chap, xxxvi] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 13 Fronto was dispatched, in the name of the emperor Avitus, with advantageous offers of peace and alliance ; and Theodoric interposed his weighty mediation, to declare that, unless his brother-in-law, the king of the Suevi, immediately retired, he should be obliged to arm in the cause of justice and of Eome. "Tell him," replied the haughty Eechiarius, "that I despise his friendship and his arms ; but that I shall soon try whether he will dare to expect my arrival under the walls of Toulouse." Such a challenge urged Theodoric to prevent the bold designs of his enemy: he passed the Pyrenees at the head of the Visigoths ; the Franks and Burgundians served under his standard ; and, though he professed himself the dutiful servant of Avitus, he privately stipulated, for himself and his successors, the absolute possession of his Spanish conquests. The two armies, or rather the two nations, encountered each other on [Oct. 5] the banks of the river Urbicus, about twelve miles from Astorga ; and the decisive victory of the Goths appeared for [Astunca] a while to have extirpated the name and kingdom of the Suevi. From the field of battle Theodoric advanced to Braga, their [Bracara] metropolis, which still retained the splendid vestiges of its ancient commerce and dignity. 29 His entrance was not polluted with blood, and the Goths respected the chastity of their female captives, more especially of the consecrated virgins ; but the greatest part of the clergy and people were made slaves, and even the churches and altars were confounded in the universal pillage. The unfortunate king of the Suevi had escaped to one of the ports of the ocean ; but the obstinacy [Portucaie of the winds opposed his flight ; he was delivered to his implacable rival ; and Eechiarius, who neither desired nor expected mercy, received, with manly constancy, the death which he would probably have inflicted. After this bloody sacrifice to policy or resentment, Theodoric carried his victorious arms as far as Merida, the principal town of Lusitania, without [Emerita] meeting any resistance, except from the miraculous powers of St. Eulalia ; but he was stopped in the full career of success, 29 Quseque sinu pelagi jaotat se Braoara dives. Auson. de Claris Urbibus, p. 245. From the design of the king of the Suevi, it is evident that the navigation from the ports of Gallicia to the Mediterranean was known and practised. The ships of Bracara, or Braga, cautiously steered along the coast, without daring to lose them- selves in the Atlantic.
