"leading aristocrats and perhaps also some of the bishops." The participation of churchmen in the revolt is disputed, some arguing that the support of the bishops would not have led to the act being labelled a usurpation. The body of leading temporal and ecclesiastical lords had been the dominant body in determining the Visigothic succession since the reign of Reccared I. The palatine officials, however, had not been much affected by royal measures to decrease their influence in the final decades of the kingdom, as their effecting of a coup in 711 indicates. Division of the kingdom After the coup, the division of the kingdom into two factions, with the southwest (the provinces of Lusitania and western Carthaginiensis around the capital Toledo) in Roderic's hands and the northeast (Tarraconensis and Narbonensis) in the hands of Achila is confirmed by archaeological and numismatic evidence. Roderic's twelve surviving coins, all bearing the name Rvdericvs, were minted at Toledo, probably his capital, and "Egitania", probably Idanha-a-Velha. The regions in which the coins have been discovered do not overlap and it seems highly probable that the two rulers ruled in opposition from different regions. It is unknown to whom the provinces of Gallaecia and Baetica fell. That Roderic and Achila never appear to have come into military conflict is probably best explained by the preoccupation of Roderic with Arab raids and not to a formal division of the kingdom. A Visigothic regnal list mentions "Ruderigus" as having reigned seven years and six months, while two other continuations of the Chronicon Regum Visigothorum record Achila's reign of three years. In contrast to the regnal lists, which cannot be dated, the Chronicle of 754, written at Toledo, says that "Rudericus" reigned for a year. War with the Muslims According to the Chronicle of 754, Roderic immediately upon securing his throne gathered a force to oppose the Arabs and Berbers (Mauri, whence the word "Moors"), who were raiding in the south of the Iberian peninsula and had destroyed many towns under Tariq ibn Ziyad and other Muslim generals. While later Arabic sources make the conquest of Hispania a singular event undertaken at the orders of the governor Musa ibn Nosseyr of Ifriqiya, according to the Chronicle, which was written much nearer in date to the actual events, the Arabs began disorganised raids and undertook to conquer the peninsula only with the fortuitous death of Roderic and the