their steps followed the Visigoths; whose king, taking in marriage
Placidia, the sister of Honorius, was acknowledged by the helpless
emperor independent ruler of such parts of Southern Gaul and Spain as he
could conquer and keep for himself. The effeminate and luxurious
provincials offered practically no resistance to the fierce Teutons. No
Arthur arose among them, as among the warlike Britons of our own island;
no Viriathus even, as in the struggle for independence against the Roman
Commonwealth. Mariana, the Spanish historian, asserts that they
preferred the rule of the barbarians. However this may be, the various
tribes that invaded the country found no serious opposition among the
Spaniards: the only fighting was between themselves--for the spoil. Many
years of warfare were necessary to decide this important question of
supremacy. Fortunately for Spain, the Vandals, who seem to have been the
fiercest horde and under the ablest leader, rapidly forced their way
southward, and, passing on to fresh conquests, crossed the Straits of
Gibraltar in 429: not, however, before they had utterly overthrown their
rivals, the Suevi, on the river Baetis, and had left an abiding record
of their brief stay in the name Andalusia.

[1] "Inter barbaros pauperem libertatem quam inter Romanos tributariam
sollicitudinem sustinere."--Mariana, apud Dunham, vol i.

For a time it seemed likely that the Suevi, in spite of their late
crushing defeat, would subject to themselves the whole of Spain, but
under Theodoric II. and Euric, the Visigoths definitely asserted their
superiority. Under the latter king the Gothic domination in Spain may be
said to have begun about ten years before the fall of the Western
Empire. But the Goths were as yet by no means in possession of the whole
of Spain. A large part of the south was held by imperialist troops; for,
though the Western Empire had been extinguished in 476, the Eastern