ratified between the two parties.[1] They now wished to dispense with the services of the Byzantines, whose proceedings struck them with alarm, as, instead of preparing to evacuate the country, they seemed to have settled themselves permanently in those fortresses to which they had gained admittance through their alliance with the Catholics. A summons to depart having been disregarded, a petty war ensued; and, although the King gained some battles, he was ultimately obliged to acquiesce in the Byzantine occupation of several notable cities[2] in the south-east, among which were Cordova, Carthagena, and Malaga.[3] Such are the facts, so far as they are known, relating to this campaign, which is sometimes dignified by the title of "Justinian's conquest of Spain."[4]
- ↑ Isidore Sev., loc. cit.
- ↑ Ibid.; Gregory of Tours, iv, 8.
- ↑ See H. Gelzer ad George (properly Gregory) of Cyprus (Teubner), p. xxxii, et seq. Surmise rather than fact.
- ↑ It will be seen from the references given that none of the Byzantine historians, not Procopius, nor Jn. Lydus, nor Agathias, seems to have harboured a suspicion that Justinian ever "conquered" Spain. The last, however, names Spain incidentally among the places where troops were stationed (v, 13). Such as it was, the conquest lasted no more than eighteen years for, at the end of that period, Leovigild (c. 572, Johannes Biclar) expelled the Byzantines from Cordova, their only important stronghold. For another century or so they probably languished on the coast till the coming of the Mohammedans (c. 709) who in the course of a decade made an actual conquest of Spain to the Frankish border, which endured for nearly eight centuries. Through Egypt, after wresting Syria from the Byzantines, they wound their path of victory westwards along the African seaboard until the inviting proximity of Ceuta to the northern mainland determined their entry into Europe. Simultaneously the Arabs achieved the extinction of Christianity in all these regions, where, after the lapse of more than a thousand years, a renewal of Western civilization now seems to be steadily progressive. Generally on the subject of this section see F. Dahn, Die Könige der Germanen, v, p. 123 et seq. (Würz., 1870); Dict. Christ. Biog. (Smith), sb. Leovigild; and Gibbon (Bury), v, p. 471 et seq.; also the Spanish and French historians.
