Liuvigild - Accession To The Throne

Accession To The Throne

In the second year of his reign, king Liuva I declared his brother Liuvigild co-king and heir, assigning him Hispania Citerior, or the eastern part of Hispania, to directly rule over. Both were Arian Christians.

Liuvigild was married twice: first to Theodosia, who bore him two sons Hermenegild and Reccared, and after her death to Athanagild's widow Goiswintha.

According to the chronicle of John of Biclaro, as co-king Liuvigild initiated the first of several campaigns to expand the territory of the kingdom of the Visigoths, which Peter Heather describes as a "list of striking successes". His first strike was in 570, when he "laid waste the region of Bastetania and the city of Malaga, defeating their soldiers". The following year he captured Medina Sidonia, assisted "through the treachery of a certain Framidaneus." Then, around the time he became sole ruler with the death of his brother Liuva (which occurred in either 571 or 572), seized Córdoba from the Byzantine Empire. During the civil war which ended with Athanagild rise to power some twenty years earlier, the Byzantines gained control of a stretch of territory in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. John of Biclaro notes that upon gaining control of Córdoba, Liuvigild "slaughtered the enemy troops and made the city his own."

His campaigns continued on an annual basis over the next five years. Liuvigild invaded Sabaria in 573, ravaging a people known as the Sappi and bringing that province under his control. Then the next year he entered Cantabria, seized Amaya, and added that province to his kingdom. In 575 he marched into Galicia, defeating a local warlord named Aspidius and taking him, his treasure and his family into captivity. In 576, he marched on the kingdom of the Suevi in northwestern Hispania, but king Miro managed to negotiate a peace with Liuvigild. In his final campaign (577) Liuvigild marched into Orespeda, a region in southeastern Spain, and after suppressing an immediate revolt "of the common people" added this province to his kingdom. Upon the conclusion of these campaigns, Liuvigild celebrated his victories by founding a city in Celtiberia, which he named Recopolis for his son Reccared.

Though constantly at war with the Byzantines in southern Hispania, Liuvigild accepted the administration of the Byzantine Empire, adopted its pomp and ceremony, the title Flavius, the throne, crown, scepter, and purple mantle, and struck gold coins in his own name.