Their resentment was the more dangerous, as it was varnished with the dissimulation of courts: their followers were excited by the remembrance of favors and the promise of a revolution; and their uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in the state.

It is probable that Julian was involved in the disgrace of the unsuccessful faction; that he had little to hope and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his family had sustained.

The merit and influence of the count rendered him a useful or formidable subject: his estates were ample, his followers bold and numerous; and it was too fatally shown, that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held in his hand the keys of the Spanish monarchy.

Too feeble, however, to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a foreign power; and his rash invitation of the Moors and Arabs produced the calamities of eight hundred years.

In his epistles, or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness of his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the degeneracy of an effeminate people.