Theudimer

alt=Detail of a portal in Orihuela, Spain, probably showing duke Theudimer (Teodomiro de Orihuela). Detail of a portal in Orihuela, Spain, probably showing duke Theudimer (Teodomiro de Orihuela). Theodemir or Theudimer (died 743) was a Visigothic comes (count) prominent in the southeast of Carthaginensis (the region around Murcia ) during the last decades of the Visigothic kingdom and for several years after the Arab conquest. He ruled seven cities in southeastern Spain, mentioned in the Treaty of Orihuela that was preserved by the Andalusian historian Ibn Adarí in the thirteenth century: Orihuela, Valentila (possibly an equivalent for Valencia), Alicante, Mula, Bigastro, Eyya (probably Ojós), and Lorca.

Sometime probably during the joint reign of Egica and Wittiza, a Byzantine fleet raided the coasts of southern Iberia and was driven off by Theudimer. The dating of this event is disputed: it may have occurred as part of Leontios' expedition to relieve Carthage, under assault by the Arabs, in 697; perhaps later, around 702; or perhaps late in Wittiza's reign. What is almost universally accepted is that it was an isolated incident connected with other military activities (probably against the Arabs) and not an attempt to reestablish the province of Spania, lost in the 620s. As E. A. Thompson states, "We know nothing whatever of the context of this strange event." "The text of the treaty he signed has been preserved in at least three separate sources, including a fourteenth-century biographical dictionary, and is dated to 5 April 713 (4 Recheb 94 AH)."

Theudimer later travelled to Damascus to have his treaty confirmed by the Umayyad Caliph. However, it is unknown how long this treaty lasted in practice, whether it continued until Theudimer's death (which is recorded in the Chronicle of 754) or after, or was cut short before his death. His prominence in the region is testified by the number of later Gothic nobles in the same region who tried to claim descent from him.

In fiction In the historical novel Amaya o los vascos en el siglo VIII (1879), the characters mention Teodomiro "duke of Aurariola and Baetica, general prevost of the army" as one of those who successfully resist Islamic dominance along with Pelayo of Asturias and García Jiménez of Navarre.