. Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, pp. 187 and 2045.
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therefore survive.93 Nevertheless, Spania would have required bureacuratic structures to organize and oversee the minting of coinage. The existence of a more intense bureaucracy than has previously been envisaged has clear implications for understanding the importance of the province to the empire and the likelihood that concerted efforts were made to maintain it. Justinian entrusted the rst expedition to Spain to Liberius, a patrician of great status and experience, who had dealt with the Visigoths earlier in his career.94 A body of evidence also survives and will be discussed later concerning the administration of the province in the early seventh century. Isidore of Seville says that King Swinthila (62131) defeated two Byzantine patricians, presumably governors.95 Letters also survive recording interactions between another patrician, Caesarius, and King Sisebut in the 610s. One of these letters refers to the presence of iudices (judges) in Spania.96 All of the above suggests that there was a more thoroughgoing administration of the province than the coastal enclave theory allows, an administration that was responsible for dispensing judgement, arranging for the military and scal organization of the province, and interacting with foreign powers. Furthermore, that this bureaucracy was headed by gures of the highest patrician status is similarly incommensurate with Spania being little more than a listening post. When Justinian had established such a listening post across the Straits of Gibraltar at Septem, shortly after conquering Africa, it had been commanded only by a tribune.97 The best example of the activities of the patrician governors of Spania comes from the 590s, the period of Comentiolus. Improvements on the Persian front in the late 580s freed Emperor Maurice (582602) to devote more energy to affairs in the Balkans and the west. As a result, various
93 94
95
96 97
P. Grierson, Una ceca bizantina en Espaa, Numario Hispanico 4 (1955), pp. 30514. Jordanes, Getica 303, ed. T. Mommsen, Jordanis Romana et Getica, MGH AA 5.1 (Berlin, 1882; repr. 1961), p. 136; J.J. ODonnell, Liberius the Patrician, Traditio 3172, does not think that Liberius made the voyage to Spain; cf. Presedo Velo, La Espaa Bizantina, pp. 3843, who is more positive on this point. Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 62 (second redaction), ed. Rodrguez Alonso, pp. 2746: He increased the power of his title in that conict by prevailing over two patricians, one of whom he defeated with his wisdom, the other by his strength. (Auxit eo proelio uirtutis eius titulum duorum patriciorum obtentus, quorum alterum prudentia suum fecit, alterum uirtute sibi fecit.) Epistolae Wisigothicae, no. 5, ed. Gundlach, pp. 6667. For the relationship between Spania and the Byzantine provinces in Africa, see Fuentes Hinojo, Sociedad, ejrcito y administracin scal, pp. 3047; M. Vallejo Girvs, Byzantine Spain and the African Exarchate: An administrative Perspective, Jahrbuch der sterreichischen Byzantinistik 49 (1999), pp. 1323; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 358; Martin, La gographie, pp. 2867; Claude, Diplomatischen Beziehungen, pp. 245.
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administrative reforms were implemented and experienced commanders were dispatched westwards.98 As part of this policy, the patrician Comentiolus, who had held several important military positions under Maurice, was sent to Spain by 589.99 The inscription (dated September 589August 590) that was raised by Comentiolus in Cartagena was probably related to the Byzantine response to the Visigothic conversion to Catholicism. As the Visigoths could no longer be depicted as heretical Arians, the Byzantines reverted to the old opposition of Roman versus barbarian. The Visigoths are thus described as a barbarian enemy (hostis barbarus) and the text emphasized the permanence of the Byzantine presence in Spain: Thus Spain always rejoices in such a governor as long as the [north and south] poles are being rotated and as long as the sun circles the earth.100 Prior to the conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism, the Byzantines are likely to have encouraged interaction between the Catholics of Spania with those in the Visigothic kingdom in the hope of destabilizing the Arian Visigothic monarchy. There is strong evidence for contact between Catholic ecclesiastics in the Byzantine province and clerics in the Visigothic kingdom. Severus of Mlaga wrote a libellus against Vincentius of Zaragoza, who had moved from Catholicism to semi-Arianism as a result of the pressure Leovigild placed on Catholics to convert.101 Licinianus of Cartagena also maintained contacts with high-level ecclesiastics in the Visigothic realm, such as Eutropius of Valencia and Leander of
