Julian, count of Ceuta

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In the late seventh and early eighth centuries, Julian, count of Ceuta in North Africa, held the African Pillar of Hercules for Christendom.

Luis Garcia de Valdeavellano writes that, during the Islamic conquest of North Africa, in "their struggle against the Byzantines and the Berbers, the Arab chieftains had greatly extended their African dominions, and as early as the year 682 Uqba had reached the shores of the Atlantic, but he was unable to occupy Tangier, for he was forced to turn back toward the Atlas Mountains by a mysterious person" who became known to history and legend as Count Julian. Muslim historians have referred to him as Ilyan or Ulyan, "though his real name was probably Julian, or perhaps Urban or Ulbán or Bulian."

Julian is generally regarded as having been a vassal of Roderic, king of the Visigoths in Hispania (modern Portugal and Spain). But Valdeavellano notes other possibilities.

We are not certain whether he was a Berber, a Visigoth, or a Byzantine; as a "count" he may have been the ruler of the fortress of Septum, once part of the Visigoth kingdom; or he may have been an exarch or a governor ruling in the name of the Byzantine Empire: or, as appears more likely, he may have been a Berber who was the lord and master of the Catholic tribe of Gomera.

According to the Egyptian historian Ibn Abd-el-Hakem, writing a century and a half after the events, Julian sent one of his daughters to Roderic's court at Toledo for education (and as a gauge of Julian's loyalty) and Roderic subsequently made her pregnant. Later ballads and chronicles inflated this tale, Christians making her out an innocent virgin who was ravished, Muslims making her a seductress. In Spanish she came to be known as la Cava Rumía. When Julian learned of the affair he removed his daughter from Roderic's court and, out of vengeance, sold out Hispania to the Muslim invaders, thus making possible the Islamic conquest of Hispania.

But this is only a legend. Personal power politics were more likely at play, as better historical evidence points to a civil war among the Visigothic aristocracy. Roderic had been appointed to the throne by the bishops of the Visigothic Catholic church—this appointment snubbing the sons of the previous king, Wittiza, who died or was killed in 710. So Wittiza's relatives and partisans fled Iberia for Julian's protection at Ceuta (Septa), the Pillar of Hercules in North Africa on the northern shore of the Maghreb. There they gathered with Arians and Jews fleeing forced conversions at the church's hands.

At that time the surrounding area of the Maghreb had recently been conquered by Musa ibn Nusair, who established his governor, Tariq ibn Ziyad, at Tangier with a Moorish army of 1,700 men. So Julian approached Musa to negotiate the latter's assistance in an effort to topple Roderic.

What is unclear is whether Julian hoped to place a son of Wittiza on the throne and gain power and preference thereby or whether he was really opening up Iberia to foreign conquest. The latter, though unlikely, isn't inconceivable, given that Julian may have long been on good terms with the Muslims of North Africa and found them to be more tolerant overlords than the Catholic Visigoths. Moreover, if Julian was the Greek commander of the last Byzantine outpost in Africa, he would only have had an alliance with the Kingdom of the Visigoths rather than been part of it.

Perhaps, then, in exchange for lands in al-Andalus (the Arab name for the area the Visigoths still called by its Roman name, Hispania), or perhaps to topple a king and his religious allies, Julian provided military intelligence, troops, and ships.

But Musa was initially unsure of Julian's project and so in July 710 directed Tarif ibn Malluk to lead a probe of the Iberian coast. Legend says that Julian participated as a guide and emissary, arranging for Tarif to be hospitably received by supportive Christians—perhaps Julian's kinsmen, friends, and supporters—who agreed to become allies in the contemplated battle for the Visigothic throne.

The next summer Julian provided the ships to carry Muslim troops across to Europe. Julian also briefed Tariq, their general. Then the latter left Julian behind among the merchants and crossed the Strait of Hercules with a force of some 1,700 men. He landed at Gibraltar on April 30, 711, and thus began the Islamic conquest of Iberia.

Later, in the Battle of Guadalete on July 19, Roderic's army of around 25,000 men was defeated by Tariq's force of approximately 7,000, largely due to a reversal of fortune when the wings commanded by Roderic's relatives Sisbert and Osbert deserted or switched sides—which legend would later attribute to a deliberate plan developed by Julian.

Afterwards Julian was apparently granted the lands he was promised by the Muslims but, as the story goes, lived on friendless and full of guilt for having become a traitor to his country.

[edit] Literary treatments

↑ In Part I, Chapter 41, of Don Quixote (1605), Miguel de Cervantes writes:

Meanwhile, the wind having changed we were compelled to head for the land, and ply our oars to avoid being driven on shore; but it was our good fortune to reach a creek that lies on one side of a small promontory or cape, called by the Moors that of the "Cava rumia," which in our language means "the wicked Christian woman;" for it is a tradition among them that La Cava, through whom Spain was lost, lies buried at that spot; "cava" in their language meaning "wicked woman," and "rumia" "Christian;" moreover, they count it unlucky to anchor there when necessity compels them, and they never do so otherwise. (Spanish text.)

The English writers Walter Scott, Walter Savage Landor, and Robert Southey handle the legends associated with these events poetically: Scott in "The Vision of Don Roderick" (1811), Landor in his tragedy Count Julian (1812), and Southey in Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814).

The American writer Washington Irving retells the legends in his 1835 Legends of the Conquest of Spain, mostly written while living in that country. These consist of "Legend of Don Roderick," "Legend of the Subjugation of Spain," and "Legend of Count Julian and His Family."

Expatriate Spanish novelist Juan Goytisolo takes up the legends in Count Julian (1970, 1971, 1974), a book in which he, in his own words, imagines "the destruction of Spanish mythology, its Catholicism and nationalism, in a literary attack on traditional Spain." He identifies himself "with the great traitor who opened the door to Arab invasion." The narrator in this novel, an exile in North Africa, rages against his beloved Spain, forming an obsessive identification with the fabled Count Julian, dreaming that, in a future invasion, the ethos and myths central to Hispanic identity will be totally destroyed.

[edit] References

Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 51.

Luis Garcia de Valdeavellano, Historia de España. 1968. Madrid: Alianza. (Quotes are translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane in Count Julian by Juan Goytisolo. 1974. New York: The Viking Press, Inc. ISBN 670-24407-4)