" In order to provide for the security of their
respective armies, both generals selected, soon after their landing, a
good encampment, which they surrounded with walls and trenches, for no
sooner had the news of their landing spread than the armies of the Goths
began to march against them from all quarters.
No sooner did Tarik set his foot in Andalusia than he was attacked by a
Goth named Tudmir (Theodomir), to whom Roderic had intrusted the defence
of that frontier. Theodomir, who is the same general who afterward gave
his name to a province of Andalusia, called _Belad Tudmir_, "the country
of Theodomir," having tried, although in vain, to stop the impetuous
career of Tarik's men, despatched immediately a messenger to his master,
apprising him how Tarik and his followers had landed in Andalusia. He
also wrote him a letter thus conceived: "This our land has been invaded
by people whose name, country, and origin are unknown to me. I cannot
even tell whence they came--whether they fell from the skies or sprang
from the earth."
When this news reached Roderic, who was then in the country of the
Bashkans (Basques), making war in the territory of Banbilonah
(Pamplona), where serious disturbances had occurred, he guessed directly
that the blow came from Ilyan.
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