The Story of Seville. Gallichan Walter Matthew
El Begi, 'the most accomplished scholar of Spain,' spent the greater part of his life in the city.
San Isidoro and San Leandro lived here. Moorish monarchs and Christian sovereigns ruled from the palace, and in their turn attacked and defended the fair city. The figures crowd before the mind's eye – Ferdinand III., who redeemed the town from the Moriscoes, Alfonso (El Sabio) the Learned, Pedro I. the Cruel, and Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic. We see the fair, blue-eyed Genoese youth, Christoforo Colombo, or Columbus, the maker of the modern prosperity of Seville, who, after achieving fame, was alternately petted and punished by his sovereigns. We picture the triumphant return of Hernando Pizarro to the city, with half a million pesos of gold, and a great treasure of silver.
Lope de Rueda, 'the real father of the Spanish theatre,' a gold-worker of Seville; Fernando de Herrera, the poet; the mighty Cervantes, who spent three years of his life in the Andalusian capital; Velazquez, Zurbaran, Roelas, Murillo and minor artists of note were either born in the city or closely associated with it.
For the present we must take a look back into the dim and remote period when the Phœnicians came to wrest the soil of Southern Spain from the race of mingled Celtic and Iberian blood. It is at this uncertain date that the history of Seville may be said to begin.
We learn from the historians of Phœnicia that the shrewd, practical and industrious people of that marvellous ancient civilisation were great colonisers. 'The south of Spain,' writes Professor George Rawlinson, 'was rich in metallic treasures, and yielded gold, silver, copper, iron, lead and tin.' In their quest for valuable metal, certain Phœnician explorers discovered the Peninsula of Iberia, and in the mineral-yielding region watered by the Guadalquivir they founded the colony of Tartessii. Doubt exists whether Tartessii was the name given to the plains of the Guadalquivir or to a town. Strabo, Mela and Pliny state that the Phœnicians built a town and called it Tartessus. Was this town the foundation of Seville? No one will attempt to give an authoritative answer, though it has been stated that the town was not Cadiz, the Gades of the Phœnicians. Two cities of considerable importance appear to have been the marts of the Phœnician Sephela, or plain, and it is not wholly improbable that Seville was one of them.
In the choice of new territory for the development of mining and agriculture, the enterprising colonists displayed much intelligence. They settled upon a soil that will bring forth richly without artificial stimulation.
The hill ranges produced vines and olive trees, yielding fine wine and ample oil. Tunny and other fish were plentiful in the sea, and the rivers afforded large eels.
This is all that can be known of the Phœnician colony in Southern Spain. We are beginning to tread upon firmer historic ground when Hamilcar Barca landed at Cadiz in 237 B.C., after a series of victories in Africa, and subdued Andalusia. Hasdrubal, son-in-law of the conqueror, was the founder of Cartagena, or New Carthage, the centre of Carthaginian rule in Spain, and the wealthiest city of the Peninsula.
But during the second Punic War the Romans invaded Iberia, and gained all the eastern coast from New Carthage to the Pyrenees. Plutarch says that Publius Cornelius Scipio came to Spain with eleven thousand soldiers, seized Cartagena, reduced Cadiz, and founded the city of Italica, near Seville. Hispalis was the Roman name given to the city on the Guadalquivir until Cæsar changed the name to Julia Romula. The city then became the capital of Roman Spain, a centre of industry, and a fortress. A splendid aqueduct, which has partly endured to this day, was constructed to bring a plentiful supply of water from the hills. The aqueduct was extended by the Almohades in 1172, and forms one of the interesting monuments of the Roman and Arab colonisers. Around the city were reared high walls, with watch towers, and many strong gates. It is said that the walls of Seville were five miles in length, and it has been stated that they were once ten miles long. Within the gates were palaces, temples to the honour of the Sun, Hercules, Bacchus and Venus, and other fine edifices.
