You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (March 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,644 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Claudius (duc)]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Claudius (duc)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Claudius was a Hispano-Roman Catholic dux (duke) of Lusitania (or dux Emeretensis civitatis)^[1] in the late sixth century. He was one of the most successful generals of Reccared I.^[2]

In 587, after a count named Witteric had exposed the plot of Sunna, the Arian bishop of Mérida, to place the Visigoth Segga on the throne and probably to also kill the Catholic Méridan bishop Masona, Claudius was sent to put down the revolt.^[3] Segga was captured, his hands cut off (the penalty for usurpers), and banished to Galicia. The less important conspirators were deprived of their property and offices and sent into exile, but one of the chief rebels, Vagrila, took refuge in the basilica of Saint Eulalia. Claudius was told, upon request, to give Vagrila, his family, and his possessions over to the church of Mérida, which he did. Masona, however, released Vagrila and his family and returned his property to him.

In 589, when the Frankish king Guntram sent an army under the general Boso into Septimania in support of a rebellion by the Arian archbishop Athaloc, Claudius was sent by King Reccared to defeat it. Near Carcassonne on the river Aude, Claudius surprised the Franks and routed them, killing 5,000 and capturing 2,000, as well as their camp. According to Isidore of Seville, nulla umquam in Hispaniis Gothorum uictoria uel maior in bello vel similis extitit^{[check spelling]}:^[4] "No victory of the Goths in Spain was ever greater or even equal to it."^[5] The chronicler John of Biclarum, with even more excitement, exaggerated his figures to make Claudius, the next Gideon, defeat 60,000 Franks (the evil Midianites in the biblical metaphor) with merely 300 men.^[6]

• Thompson, E. A. The Goths in Spain. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. ISBN 0-19-814271-4
• Collins, Roger. Visigothic Spain, 409–711. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-631-18185-7
• Collins, Roger. "King Leovigild and the Conversion of the Visigoths." Law, Regionalism and Culture in Early Medieval Spain. Variorum, 1992. ISBN 0-86078-308-1
• Fontaine, Jacques. "King Sisebut's Vita Desiderii and the Political Function of Visigothic Hagiography." Visigothic Spain. ed. Edward James. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-19-822543-1