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162 contrived to put an end to the extortions practised by the collectors of taxes and by the administrators of the royal patrimony (conductores villici) to the detriment of the State funds. It appears that, in the name of Theodoric, the Peninsula was at one time governed by two officials, viz. Ampelius and Liberius, and at another by one alone, viz. Theudis. Some of the chronicles allude to these officials as consules, and it is probable that their authority extended over every branch of the administration. On the death of Theodoric in 526, his ward Amalaric assumed complete royal power over the Visigoths. The Frankish peril, which had hitherto been held at bay by the prestige of the Ostrogoths, still presented a threatening aspect. The sons of Clovis were longing to extend their dominion in Gaul by the conquest of the part occupied by the Visigoths. Amalaric attempted to avert the danger by means of an alliance and, after repeated demands, he succeeded in obtaining the hand of Clotilda, daughter of Clovis; but this marriage, which he had regarded as a means of salvation, supplied the Frankish kings with the very pretext they desired. Amalaric did his utmost to make Clotilda abjure the Catholic Faith and embrace Arianism, and according to Gregory of Tours actually ill-treated her. Clotilda made complaint to her brother Childebert, and he hastened to declare open war in Septimania. Near Narbonne he defeated the army of Amalaric (531); the latter fled, but, according to Jordanes and Isidore, he was shortly afterwards slain by his own soldiers. Childebert took possession of Narbonne, where he joined his sister, and seized considerable treasure.

The position of the Visigoths could hardly have been worse. Without the hope of finding a powerful defender such as Theodoric, they found themselves threatened by the Franks, a nation naturally warlike, and further emboldened by its conquest of Aquitaine. In fact, dating from the defeat of Amalaric, the Visigothic kingdom may be regarded as consisting of Spanish territory, and its capital was then transferred from Gaul to the Iberian peninsula. But they had the good fortune to find a man who was equal to the occasion. This was Theudis the Ostrogoth, who had been governor of Spain in the time of Theodoric, and who had settled in the Peninsula, where he had married a very wealthy Spanish woman, the owner, according to Procopius, of more than 2000 slaves and dependents. When Theudis had been formally elected king, he began to make preparations for the ejection of the Franks, who, in this same year (531), had entered the kingdom by way of Cantabria, and in 532 had annexed a small territory near Béziers. In 533 Childebert joined forces with his brother, Chlotar I, invaded Navarre, took possession of Pampeluna, and marched as far as Saragossa, to which he laid siege. The inhabitants resisted bravely: thus the Visigoths had time to send two armies to their assistance; of these one was commanded by Theudis himself, and the other by his general Theudegesil. At their approach the Franks retreated as far