Achila II (also spelled Agila, Aquila, or Akhila; died ''c.'' 714) was the
Visigoth
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...
ic king of
Hispania
Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania ...
from 710 or 711 until his death. The kingdom he ruled was restricted to the northeast of the old Hispanic kingdom on account of the
Arabo-Berber invasions.
Achila's reign is known solely from coins and regnal lists and is not mentioned by reliable narrative histories. Gold coins of Achila's have been found bearing the inscriptions of the mints of
Girona
Girona (officially and in Catalan language, Catalan , Spanish: ''Gerona'' ) is a city in northern Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter River, Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 103,369 in ...
,
Zaragoza
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...
,
Tarragona
Tarragona (, ; Phoenician: ''Tarqon''; la, Tarraco) is a port city located in northeast Spain on the Costa Daurada by the Mediterranean Sea. Founded before the fifth century BC, it is the capital of the Province of Tarragona, and part of Tar ...
, and
Narbonne
Narbonne (, also , ; oc, Narbona ; la, Narbo ; Late Latin:) is a commune in France, commune in Southern France in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region. It lies from Paris in the Aude Departments of Franc ...
. Because the narrative sources, the
numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects.
Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...
, and the regnal lists all confirm the reign of
Roderic
Roderic (also spelled Ruderic, Roderik, Roderich, or Roderick; Spanish and pt, Rodrigo, ar, translit=Ludharīq, لذريق; died 711) was the Visigothic king in Hispania between 710 and 711. He is well-known as "the last king of the Goths". He ...
during the same years as Achila, it is almost doubtless that the two were kings in opposition to each other following Roderic's coup, which may have resulted either in or from the death of the previous king,
Wittiza
Wittiza (''Witiza'', ''Witica'', ''Witicha'', ''Vitiza'', or ''Witiges''; 687 – probably 710) was the Visigothic King of Hispania from 694 until his death, co-ruling with his father, Egica, until 702 or 703.
Joint rule
Early in his reign, Ergi ...
.
There are more coins surviving from Achila's kingdom than Roderic's, but the findings do not overlap in territory and it is suspected that the kingdom had been divided between two factions, with the southwest (the provinces of
Lusitania
Lusitania (; ) was an ancient Iberian Roman province located where modern Portugal (south of the Douro river) and
a portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and the province of Salamanca) lie. It was named after the Lusitani or Lusita ...
and western
Carthaginiensis
Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania ...
around the capital
Toledo) following (or being subjected to) Roderic and the northeast (
Tarraconensis
Hispania Tarraconensis was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania. It encompassed much of the northern, eastern and central territories of modern Spain along with modern North Region, Portugal, northern Portugal. Southern Spain, the region now c ...
and
Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis (Latin for "Gaul of Narbonne", from its chief settlement) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in Southern France. It was also known as Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), because it was the ...
) falling under the rule of Achila. It is unknown to whom the provinces of
Gallaecia
Gallaecia, also known as Hispania Gallaecia, was the name of a Roman province in the north-west of Hispania, approximately present-day Galicia, northern Portugal, Asturias and Leon and the later Kingdom of Gallaecia. The Roman cities included ...
and
Baetica
Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic di ...
fell. Roderic and Achila never appear to have come into military conflict; this is probably best explained by the preoccupation of Roderic with
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
raids and not to a formal division of the kingdom.
[Collins, ''Visigothic'', 139.]
Two continuations of the ''Chronicon Regum Visigothorum'' record Achila's reign of three years following immediately upon Wittiza's. It has even been suggested by some scholars that Achila was in fact Wittiza's son and successor and that Roderic had tried to usurp the throne from him, even that he had been a co-ruler with Wittiza since 708. Any son of Wittiza would have been a child in 711. Achila's reign probably began shortly after Roderic's and lasted until 713 or 714.
During Achila's brief reign, Arab raids began to plague the south of Hispania, where Roderic ruled. Roderic tried to defeat them but was killed in the attempt. Some supporters of Achila may have deserted Roderic on his final campaign. Because of the oppressive policy of his predecessors towards the
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and the large Jewish population of Narbonensis and because of what he stood to gain should Roderic be removed, military historian Bernard Bachrach has written that "
ere is a temptation to conclude that the Muslims, King Achila, and the Jews all joined together, at least temporarily, to overthrow Roderic."