98
99
100
101
Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, pp. 2207; Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, pp. 701: Maurice established the exarchates of Ravenna (584) and Carthage (591), in response to Lombard and Berber threats, augmenting the exarchs military and civil jurisdictions. J.N. Hillgarth, El Concilio III de Toledo y Bizancio, Actas del XIV Centenario del III Concilio de Toledo (5891989) (Toledo, 1991), p. 302. J.R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 3A (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 3215; Prego, La inscripcin de Comitiolus, pp. 38391 argued that this was a different person, since the inscriptions reads Comitiolus. Nevertheless, the gap in the career of the easterner, the aggressive reafrmation of Byzantine power represented by the inscription and the context of the recent conversion of the Visigoths makes it likely that this was the same person the emperor needed a trusted gure to maintain the Spanish province. M. Vallejo Girvs, Commentiolus, Magister militum Spaniae missus a Mauricio Augusto contra hostes barbaros. The Byzantine Perspective on the Visigothic Conversion to Catholicism, Romano-Barbarica 14 (19967), pp. 289306. For transcription, Prego, La inscripcin de Comitiolus, p. 383: . . . SPANIAE SIC SEMPER SPANIA TALI RECTORE LAETETVR DVM POLI ROTANTVR DVMQ. SOL CIRCVIT ORBEM ANN. VIII AUG. IND VIII. For a similar interpretation of earlier city walls see, C. Fernndez Ochoa and A. Morillo, Walls in the Urban Landscape of Late Roman Spain: Defence and Imperial Strategy, in K. Bowes and M. Kulikowski (eds), Hispania in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2005), pp. 299341; W. Mierse, Augustan City Walls in the West, Journal of Roman Archaeology 3 (1990), pp. 25860. Isidore, De viris illustribus, c. XXX, ed. C. Codoer Merino, p. 151; Thompson, The Goths in Spain, pp. 837.
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Seville.102 Epigraphic and archaeological evidence points to the presence of a large number of eastern merchants and eastern-produced goods in the Iberian Peninsula in this period. Also, easterners controlled the bishopric of Mrida for a period during the later sixth century.103 Once the Visigoths were no longer Arian heretics, such contacts between the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchies of Spania and the Visigothic kingdom were a potential threat to Byzantine control. Interaction may have increased the anxiety of the imperial government about the loyalty of the local Catholic population. Three letters of Pope Gregory I, dated August 603, reinforce the impression that Byzantine attitudes towards the population of Spania hardened after the Visigothic conversion. The letters order the defensor John to Spain in response to Comentiolus deposition and the exile of two bishops, Januarius of Mlaga and Stephen, whose see was not specied.104 The weight of legal material that Gregory sent with John suggests that he wanted to establish incontrovertibly that Comentiolus had acted illegally.105 Several scholars have suggested that the poisoning of Bishop Licinianus of Cartagena at Constantinople may have been the result of his failure to toe the imperial line after the Catholic conversion of the Visigoths, although the source for this, Isidore of Seville, is generally very hostile to the empire and so must be read carefully.106 The canons of the Second Council of Seville, held in 619 under Isidore of Seville, provide a complementary perspective. This Council sought to resolve difculties emerging from the Visigothic conquest of parts of southern Baetica from the Byzantines. 107 The presence of two important royal ofcials, Sisisclus, rector rerum publicarum, and Suanilanus, rector rerum scalium, at the meeting demonstrates the close involvement of the
102
103 104
105
106
107
