Battle of Guadalete
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Battle of Guadalete was fought in 711 or 712 at an unidentified location between the Christian Visigoths of Hispania under their king, Roderic, and an invading force of Muslim Arabs and Berbers under Ṭāriq ibn Ziyad. The battle was significant as the culmination of a series of Arab-Berber attacks and the beginning of the Islamic conquest of Hispania. In the battle Roderic probably lost his life, along with many members of the Visigothic nobility, opening the way for the capture of Visigothic capital of Toledo.
Legend
Among the legends which have accrued to the history of the battle, the most prominent is that of Count Julian, who, in revenge for the rape of (or affair with) his daughter Florinda (the later Cava Rumía or Doña Cava) by Roderic while the youth was being raised at the palace school, supposedly lent Ṭāriq the necessary ships for launching an invasion.
Pedro del Corral (who in the fifteenth century invented "Floresinda", an authentic Gothic name) and Miguel de Luna (who in the sixteenth turned her into a meretrix).