It is possible that an ecclesiastic named
Oppa
Oppas (died after 712), also spelled Oppa, was a member of the Visigothic elite in the city of Toledo on the eve of the Muslim conquest of Hispania. He was a son of Egica and therefore a brother or half-brother of Wittiza.
After the defeat of kin ...
was declared king at Toledo by rivals of both Roderic and Achila, either before Roderic's defeat and death at the
Battle of the Guadalete
The Battle of Guadalete was the first major battle of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, fought in 711 at an unidentified location in what is now southern Spain between the Christian Visigoths under their king, Roderic, and the invading forces of t ...
or between his death and the Arab capture of Toledo.
Whatever the case, almost all of Hispania save Gallaecia, the
Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in nor ...
, the country of the
Basques
The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Bas ...
, and the valley of the
Ebro
, name_etymology =
, image = Zaragoza shel.JPG
, image_size =
, image_caption = The Ebro River in Zaragoza
, map = SpainEbroBasin.png
, map_size =
, map_caption = The Ebro ...
had fallen to the Arabs within a couple years of Roderic's death. In 713 the Arabs and their
Berber
Berber or Berbers may refer to:
Ethnic group
* Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa
* Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages
Places
* Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile
People with the surname
* Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
allies began the conquest of the Ebro valley, taking Zaragoza. These events coincide with the end of Achila's three-year reign and may have accounted for his death in battle with the invaders.
[Collins, ''Visigothic'', 140.] The nature of the discovery of a smattering of coins at
El Bovalar
EL, El or el may refer to:
Religion
* El (deity), a Semitic word for "God"
People
* EL (rapper) (born 1983), stage name of Elorm Adablah, a Ghanaian rapper and sound engineer
* El DeBarge, music artist
* El Franco Lee (1949–2016), American p ...
near
Lleida
Lleida (, ; Spanish: Lérida ) is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida.
Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It is also the capital city of the Segrià comarca, as ...
shows that El Bovalar probably fell and was razed by the invaders in 714.
[Collins, ''Visigothic'', 212.]
Achila was succeeded by
Ardo
Ardo (or ''Ardonus'', possibly short for ''Ardabastus''; died 720/721) is attested as the last of all Visigothic kings of Hispania, reigning from 713 or likely 714 until his death. The Visigothic Kingdom was already severely reduced in power and a ...
, who only reigned in Narbonensis north of the Pyrenees and probably died in the Arab invasion of that region in 721.
Notes
Sources
*
Bachrach, Bernard S. "A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy, 589–711." ''
The American Historical Review
''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal and the official publication of the American Historical Association. It targets readers interested in all periods and facets of history and has often been described as the ...
'', Vol. 78, No. 1. (Feb., 1973), pp 11–34.
*
Collins, Roger
Roger J. H. Collins (born September 2, 1949) is an English medievalist, currently an honorary fellow in history at the University of Edinburgh.
Collins studied at the University of Oxford ( Queen's and Saint Cross Colleges) under Peter Brown ...
. ''The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–97''. Oxford University Press, 1989.
*Collins, Roger. ''Visigothic Spain, 409–711''. Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
*
Hodgkin, Thomas. "Visigothic Spain." ''
The English Historical Review
''The English Historical Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that was established in 1886 and published by Oxford University Press (formerly Longman). It publishes articles on all aspects of history – British, European, and wo ...
'', Vol. 2, No. 6. (Apr., 1887), pp 209–234.
*Shaw, Dykes. "The Fall of the Visigothic Power in Spain." ''The English Historical Review'', Vol. 21, No. 82. (Apr., 1906), pp 209–228.
*
Thompson, E. A.
Edward Arthur Thompson (22 May 1914 – 1 January 1994) was an Irish-born British Marxist historian of classics and medieval studies. He was professor and director of the classics department at the University of Nottingham from 1948 to 197 ...
''The Goths in Spain''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Achila 02
714 deaths
Year of birth unknown
8th-century Visigothic monarchs