olicited the disgraceful honor of introducing their arms
into the heart of Spain. If we inquire into the cause of his treachery,
the Spaniards will repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava; of
a virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a father
who sacrificed his religion and country to the thirst of revenge. The
passions of princes have often been licentious and destructive; but
this well-known tale, romantic in itself, is indifferently supported by
external evidence; and the history of Spain will suggest some motive of
interest and policy more congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.
After the decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted
by the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or
governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding tyranny.
The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza, educated on
the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private station. Their
resentment was the more dangerous, as it was varnished with the
dissimulation of courts: their followers were excited by the remembrance
of favors and the promise of a revolution; and their uncle Oppas,
archbishop of Toledo and Seville, was the first person in the church,
and the second in the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in
the disgrace of the unsuccessful faction; that he had little to hope and
much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king could
not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his family had
sustained. The merit and influence of the count rendered him a useful
or formidable subject: his estates were ample, his followers bold and
numerous; and it was too fatally shown, that, by his Andalusian and
Mauritanian commands, he held in his hand the keys of the Spanish
monarchy. Too feeble, however, to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought
the aid of a foreign power; and his rash invitation of the Moors and
Arabs produced the calamities of eight hundred years. In his epistles,
or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness of
his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the degeneracy of an
effeminate people. The Goths were no longer the victorious Barbarians,
who had humbled the pride of Rome, despoiled the queen of nations, and
penetrated from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean. Secluded from the
world by the Pyrenaean mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered
in a long peace: the walls of the c