Among the ladies of King Roderic’s court, say the later chronicles of Spain, there was one of uncommon beauty, named Florinda or La Cava, the daughter or wife of one Doyllar or Don Illan, or Don Julian. She had the misfortune to please the king; but as her virtue was equal to her loveliness, she indignantly rejected his overtures. But kings, and least of all Gothic kings, were not to be repulsed with impunity; and Roderic accomplished by force what he could not do by persuasion. The lady dissimulated her deadly hatred until she had an opportunity of communicating her dishonour to her father, then absent against the Moors. All on fire at the indignity done his child and house, the count resolved on a revenge with which the whole earth should ring. He entered into a compact with the misbelievers, engaging to put them in possession of the whole country, if they would wash away his dishonour in the blood of the foul ravisher. He wrapped his purpose in great secrecy until he had rescued his daughter from the clutches of the king: he himself fetched her from the court of Toledo, and behaved to Roderic with so much courtesy that no one could suspect he knew of his wrong, much less that he was about so fatally to avenge it. On his return to Ceuta, the seat of his government, he found the Moors prepared for the expedition: he openly joined them, accompanied the infidel general to Gibraltar, and thus commenced the famous struggle which was to end in the subjugation of a great nation. The whole story of Florinda is evidently a romance--probably of Arabic invention--similar to the many thousand others which formed the amusement of the people in the Middle Ages. It is first mentioned by the monk of Silos,[ii] who wrote about four hundred years after the Mohammedan invasion. No doubt, however, can be entertained that Count Julian was among the most influential and active of the conspirators who called the Arabs into Spain. The chivalric _Romance of Don Roderic_[nn]--about as good an authority as the monk of Silos on such a subject--gives us a minute account of the amour, its progress, and termination. From the whole conversation, as given by this anonymous novelist, Roderic might be justified in believing that the scruples of La Cava were not insuperable[18]--that, in fact, she was willing in heart, but coy through maiden bashfulness. Even at last, when she might have so easily alarmed the palace, she was silent through fear of her cries reaching the ears of the queen. Count Julian’s daughter is made a model of virtue by Southey, and Roderic himself is represented as scarcely inferior. VISIGOTHIC CIVILISATION [Sidenote: [415-711 A.D.]]