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«progressist monarchy» was gathered around the family of the King Wamba, who died in 680.
Egica, who was member of Wamba's family, arrange the succession to the Throne of his son
Witiza, who started to reign in the year 702. Meanwhile, in the Beatica, governs the Duke
Roderick, from Chindasvinto's clan. When Witiza died in 710, the Aula Regia of Toledo, where
those from the party from Chindasvinto won majority, proclaims new King to Roderick.
Despised the sons of Witiza, at the same time governors of provinces and functionaries, for
what they consider a dispossession, ask to the Jews for an interview with the General Musa bin
Nusayr. In the mean time, they revolt the Tarraconensis, the Narbonensis and the Navarre,
obeying Roderick to concentrate all his forces in the North to suffocate the uprising: these
campaigns cause the interruption of the supplies to Ceuta, that result rapidly crushed by the
Arabs. Finally he goes to Africa that embassy of traitors: it was integrated by the sons of Witiza,
Olmund, Ardabast and Akhila, and the brothers of the deceased King, Sisebert and the Bishop
of Seville, Oppas, who was accompanied by the Great Rabbi of Seville, Isaak. Incredibly, Earl
Julian, who entered to the service of Musa after his cession of the area, and influenced by a
personal enmity with Roderick, advises the Arab General to intervene in Spain.
Musa promised them sending help to overthrow Roderick. The traitors return and
simulate to pact the peace with the King, who not distrusted. In 711 the Berber general Tariq
transport in four ships an army composed by Arabs and Berbers, and disembarked in Gibraltar.
Roderick, who was still fighting against the Basques in the North, had to cross the
country to cut the pass of Tariq who was on way to Seville. The battle took place in the shores
of the Guadelete river: the rows of Roderic are in command of two columns and the brothers of
Witiza; when the encounter took place the traitors Sisbert and the Bishop Oppas passed to the
side of Tariq, leaving King Roderick in a compromising position; and after many days of
combats, the Visighotic army resulted completely annihilated by Tariq, remaining unknown the
fate of the last Visigothic King. The «help» given by the Arabs and Jews to the followers of
Witiza would not redound in benefit of these because the next year the General Musa, at the
head of a more powerful army, would initiate the conquest of Spain; in a few years the whole
peninsula, except for a small region in Asturias, would fall in his power. Spain was converted in
such way, in an Emirate dependent of the Khlifa of Damascus.
Although as the Christian Re-conquest advanced the Arab dominion decreased, the
Beatica remained occupied for more than five hundred years. For the House of Tharsis, the
Visighotic catastrophe didn't accuse other effect than the immediate loss of the political power:
«The Counts of Turdes Valter» returned to be «The Lords of Tharsis», who had already ample
experience surviving to similar situations, they were completely conscious that for the moment
not existed in Europe a military force capable to expel the Arabs from Spain: the Emir al-
Muhajjar, who governed between the years 718 and 720, achieved to cross the Pyrenees and to
take the city or Narbonne, attacking from there the Frank territories; only the noble Pelagius
resist them and achieved to maintain a region under the Christian dominion in the mountains
of Cantabria and the Pyrenees: from this nucleus would appear in the Kingdom of Asturias, to
which later, in the X century, would be added León and Castile, and would be formed in the IX
Catalonia and Navarre and in the XI century Aragon, by successive re-conquests of territories to
the Arabs. But in the year 732 the Emir of Cordova, the Abd al-Rahman, was moving loosely
through the Gaul and was conquering Bordeaux: only the decision of Charles Martel would
avoid the conquest and destruction of the Frank Kingdom; but was also clear, since the year

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