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Updated: May 28, 2025
Musa, who since Tarik's departure for this expedition had been employed in building ships, and had by this time collected a great many, sent by them a reinforcement of five thousand Moslems, which, added to the seven thousand of the first expedition, made the whole forces amount to twelve thousand men, eager for plunder and anxious for battle.
Tarik's men were differently arrayed; their breasts were covered with mail armor; they wore white turbans on their heads, the Arabian bow slung across their backs, their swords suspended in their girdles, and their long spears firmly grasped in their hands.
They say also that while both armies were encamped in front of each other, the barbarian King, wishing to ascertain the exact amount of Tarik's forces, sent one of his men, whose valor and strength he knew, and in whose fidelity he placed unbounded confidence, with instructions to penetrate into Tarik's camp, and bring him an account of their number, arms, accoutrements, and vessels.
It is said that Roderick, the degenerate successor of Alaric, went into battle in a robe of white silk embroidered with gold, sitting on a car of ivory, drawn by white mules. Tarik's men, who were fighting for victory or Paradise, overwhelmed the Goths; Roderick, in his flight, was drowned in the Guadalquivir, and his diadem of pearls and his embroidered robe were sent to Damascus as trophies.
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.
Various historians have recorded two circumstances concerning Tarik's passage, and his landing on the coast of Andalusia, which we consider worthy of being transcribed.
Tarik's army, soon swelled to twenty thousand men, defeated Rodrigo at Jerez and reduced the kingdom to submission.
He agrees in saying that Ilyan, lord of Ceuta, incited Musa Ibn Nosseyr to make the conquest of Andalusia; and that this he did out of revenge, and moved by the personal enmity and hatred he had conceived against Roderic. He makes Tarik's army amount only to seven thousand, mostly Berbers, which, he says, crossed in four vessels provided by Ilyan.
There is no doubt but that Tarik's followers do not intend to settle in this country; their only wish is to fill their hands with spoil, and then return. Let us then, as soon as the battle is engaged, give way, and leave the usurper alone to fight the strangers, who will soon deliver us from him; and, when they shall be gone, we can place on the throne him who most deserves it."
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