Isidore, De viris illustribus, c. XXIX, ed. C. Codoer Merino, pp. 1501; Licinianus, Epistula 1, ed. J. Madoz, Liciniano de Cartagena y sus cartas. Edicin crtica y estudio histrico (Madrid, 1948), pp. 84, 923. Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeritensium IV, ed. Maya Snchez, pp. 2546. Gregory I, Registrum Epistolarum XIII.4750, ed. Hartmann, II, pp. 41018. See also M. Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio ante la conversin de los visigodos: los obispos Jenaro y Esteban, Actas del XIV Centenario del III Concilio de Toledo (5891989) (Toledo, 1991), pp. 47783. Orlandis, Gregorio Magno y la Espaa visigoda-bizantina, pp. 90 and 1003; R. Gonzlez Fernndez, Las cartas de Gregorio Magno al defensor Juan. La aplicacin del derecho de Justiniano en la Hispania bizantina en el siglo VII, Antigedad y Cristianismo 14 (1997), p. 292. John the Deacon, Vita Gregorii II.11, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 75 (Paris, 1862), col. 92, also mentions Johns mission, although he gives no more details. Isidore, De viris illustribus, c. XXIX, ed. C. Codoer Merino, El De viris illustribus de Isidoro de Sevilla, Theses et Studia Philologica Salamanticensia 12 (Salamanca, 1964), p. 151, Licinianus died by poisoning at Constantinople, so they say, having been destroyed by his rivals (occubit Constantinopoli, ueneno, ut ferunt, extinctus ab aemulis); Thompson, The Goths in Spain, pp. 15960; Vallejo Girvs, Bizancio y la Espaa tardo antigua, p. 427; F.-M. Beltrn Torreira (1991), El conicto por la primaca eclesistica de la Cartaginense y el III Concilio de Toledo, Actas del XIV Centenario del III Concilio de Toledo (5891989) (Toledo, 1991), pp. 499500. MacCoull, Isidore and the Akephaloi, pp. 16978.
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Visigothic monarchy in proceedings.108 The twelfth canon condemned a Syrian bishop, Gregory, who belonged to the heresy of the acephali, and much of the text was devoted to refuting his errors.109 Although this formed part of Visigothic attempts to demonstrate their Catholic orthodoxy and denigrate that of the Byzantines, Gregorys presence in Spain also hints at deliberate attempts by the Byzantines to develop their own form of ecclesiastical organization in Spania, the orthodoxy of which did not tally with the ideas of Isidore and his fellow bishops. Such a reading of the evidence also helps to explain Isidores negative attitude towards Byzantium in his historical writings: he opposed the Byzantines because they presented a serious threat to the spiritual as well as the political integrity of Spain.110 The rst canon of the council resolved jurisdictional conicts concerning the area around Mlaga and criticized the Byzantines for carrying the possessions of churches into poverty with barbaric savagery (barbarica feritas).111 The issue of the material conditions of the population in Spania seems to have been an important one because Isidore has the following to say in the rst redaction of his Historia Gothorum, written when the Byzantines were still threatening in the southern Spain: And from then up to this point in time the Romans, who remain in the kingdom of the Goths, embrace them to such a degree that it is better for them to live poor with the Goths than to be powerful among the Romans and bear the heavy yoke of tribute.112 By attacking Byzantine orthodoxy, Visigothic propagandists also, therefore, sought to demonstrate that the Byzantine treatment of the local population, including the church, had negative economic and religious consequences. ByzantineVisigothic interaction Despite the negativity pervading VisigothicByzantine rhetoric in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, archaeological, epigraphic and textual research has demonstrated that commercial contacts between
108 109 110 111 112
II Seville I, ed. Vives, p. 163. II Seville XIIXIII, ed. Vives, pp. 17185; MacCoull, Isidore and the Akephaloi, pp. 16978. Wood, Heretical Catholics and Catholic Heretics, pp. 3945. II Seville I, ed. Vives, p. 163: Sicut enim per legem mundialem his quos barbarica feritas captiva necessitate transvexit, postliminio revertentibus redditur antiqua possession . . . Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 15 (rst redactions), ed. C. Rodrguez Alonso, Las historias de los godos, vndalos y suevos de Isidoro de Sevilla (Lon, 1975), p. 196: Unde et hucusque Romani, qui in regno Gothorum consistent, adeo eos amplectuntur, ut melius sit illis cum Gothis pauperes vivere quam inter Romanos potentes esse et grave iugum tributi portare.
