in 456 with an army of Goths, Franks, Burgundians (under their kings Chilperic I and Gundioch), and perhaps even Romans to confront the Suevi, who in turn planned to meet the invaders on the borders of Tarraconensis. On 5 October 456 Theodoric defeated Rechiar in a battle at the Campus Paramus twelve miles from Astorga on the Urbicus (Órbigo). He was wounded during the battle, but according to Hydatius managed to flee as far as Porto in the heart of his kingdom, while Jordanes says he took ship in the Tyrrhenian Sea (i.e., the western Mediterranean) before winds forced him back and he was captured. Jordanes is almost certainly wrong; at Porto Rechiar was captured and executed in December. The Suevic monarchy collapsed, rapidly disintegrating into rival factions over the following years. Braga fell on 28 October and the Visigoths brutally sacked the city and the churches before moving on to conquer Andalusia. During the century of Arianism that soon commenced, nothing about the Suevi was recorded. Notes References Collins, Roger. "The Basques in Aquitaine and Navarre: Problems of Frontier Government." War and Society in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of J. O. Prestwich. edd. J. Gillingham and J. C. Holt. Cambridge: Boydell Press, 1984. Reprinted in Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain. Variorum, 1992. . Collins, Roger. Visigothic Spain, 409–711. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. . Edmondson, J. C. "Mining in the Later Roman Empire and Beyond: Continuity or Disruption?" The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 79. (1989), pp 84–102. Thompson, E. A. "The Conversion of the Spanish Suevi to Catholicism." Visigothic Spain: New Approaches. ed. Edward James. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. . Thompson, E. A. Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. . Converts to Christianity from pagan religions 5th-century Suebian kings Christian monarchs 456 deaths 5th-century Christians Year of birth unknown Executed monarchs Year of birth uncertain Monarchs taken prisoner in wartime