Under Augustus, Spain was part of the Roman Empire. In Seville the rule of the conquerors was beneficent, and the original inhabitants were fairly governed, while the city was extended and new crafts introduced. Under the Romans, Christianity came to the Peninsula, and Seville was made the seat of a bishop. The remaining portions of the great aqueduct, the wall, the two high granite columns in the Alameda de Hercules, with the statues of Julius Cæsar and Hercules upon them, the shafts of the columns discovered in the Calle Abades, and the beautiful fragments of capitals and statues in the Museo Arqælógico are the chief vestiges of Seville in the days of the Romans. At Urbs Italica, 'the camp of the Italians,' there still exists a grass-grown, mouldered amphitheatre, the only remnant of a mighty town.
Built on the slopes once dotted with the tents of the aboriginal hamlet of Sancios, Italica lies about five miles to the west of Seville, amid olive gardens and wheatfields. The circus is a ruin; but the passages can be followed below the tiers of seats, and one may peer into the dens once tenanted by the lions and other fierce beasts. Bees hum amongst the wild thyme, lizards creep on the worn stones, and a tethered ass grazes in the arena. The glory of Rome has departed; the plaudits from those deserted and grassy seats have not been heard for centuries; and blood has ceased to redden the floor, where fragrant herbs now spring and butterflies sun themselves on fallen masonry. Here is all that is left of Italica, the home of Trajan and Hadrian, and the asylum for Scipio's aged warriors. For a period the decaying town was known as Old Seville, and tons of its masonry were removed to build Seville the New.
Rome fell, and the Silingi Vandals swarmed into the country, captured Hispalis, and made it the seat of their empire. This period in the history of Seville is dark, and beset with difficulty for the annalist. About the year 520 a great horde of Goths spread over Andalusia. They seized the Vandal capital, but afterwards established a new capital of their own at Toledo.
Amalaric was the first of the Gothic monarchs who sat on the throne in Seville. He reigned probably from about the year 522. Theudis ruled in Seville (531 to 548), and we read that he was murdered there after an attempt to expel the Byzantine troops of Justinian from Africa. Theudisel, or Theudigisel, was general to Theudis, whom he succeeded as ruler at Seville. Theudisel shared the fate of his predecessor on the throne. After a reign of eighteen months, he was killed by the sword-thrusts of a dozen nobles of his retinue, while taking supper in his palace. This 'monster of licentiousness' was wont to kill all women who repelled his addresses, and his assassination was a work of vengeance on the part of outraged fathers and husbands among his courtiers.
Schlegel says the Goths were ready converts to Christianity, but 'in the Arian form.' At a later period of their supremacy in Spain there came a wider adherence to orthodox Catholicism, and the civil power was largely in the hands of the bishops and clergy. The most influential bishop of this day was Saint Isidore (San Isidoro) who held office in Seville. His brothers, Leander and Fulgentius, were also prelates, and his sister, Florentina, was made a saint. Saint Leander was the elder brother of Isidore, and through him the youth received his education after the death of his parents. The pupil was earnest and diligent in his studies, and as he grew to manhood he zealously assisted his brother, who then held the See of Seville, in converting the Goths from the heresy of Arius.
Dissensions between the orthodox and the Arians caused great strife and family bitterness among the ruling class. During the reign of King Leovigild rebellions broke out in Castile and León. The leader of the rebels was Leovigild's own son, Ermenigild, who had married Ingunda, daughter of Brunichilda and of Sigebert. Ingunda professed the orthodox faith, while Gosvinda, the second wife of Leovigild, was of the Arian sect. A rivalry arose between the two dames. According to Gregory of Tours, Gosvinda determined that Ingunda should be compelled to embrace the heterodox creed. One day when the two disputants were together, engaged in hot controversy, the fanatical Gosvinda gripped Ingunda by the hair of her head, threw her to the ground, trod upon her, and bade an Arian priest baptize the prostrate woman.
This incident not unnaturally brought about a quarrel between Leovigild and his son. Ermenigild was then ruling in Seville, while Leovigild maintained his court at Toledo. The trouble grew when Leander, the uncle of Ermenigild, persuaded the young man to forsake Arianism. His father was deeply angered, and vowed that the Gothic crown should never come to an apostate. The Archbishop of Tours states that the father was the first to take up arms after the rupture, but other historians suppose that the turbulent Ermenigild began the hostilities.
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