Editing Battle of Guadalete (section)

==Clash==
The armies that met in battle on the day that decided the fate of the Gothic kingdom in Spain are not reliably described in the surviving records. Glick surmises that the Muslim army was predominantly Berber [[cavalry]] under Berber leadership.<ref name="Glick, 32"/> The Arabic sources traditionally give Roderic 100,000 troops, gathered during his return to the south after confronting the Basques.<ref>Other estimates include 60,000 and 90,000; Ibn Khaldūn gives the low figure of 40,000. These troops massed on the plain of ''Secunda'' on the western bank of the [[Guadalquivir]] opposite Córdoba, later called the ''Campo de la Verdad'' (Field of Truth).</ref> This number is outrageously high; it complements the figure of 187,000 for the Muslims provided by the ''Ad Sebastianum'' version of the ''Chronicle of Alfonso III''. Ṭāriq is said to have landed with 7,000 horsemen and requested 5,000 more from Mūsā. There could thus have been as many as 12,000 Muslim fighters at the battle.<ref>Glick, 32, notes that an army of 10&ndash;15,000 would have required more than three months to ferry across the straits, thus explaining the delay between Ṭāriq's reported landing and his march north in the traditional accounts.</ref> One modern estimate, disregarding the primary source claims, suggest a quarter of the 7,500 reported in one of them; this would be approximately 2,000.{{sfn|Collins|2004|p=141}} The Visigothic forces were "probably not much larger", and the Visigothic kingdom was, unlike [[Francia]] to its north, not organised for war.{{sfn|Collins|2004|p=}} A small number of elite clans (perhaps around twenty five), their warrior followings, the king and his personal following, and the forces that could be raised from the royal [[fisc]] constituted the troops upon which Roderic could draw. <!--But since the Civil War in the days of [[Chindaswinth]] the state had been issuing edicts with increasingly heavier fines, relating to the difficulties to hold levy troops, whether provincials or those from minor nobles retinues, which frequently deserted or didn't even report alluding whatever issues. When considering the numbers mustered by other medieval monarchs with more reliable reports, even from those without fractions who could command the majority of his subjects like those of King [[Harold Godwinson]], and the difficulties of logistics to move from one part of the nation to another, as Roderic is supposed to have done from a conflict in the North he was reported to have been, which would have reduced his forces if he had to leave garrisons in his back, and any reinforcement from Andalusian nobles sympathetic to his reign, the forces that Roderic must have had at hand may have been not much larger than the African invading Army, numbers which must have been known to him by then to match with numeric advantage, and erroneously misjudged sufficient.<ref>[[Herwig Wolfram]] (2005), ''Gotische Studien: Volk und Herrschaft im frühen Mittelalter'' (Munich: Beck).</ref>-->

