The difference between Roman and Goth was indeed accentuated in every way. There were different codes of law for subject and master, the former using a local adaptation of the Theodosian code known as the _Breviarium Alarici_, while the latter was judged by old Gothic customary law not yet reduced into written form.[20] Even marriage between the two races was illegal, till about 570 king Leovigild broke the prohibition by taking to wife Theodosia, the daughter of Severianus. Spain sadly needed some ruler like Theodoric the Great, to act as a mediator and redresser of wrongs between the two nations who dwelt within its borders. Footnote 20: The Gothic law was probably written down about 587 by Reccared. An evil end fell upon all the first three Visigothic kings who ruled in Spain. The aged Theudis enjoyed seventeen years of power, and, as we have already related, was successful in beating off three successive attacks of the Franks on the peninsula. But the end of his reign was clouded by disaster; frightened by the rapidity with which the armies of Justinian had crushed Vandal and Goth, he resolved to create a diversion in favour of his own Italian kinsmen, by attacking the newly-created imperial province of Africa. But his army was almost annihilated in front of the fortress of Septa (Ceuta), the westernmost bulwark of the African province, and he himself returned to Spain with his military reputation wrecked in his extreme old age. Four years later he was murdered at Seville by an unknown assassin, who either was, or feigned to be, insane (548). The Visigothic chiefs then elected as their king, Theudigisel, the general who had beaten the Franks at Saragossa in 542, and had ever since been reckoned the best warrior of their race. But the new king was brutal and debauched; his excesses provoked the anger of the nobles, and only seventeen months after his accession he was murdered. ‘While he sat at supper with his friends, and waxed merry over the wine, the lamps were extinguished, and he was slain on his couch by the sword of his enemies.’