THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW ORDER 23invasion in 456 was to be the Visigothic domination of the peninsula.
The Suevic king Rechiarius (448-56), who was clearly ambitious to
regain Carthaginiensis, and finally wrest Tarraconensis from the
Romans, was Theoderic II's brother-in-law, having married his sister
in 449. However, such a family tie and old alliance, made when the
Visigoths under Theoderic I (419-451) and the Romans were less
friendly, would not save him. Rechiarius and his army were defeated
on the river Orbigo, twelve miles from Astorga. In the aftermath, the
Visigoths marched on Braga, the SHeves' earliest capital, and sacked
it. By the end of the year the fugitive Rechiarius was discovered in
hiding, and executed on his brother-in-Iaw's orders. In the events of
456 the strength and the unity of the Suevic kingdom were broken.^23
The royal dynasty that seems to have ruled the Sueves, at least since
their entry into the Empire in 406, disappeared and was succeeded
by a number of rival petty kings or war-leaders. Maldras (456-60),
Agiulf (457), probably a renegade Goth, Framtane (457), Rechimund
(c. 460/1), Frumarius (460-465) and Remismund (465-c. 469), are
all recorded in Hydatius.^24 But with the termination of that chronicle
in 469, we lose sight of these ephemeral Sueivic rulers altogether, and
it is not until the middle of the sixth century that we know of the
name of another Suevic king, by which time, although unity of rule
had been recovered, the territory over which it was exercised had
shrunk to the remote north-west of the peninsula. In the aftermath
of the events of 456 the Sueves lost all of their recently acquired
territories in the south. Although the chronology is uncertain, they
were clearly driven back by the Visigoths into the area of their origi-
nal settlement in Galicia. The process was doubtless a violent and
destructive one for all concerned. The last entries of Hydatius, for the
years from 456 to 469, are, as in the early 430s, full of references to
sackings and massacres. With the end of stable rule, the rival Suevic
leaders were forced to support themselves and their followers where
and with what they could seize, with results principally disastrous for
the Galician provincials. Although the Sueves managed to retain their
political independence until 585, Visigothic influence on them be-
came very strong. Their last effective king in the fifth century,
Rechiarius, had died a Catholic, but when his successors emerged
into view in the sixth century it was as Arians, fellow-believers with the
Visigoths.
Theoderic II did not pursue his victory in 456 to the fullest advan-
tage. Mter passing the winter at Merida, seat of the last Suevic kings,