Froia was a

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 ...

nobleman, probably a count, who rebelled and tried to seize the kingship in 653, either in the final weeks of the reign of Chindasuinth or in the opening weeks of that of his son, Reccesuinth. He had the support of the

Basques The Basques ( or ; ; ; ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a Basque culture, common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Basques are indigenous peoples, ...

in the upper Ebro valley, where he had a small circle of supporters. He besieged

Zaragoza Zaragoza (), traditionally known in English as Saragossa ( ), is the capital city of the province of Zaragoza and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributaries, the ...

, where the bishop Taius was whiling away at a revision of the '' Lex Visigothorum'', unable to leave the city. Reccesuinth led an army to put down the revolt in person and force the Basques back into the mountains.

Sources

*Collins, Roger. ''Visigothic Spain, 409–711''. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. . *Castellanos, Santiago
"The Political Nature of Taxation in Visigothic Spain."
''Early Medieval Europe'', 12:3 (October, 2003), pp. 201–28. {{refend 7th-century people from the Visigothic Kingdom 7th-century monarchs in Europe Gothic warriors Basque rebels