Audeca or Andeca () was the last
Suevi
file:1st century Germani.png, 300px, The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century. Suebian peoples in red, and other Irminones in purple.
The Suebi (also spelled Suavi, Suevi or Suebians ...
c
King of Galicia
Galicia (Spain), Galicia is an autonomous community and historical nationality in modern-day northwestern Spain on the Iberian Peninsula, which was a major part of the Roman province known as Gallaecia prior to 409. It consists of the province ...
from 584 until his deposition in 585. He deposed
Eboric and usurped the throne by marrying the young king's mother, Siseguntia (or Sisegutia), the widow of Eboric's father and predecessor,
Miro. He consigned Eboric to a monastery.
This action gave the
Visigothic
The Visigoths (; ) were a Germanic people united under the rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied barbarian military group united under the comman ...
king
Leovigild
Liuvigild, Leuvigild, Leovigild, or ''Leovigildo'' ( Spanish and Portuguese), ( 519 – 586) was a Visigothic king of Hispania and Septimania from 569 to 586. Known for his Codex Revisus or Code of Leovigild, a law allowing equal rights between t ...
an excuse to invade the Suevic kingdom, which he did in 585. According to
John of Biclar
John of Biclaro, Biclar, or Biclarum (''c.'' 540 – after 621), also ''Iohannes Biclarensis'', was a Visigoth chronicler. He was born in Lusitania, in the city of ''Scallabis'' (modern Santarém in Portugal). He was also bishop of Girona.
Ear ...
, "Leovigild devastated Galicia, deprived the captured King Audeca of his rule, and brought the people, treasure, and territory of the Suevi under his own power. He made Galicia a province of the Goths." John goes on to say that he "tonsured
udecaand dignified
imwith the honour of the priesthood, after having held that of the kingship." The deposed usurper was relegated to the city of
Beja. To
Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montal ...
, his deposition meant the end of the Suevic kingdom, which had lasted 177 years from Isidore's starting point of 408: "the kingdom which they
he Suevesheld in idle lethargy, they have now lost at an even more shameful cost, although it may seem quite amazing that they had managed to retain up to the present day that which they have now given up without any show of resistance."
After Audeca, the Suevic kingdom ceased to exist, but one pretender,
Malaric, briefly led opposition to the Visigoths.
A coin bearing the inscription
ODIACCA REIGES (probably "King Odiacca") has been identified as one belonging to the reign of Audeca. The sole known coin of the type was kept in Madrid and lost in 1936. The only other Suevic king to mint coins bearing his name that have survived to this day is
Rechiar.
[Grierson and Blackburn, ''MEC'', p. 79.]
Notes
Sources
*Arias, Jorge C
''Identity and Interactions: The Suevi and the Hispano-Romans''University of Virginia, Spring 2007.
*
Grierson, Philip, and Blackburn, Mark. ''Medieval European Coinage, with a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge'', vol. 1, The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries). Cambridge University Press, 1986.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Audeca
6th-century Suebian kings