THE IMPOSITION OF UNITY 45Cantabria' were massacred. In 575 the 'Agregensian mountains', on
the frontiers of Galicia, where the Sueves and the Vandals had once
fought each other in 421, was the next region to be annexed and its
former autocrat and his family were imprisoned. This had brought
the Visigoths right to the borders of the Suevic realm and its king
Miro (570-583) sued for peace in 576. He thereafter remained an
ally of Leovigild until his death. A final campaign in this sequence,
in 577, gained the Visigoths control over 'Orospeda', another region
whose location is unknown, but may be in Galicia.^28
Mter this, as John of Biclar records: 'King Leovigild having every-
where destroyed the usurpers and the despoilers of Spain, returned
home seeking rest with his own people and he built a town in
Celtiberia, named Reccopolis after his son (Reccared), which he
adorned with walls and suburbs and by a decree he instituted it as a
new city.' It is believed that the site of this town of Reccopolis is to
be identified with a place called Zorita de los Canes, now in open
country some thirty miles east of Madrid.29 It is by no means clear
what its purpose was to be, or whether or not Leovigild proposed
to make it his capital instead of Toledo, which was his principal
residence, at least during the second half of his reign. At all events
Reccopolis was not to come to much, as it never became the site of
a bishopric and coins are recorded from its mint only for the reigns
of Leovigild and of Egica (687-702). However, if the identification
is correct, archaeological excavation may reveal more of the king's
intentions in this foundation, the first of its kind in the Visigothic
period.
The tranquillity and restored unity of most of the peninsula achieved
by Leovigild, after nearly a decade of campaigning, were broken
almost immediately by the revolt of his son Hermenigild. In 579
Leovigild negotiated a marriage for this his eldest son, with Ingundis,
the sister of the Austrasian Frankish king Childebert II (575-596). As
well as the diplomatic implications of this, in respect of a Visigothic-
Austrasian alliance in relation to the other two Frankish kingdoms
of Neustria and Burgundy, there are some interesting genealogical
ramifications. Leovigild had married, doubtless as his second wife,
Gosuintha, the widow of his predecessor Athanagild, immediately upon
his accession in 569. She was by her first husband the mother of the
Austrasian queen-dowager Brunechildis and grandmother of both
Childebert II and Ingundis. Thus the marriage of 579 further united
the previous and the present Visigothic royal families. Hermenigild