The defeat of the Visigothic army followed on the flight of the king's opponents, who had only accompanied the host "in rivalry", "deceitfully", and "out of ambition to rule" says the Mozarabic chronicler.<ref name=collins198928>Collins (1989), 28.</ref> The story of Sisibert abandoning Roderic with the right wing of the host is a legend. Estimating Visigothic forces at 33,000, David Lewis recounts how the Muslim army engaged in a series of violent hit and run attacks, while the Visigothic lines maneuvered ''en masse''. A cavalry wing that had secretly pledged to rebel against Roderic stood aside, giving the enemy an opening. Ṭāriq's cavalry, the ''mujaffafa'', forming as much as a third of the total force and armored in coats of light mail and identifiable by a turban over a metal cap, exploited the opening and charged into the Visigothic infantry, soon followed by the infantry. The Christian army was routed and the king slain in the final hours of battle. The engagement was a bloodbath: Visigothic losses were extremely high, and the Muslims lost as many as 3,000 men, or a quarter of their force.<ref>David Lewis, 123&ndash;124.</ref> <!--Considering the factors that the engagement lasted for so long or was dragged in such way, and the fact that Visigothic forces entered on ground chosen by the African general for their style of combat, according to the sources, once the Goths found themselves boxed in and with their backs to the lake, this otherwise added defensive advantage turned against themselves and attempting to flex into more room to maneuver, or just to flee as reported and offer battle again at a better ground and another day, large numbers of them became drowned and their number advantage swiftly dwindled, making the slaughter inevitable. Those wings who were off the main force thus reduced, and with possibilities to escape whether they wanted it or not (as later they would be accused for whatever reasons suspected for it), must have been forced to flee after the chances of victory became almost impossible, and indeed significant detachments of them were reported later joining other Gothic forces and fortified garrisons to resist the invading armies. Plenty of Goths were reported later spread throughout the wide geography of the peninsula and south France, offering resistance or alliance to the invading African Armies, so any estimation that makes of the Goths as utterly routed or fallen down exterminated at once in bulk in the battle is overly an exaggeration, what gives another clue as to the reality of Roderic's Force numbers in line with others of the Age, and Tariq's. The [[Visigoths]] became or continued to be split in factions, of which the main focus of opposition to the new wrestling Power in the land appeared to be as it had been, those clans of nobles of the Narbonne-Barcelona region which resulted in the continued independent rule of Akhila or [[Ardo]], and those in the Lusitania-Betica provinces which offered the longest resistance to Musa in [[Merida]], around the figure of the widow Queen [[Egilona]] and her late husband still large supporters, which after surrender to the Muslim Governor formed a substantial body of the new province of the Caliphate, as only a small part but still many hundreds of them were taken to Syria as hostages, and many remained as clients or attendants at the court of their Queen. As Berbers had been for a generation and other peoples before them, any professional military men were forced to join and replenish the ranks of the Caliph's armies, as some Gothic or Hispano-roman nobles became reported whether converted to Islam or not, and even as slaves or personally bound to the Islamic generals.<ref>Pedro de Palol and Gisela Ripoll (1988), ''Los Godos en el occidente europeo: ostrogodos y visigodos en los siglos V&ndash;VIII'' (Ediciones Encuentro).</ref>-->

It is possible that his enemies intended to abandon Roderic on the field, to be defeated and killed by the Muslims. Whatever the case, their plan failed, for they too were largely slain. By another text from the ''Mozarabic Chronicle'' the treachery can be placed at Roderic's feet. He "lost his kingdom together with his ''patria'' with the killing of his rivals".<ref name=collins198928/> This unclear passage could indicate that Roderic had killed his rivals and weakened his army, ensuring defeat, or that his rivals too died in the battle or its retreat. The chronicler may be blaming the defeat on factionalism. The ''Chronicle of Alfonso III'', in both its versions, blames the anonymous "sons of Wittiza" for conspiring against Roderic.<ref>According to [[Rafael Altamira y Crevea]], the "connexion between the Muslims and the sons of Wittiza is confirmed by all the chroniclers, and forms a trustworthy starting-point for the history of the invasion," cited in Bachrach (1973), 33n86, who finds it tempting to place the Muslims, the native Jewry, and Achila II, whom he reckons a son of Wittza, in a tripartite alliance against Roderic. Collins (2004), 137&ndash;138, rejects any attempt to salvage the historicity of the sons of Wittiza from contradictions in the primary source. Thompson, 251, records "presumably he was opposed by another member of the aristocracy or by a relative of Wittiza".</ref> [[Oppa]], Wittiza's historical brother, was found in Toledo, possibly as king-elect, by Mūsā when he took the city. This Oppa may have had a part to play in the opposition to Roderic, but certainly not his nephews, who would have been too young to participate in power politics in 711. The [[metropolitan of Toledo]], [[Sindered]], fled the city at the coming of the Muslims, and remained for the rest of his life an exile in [[Rome]]. The author of the ''Mozarabic Chronicle'' caustically notes that he was "an hireling, and not the shepherd" (quoting [[Jesus]], ''[[Gospel of John]]'' 10:12).<ref name=thompson/> The Gothic nobleman Theudimer made an alliance with the conquerors to preserve his own rule of his territory.<ref>For a general discussion of military arrangements in late Visigothic and post-Visigothic Spain until the Carolingian reconquest, see Joaquín Vallvé (1978), "España en el siglo VIII: ejército y sociedad", ''Al-Andalus'', '''43'''(1), pp. 51&ndash;112.</ref> Within a decade all of the peninsula save the tiny [[Kingdom of Asturias]] and the mountain-dwelling [[Basques]] was under Muslims dominion and they had advanced beyond the [[Pyrenees]] as well.