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Spania, Visigothic Spain, and the eastern empire continued throughout the period of the Byzantine presence in Spain.113 Attempts to create a material and an ideological frontier largely failed. Even evidence for formal interactions between the Byzantine and Visigothic governments reveals the dual nature of their relationship: there was conict, to be sure, but there were also formalized avenues for meeting, discussing, and resolving disputes. A brief examination of surviving evidence for such interactions reveals the complex nature of the political realities facing both sides. A letter from King Reccared to Pope Gregory I from 599 requested copies of past treaties between Justinian and the Visigothic kingdom which had been lost. These treaties were probably the arrangements that were concluded between Athanagild and Justinian in the mid-550s and which established the terms for Byzantine intervention and recognized Byzantine control of parts of south-eastern Spain in its aftermath.114 Hermenegilds rebellion in the early 580s had been accompanied by a number of interactions that must have involved some contact between the Visigothic and Byzantine administration. As noted previously, Leovigild had bribed the emperors commander in 583 in order to prevent him from intervening, while Leander of Seville acted as Hermenegilds legate in Constantinople in the early 580s, returning via Cartagena. Reccareds letter to Gregory requesting a copy of the lost treaty resulted from his negotiations with the administration of Spania in the 590s, after Comentiolus had returned to the east. This was also the context for Gregorys dispatch of the defensor John. Presumably the departure of Governor Comentiolus led to an attempt to normalize relations through diplomacy. Claude thought that these negotiations happened because the Visigoths had reconquered a portion of territory and were attempting to have their de facto control recognized through a revised treaty.115 The situation in Spania changed dramatically in the early seventh century. In the east Byzantium came under increasing pressure from Persia; the reign of Phocas (60210) witnessed renewed Lombard hostility in Italy, and the successful rebellion of Heraclius, the exarch of Carthage,
113
114
115
L. Garca Moreno, Colonias de comerciantes orientales en la Pennsula Ibrica. S. VVII, Habis 3 (1972), pp. 12754; S. Gutierrez Lloret, Eastern Spain in the Sixth Century in the Light of Archaeology, in R. Hodges and W. Bowden (eds), The Sixth Century: Production, Distribution and Demand (Leiden, 1998), pp. 16184; A. DOrs, Los tranmarini negotiatores en la legislacion visigotica, Estudios de Derecho Internacional. Homenaje al profesor Camilo Barcia Trelles (Santiago de Compostela, 1958), pp. 46783. Gregory I, Registrum Epistolarum IX, no. 229, ed. L.M. Hartmann, MGH Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolarum (Berlin, 1893), II, pp. 2256. M. Vallejo Girvs, The Treaties between Justinian and Athanagild and the Legality of the Byzantine Possessions on the Iberian Peninsula, Byzantion 66 (1996), pp. 20818. Gregory I, Registrum Epistolarum IX, no. 229, ed. Hartmann, II, pp. 2256; Claude, Diplomatischen Beziehungen, pp. 1819.
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with his son Heraclius, the future emperor.116 Despite this, it is remarkable that owing perhaps to a combination of the success of the Byzantine defences, the poverty of our sources, or the failure of the Visigoths to exploit this opportunity, the only recorded Visigothic territorial gain from the reigns of Witteric and Gundemar (60312) was Sagontia (modern Gigonza).117 Nonetheless, in the 610s and 620s the number of references to military aggression and diplomatic contacts increases. Letters exchanged between King Sisebut (61221) and the patrician Caesarius reveal the complexities of these interactions.118 It appears that the Byzantines lost territory, cities and prisoners, while on at least one occasion they captured a bishop from Visigothic territory, Cicilius of Mentesa.119 One letter expressed Sisebuts thanks to his internuntius, Ansemundus, for his services in dealing with Caesarius. Sisebut thanked Ansemundus for participating in the negiotiation of a treaty (suscipe federa). Other letters referred to further diplomatic activity: for example, to Theoderic, Sisebuts envoy (legatus), and a priest named Amelius negotiating on the kings behalf with Emperor Heraclius in Constantinople. If Amelius was part of the Visigothic embassy to Constantinople, it reinforces the impression of the church acting in concert with the Visigothic monarchy and might help to explain why the Byzantines were so concerned about the loyalty of the local clergy after the conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism.120 These letters demonstrate that the administration of Spania was in contact with the Visigothic monarchy, and that it acted as an intermediary in negotiations between the monarchy and the central imperial government. It was thus closely integrated into the imperial system but also had the freedom to act autonomously if necessary. Conclusion We have argued that the existing evidence does not support the theory that Spania was defended by a limes-style frontier. Nor was the province limited to a few coastal enclaves because, in at least three cases, the written evidence suggests that the Byzantines were in control of signicant portions of territory. Even if this control was limited to the territorium of a city under Byzantine control the evidence does suggest that Byzantine inuence extended some distance inland, and is supported by
116 117 118 119 120
Garca Moreno, Historia de Espaa visigoda, pp. 14454. Isidore, Historia Gothorum, c. 58 (both redactions), ed. Rodrguez Alonso, p. 268. Epistolae Wisigothicae, nos. 36, ed. W. Gundlach, MGH Epistolae 1 (Berlin, 1892), pp. 6638. Epistolae Wisigothicae, no. 3, ed. Gundlach, pp. 6634. Claude, Diplomatischen Beziehungen, pp. 224, who argues that Amelius was a Byzantine.
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the archaeological evidence for economic contacts between the Visigothic kingdom and Spania. There is signicant evidence for a more thoroughgoing administration of the province than has been admitted previously and for an administration that was headed by governors of patrician status. The Byzantine governmental presence was mirrored by that of eastern churchmen in Spania, as evidenced by the bishops efforts at the Second Council of Seville to reconcile the Syrian bishop Gregory to Catholic orthodoxy and to reorganize the reconquered territory.121 Although it is clear that some Byzantine troops were in Spania, that some building work occurred, and that a functioning government existed, there was no discernable formal frontier system in place. Byzantium was repeatedly opportunistic in its relations with the Visigoths: Spania was established because of a civil war and the Byzantines sought to benet from further internal dissension during the reign of Leovigild. Contact between the Byzantine and Visigothic administrations was not continually hostile; provincial governors negotiated with the Visigoths in the reigns of Athanagild, Reccared and Sisebut, and with both sides during Hermenegilds rebellion. The creation of new bishoprics by the Visigoths following their conversion, the possibility that Byzantium engaged in similar activity, Byzantine attempts to redene the identity of the Visigoths as barbarian enemies once they had ceased to be Arian heretics, and Visigothic retorts at the Second Council of Seville, all suggest that the two sides sought to create an ideological as much as a material frontier. This ideological frontier, however, was almost wholly the creation of the ecclesiastical and governmental elites of the Visigothic and Byzantine areas. The story was one of conict, to be sure, but a conict that was frequently mediated and sometimes resolved via a complex network of political and religious actors: Byzantine emperors; Visigothic kings and usurpers; governors and other royal or imperial agents; councils; individual bishops; the Pope and his agents. Finally, it is important to note that, whatever forms these elite interactions and sanctions took, they had only a minor inuence upon peoples everyday lives material evidence suggests strongly that the Visigothic and Byzantine territories interacted extensively and continually.122 University of Manchester
121 122
II Seville XII, ed. Vives, p. 171. See Presedo Velo, La Espaa Bizantina, pp. 95163 for detailed summary of evidence for various cultural inuences on Visigothic Spain, including commercial, religious, legal, artistic, epigraphic, numismatic, and ceramic inuences.

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Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

MRIDA Villanueva de la Fuente

El Tolmo de Minateda Cehegn

Elda Aspe Elche Orihuela

Mula Lorca Vistalegre CARTAGENA

Baza Guadix Granada

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Villanueva del Rosario Mlaga Crtama

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

Early Medieval Europe 2010 18 (3) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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