Hermeric

Who was Hermeric?

Hermeric was the Suevic King of Galicia from perhaps as early as 406 and certainly no later than 419 until his retirement in 438. He was a pagan and an enemy of the Roman Empire throughout his life. He is given a reign of thirty two years in most manuscripts of Isidore of Seville's Historia Suevorum, but fourteen years in one manuscript.

Hermeric led the Suevi across the frozen Rhine along with the Vandals and Alans in December 406. They crossed Gaul and the Pyrenees and settled in the Hispania. While Theodore Mommsen believed the Suevi were foederati and Ernst Stein seconded the notion by believing they had made an agreement with the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus whereby they received the western half of Iberia, there is no primary evidence for any alliance between the Suevi and Rome. In 411 or 417, Hermeric made a treaty with the Roman emperor Honorius, but in fact the only event of note in 411 was the division of Iberia sorte between the barbarian peoples. The east of the province of Gallaecia with its capital of Braga fell to the Suevi, while the west of the province went to the populous Hasdingi.