Hermeric

Flavius Hermericus (in Latin, Flavius Hermericus; ?-441) was king of the Suevi between 409 and 438, the first sovereign of the kingdom that this Germanic people created in Hispania (present-day Iberian Peninsula), which lasted from 411 to 585.

Although he occupied the same area, his kingdom and the kingdom of Galicia are not related in any way, due to both temporal and cultural distance.

Biography

He led his people from the Rhine to Gallaecia, where, after subduing the population, he signed a foedus (411) with the Empire whereby his people settled in the province of Gallaecia, constituted as federated regnum of Rome under the government of a rex (king), Hermeric himself, who accepts the authority of the emperor as superior, also adopted the nomen Flavius (Flavio) as a sign of his submission and Romanization, being used by his successors. The western part of Gallaecia belonged to the Suevi, while the eastern part belonged to the Asdingo Vandals, led by their king Gunderic. Faced with both, Hermeric was defeated by the Vandals and the Alans in the battle of the Nervasos mountains, in the current province of León.However, with Roman help he managed to defeat these enemies and corner them in Baetica.

According to San Isidoro, he governed the fate of his people for 32 years (406-439), which from both the demographic and military point of view was of a smaller scale, its population can be estimated between 30,000 and 40,000 people. The establishment of the Suevi, according to Idacio writes, was made over a native population that retained the safest fortresses in their possession. In the year 430, the year following the departure of the Vandals from Hispania, Idacio records clashes in middle Gallaecia that force Hermérico to make peace, a peace that becomes a brief truce, a circumstance that forces Idacio to go to the Gauls in search of the protection of Aetius. Idacio returned to Gallaecia in the year 432 accompanied by Count Censorio, as a legacy of Aetius near the Suevi, managing to sign a foedus with the Suevi in 438. It was then that he associated his son Flavio Requila to the throne, since he was ill. He died in the year 441.