Cardonne estimates, at the battle of the Guadalete, the Goths at 100,000, and the Arabs at 12,000. Gibbon makes the Arabs less. Another writer says:--“It was no longer the terrible Goths, whose valour had overthrown the Roman empire, that had penetrated from the shores of the Euxine to those of the Atlantic. The youth, enervated with peace and luxury, had abandoned the exercise of arms. The chiefs, impelled by jealousy, revenge, or ambition, betrayed their monarch to those who sought his ruin.” And presently we have,--“The two armies fought long and with equal ardour. The uncertain victory was decided in favour of the Mussulmans by a horrible treason. Opas, Archbishop of Seville, collecting his vassals, joined the ranks of the Mussulmans and attacked the Christians. The Spaniards were immediately broken,” &c. How could there be a struggle in an open country by 12,000 against 100,000, where arms and courage were equal--where both were warlike? The Goths were engaged in continual warfare between themselves; they were making incursions into France; they were at the very time masters, by recent triumphs, of the sea, and possessors until that very year, of strong places in Africa, whence they were carrying on aggressive war against the Moors! We have therefore to look for some other cause than the effeminacy of the one, and the valour of the other. Count Julian could put the Moors in possession of Ceuta, and in joining them draw all his adherents with him,--the Archbishop of Seville could quit the camp with all his followers, a fact which has no parallel, and join the invading Mussulman:--there existed, then, links between the two people not to be found in the romances of the Spanish writers, or in the phrases of Gibbon. Thus, the enterprise ceases to be a fable, and regains its just station as one of the most hardy and successful of human achievements.