Page "Liuvigild" Paragraph 3

According to the chronicle of John of Biclaro, as co-king Liuvigild initiated the first of several campaigns to expand the territory of the kingdom of the Visigoths, which Peter Heather describes as a " list of striking successes ".

His first strike was in 570, when he " laid waste the region of Bastetania and the city of Malaga, defeating their soldiers ".

The following year he captured Medina Sidonia, assisted " through the treachery of a certain Framidaneus.

" Then, around the time he became sole ruler with the death of his brother Liuva ( which occurred in either 571 or 572 ), seized Córdoba from the Byzantine Empire.

During the civil war which ended with Athanagild rise to power some twenty years earlier, the Byzantines gained control of a stretch of territory in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula.

John of Biclaro notes that upon gaining control of Córdoba, Liuvigild " slaughtered the enemy troops and made the city his own.