THE IMPOSITION OF UNITY 37royal administration. No system existed to replace the permanent
military establishment of the late Roman Empire. Obviously in
periods of migration the Germanic kings had effectively all of the
able manpower of their following at their disposal, but after a settle-
ment on the land, however conducted, the difficulty of raising armies
became extreme. The Visigothic kings, like their other early medieval
counterparts, relied upon their comitatus, a body of young nobles of
fighting age, and their followers, in permanent attendance upon the
monarch. They would require maintenance for their services, and in
due course grants of land, but they would serve as the permanent
nucleus of the royal army, to be supplemented in times of need by
the resources of local landowners. Theudis's use of his wife's slaves,
and Didymus and Verinian's arming of theirs in 409 make it clear
that the servile populations of the great estates were a principal source
of military manpower in the peninsula. As well as his private resources,
Theudis would have had those of the royal estates, principally lands
once belonging to the imperial treasury, to augment his comitatus and
armed slaves. As a result he proved militarily more successful than his
immediate predecessors. For the first time the Franks were defeated.
One of their expeditions was forced in 541 to buy a safe retreat out
of the peninsula from the king's general Theudisclus. However, a
Visigothic army was defeated by the forces of the Byzantine Emperor
Justinian (527-565), at Ceuta, probably in c.544.^12
This defeat, referred to by Isidore, raises an interesting problem.
What were Visigothic forces doing in North Mrica? From the brief
account that Isidore gives, it seems that the Visigoths were in posses-
sion of Ceuta at the time of the Byzantine attack. They were expelled
from the town, and finally came to grief in making an unsuccessful
counter-attack. The Vandal kingdom in North Mrica, with which the
Visigoths had enjoyed reasonably close relations earlier in the sixth
century, was destroyed by Justinian's army in 533. It is possible that
Theudis, who refused a Vandal appeal for aid, took advantage of this
to annexe the Mrican shore of the Straits of Hercules to the Visigothic
kingdom, and occupy Ceuta. Mter their expulsion in 544, the Visigoths
were not to return to Mrica until the very end of the seventh century.
Theudis's reputation is mixed. Isidore, who displayed a fervent
Romano-Gothic patriotism, criticised him bitterly for the failure in
Mrica, and implied that it was for this he deserved his eventual vio-
lent end. However, he also praised Theudis for the toleration that he
extended to the Catholic Church, although he himself was an Arian.