The Spaniard was the prey of all: his labour was doomed to support the innumerable swarms which spread from the Pyrenees to the rock of Calpe, and which, like so many locusts, destroyed wherever they settled. The scourge was more than galling--it was intolerable. Native bands were at length formed in most parts of the peninsula, not merely to take vengeance on the rapacious invaders--for in that case they would have been a blessing to their country--but to plunder all who came in their way. Many of these horrors would have been averted, had Theodoric been at liberty to return in person to Spain, and finish its subjugation; but his wars with the Romans, the Burgundians, and the Franks found him for some years employment enough. At length he was assassinated, it is said, by his brother Euric, in his capital of Toulouse. One of the first acts of Euric was to despatch an army to humble the pride of the Suevi. His arms were eminently successful. The Suevi sued for and obtained peace, and were allowed to remain in undisturbed possession of Galicia, with a portion of modern Leon and Portugal, and to retain their kingly form of government. So completely were they become the vassals of the victors that during a whole century they remained in quiet subjection. We hear no more of them until the time of Leuvigild, who dealt the last blow to their national existence, and, as we shall hereafter see, incorporated them with his Gothic subjects. [Sidenote: [469-522 A.D.]] The Romans were less fortunate; their domination in the country was ended forever by the fall of Tarragona. They continued, indeed, to hold a few unimportant places on the coast; not because they had valour to defend them, but because Euric had no naval force to assail them from the sea. The conqueror, though master of all Spain, disdained to be confined within limits which his ambition deemed much too narrow. Rome was now tottering to her fall; and he resolved to pluck some of the most fertile provinces of Gaul from her feeble grasp. Odoacer the Mercenary, king of Italy, renounced in his favour all the Roman provinces beyond the Alps, as far as the Rhine and the ocean: and thenceforward the Goths regarded Gaul and Spain as their lawful inheritance. The victor established the seat of his empire at Arles, where he passed in tranquillity the remainder of his days. He died in that capital, (484 A.D.) after engaging his subjects to elect for their king his son Alaric. Euric was the founder of the Gothic kingdom of Spain. The extinction of the Roman sway, and the subjection of the Suevi, rendered him absolute lord of the country. The six kings, his predecessors, were rulers in Gaul, not of Spain; however they might regard its provinces as rightfully their own, they could obtain possession only by force of arms. Their conquests, however, had been partial and temporary; before Euric, the peninsula was overrun, not subdued. He was also the first legislator of his nation. The