Flavius Paulus
Titling himself as 'king of the east' (rex orientalis), Paulus ruled from Narbonne and sought to break away from Visigothic central control.
Wamba spared him the legal punishment for his actions, excommunication and death, instead only subjecting him to ritual humiliation in a triumph in Toledo, the Visigothic capital, and keeping him imprisoned.
In the 580s, the dux Lusitaniae Claudius, explicitly identified as a Roman, aided the Visigothic king Reccared I (r. 586–601) in putting down a rebellion in Septimania.
[13] The Visigothic monarchy was formally and traditionally elective, though in practice it most often abided by primogeniture, with the sons of previous kings usually inheriting power.
[13] Wamba, an elderly man, became king of the Visigoths in 672, being elected after the death of Recceswinth (r. 649–672) on account of his great prestige in the kingdom.
[18] Since Wamba lacked connections to previous Visigothic royalty, he wished to solidify his position on the throne with a military success, and thus in the spring of 673 marched against the Basques, who often descended from their mountains to plunder the northern lands of the kingdom.
[22] Given that Hilderic did not control all of Septimania, and was thus not an immediate threat, Wamba and his advisors agreed that it was not necessary for them to halt their campaign against the Basques, but that the matter could be resolved by sending a smaller expeditionary force to deal with the uprising.
[27] At Narbonne, Paulus summoned the heads of his army and prominent locals and induced them to elect him as king, owing to Wamba's "tyranny".
It was important that he was crowned at Narbonne, since this city was the seat of an Archbishop, and thus in religious terms of equal status as the Visigothic capital Toledo.
If you have already traversed the harsh and uninhabitable cliffs of the mountains, if you have already broken deep into the forest by narrow passes, like the lion of mighty breast, if you have utterly defeated the goats at running, the deer at springing, and the bears and wild pigs in voracity, if you have already disgorged the venom of snakes and vipers, make this known to us, warrior, make this known to us, lord, friend of forests and crags.
For if all these have collapsed before you and you are now hastening towards us in order to repeat for us at length the song of the nightingale, and on that account, splendid man, your heart rises in self-assurance, then come down to Clausurae,[d] for there you will find a mighty champion with whom you may legitimately fight.
Wittimir managed to hold out against the royal forces for three hours until the walls were breached and then fought on ferociously despite the overwhelming numerical supriority of Wamba's army.
In surviving historical records of the siege, it is noteworthy that Paulus referred to Wamba and his army solely as 'Goths' and talks of them disparagingly, as if that label did not also apply to large components of his own forces.
[36] Though a majority of his leading supporters had Gothic names,[7] this suggests that perhaps his forces consisted of a larger number of Hispano-Romans and Gallo-Romans than otherwise thought.
Before Wamba even needed to launch an assault, the forces of Paulus began to distrust each other to betray the cause, and his Frankish, Gothic and Roman soldiers turned on each other, beginning to fight among themselves.
Paulus and his most prominent supporters were subjected to ritual humiliation, being forced to participate in Wamba's triumph in Toledo, wherein they were paraded through the streets.
The heads of the rebels were shaved and their beards were cut off, they were dressed in dirty robes and were forced to be barefoot, mounted on chariots drawn by camels.
[43] As Paulus had been the leader of the revolt, and had been proclaimed king, his head was adorned with a mock crown, either made of black leather[43] or the bones of herrings, depending on the account.
