1. Roderic was the Visigothic king in Hispania between 710 and 711.
15 Facts About Roderic
1. 2.
Roderic is well known as "the last king of the Goths".
3.
Roderic is actually an extremely obscure figure about whom little can be said with certainty.
4.
Roderic was the last Goth to rule from Toledo, but not the last Gothic king, a distinction which belongs to Ardo.
5.
Roderic was defeated and killed at the Battle of Guadalete.
6.
Nonetheless, it is possible that Roderic was a regional commander or even an exile when he staged his coup.
7.
Some scholars believe that the king Achila, who ruled in opposition to Roderic, was in fact Wittiza's son and successor and that Roderic had tried to usurp the throne from him.
8.
Roderic's twelve surviving coins, all bearing the name Rvdericvs, were minted at Toledo, probably his capital, and "Egitania", probably Idanha-a-Velha.
9.
Roderic made several expeditions against the invaders before he was deserted by his troops and killed in battle in 711 or 712.
10.
Roderic left a widow, Egilo, who later married one of the Arabic governors of Hispania, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa.
11.
Roderic life is alluded in Nights 272 and 273 of the One Thousand and One Nights.
12.
Roderic is a central figure in the English playwright William Rowley's tragedy All's Lost by Lust, which portrays him as a rapist usurped by Count Julian and the Moors.
13.
Roderic has been the subject of two operas: Rodrigo by George Frideric Handel and Don Rodrigo by Alberto Ginastera.
14.
Roderic appears as a minor character in the first half of Portuguese early Romantic writer Alexandre Herculano's novel Eurico, o Presbitero.
15.
Roderic's story is told the British West End musical La Cava.