Silo of Asturias

Silo
18th-century illustration representing Silo of Asturias
King of Asturias
Reign	774–783
Predecessor	Aurelio
Successor	Mauregatus
Died	783 Pravia, Asturias
Burial	uncertain
Consort	Adosinda
Dynasty	Beni Alfons
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Silo (died 783) was the king of Asturias from 774 to 783, succeeding Aurelius. He came to the throne upon his marriage to Adosinda, daughter of Alfonso I ("Alfonso the Catholic"). He moved the capital of the Kingdom of Asturias from Cangas de Onís to Pravia, closer to the center of the kingdom. He was a contemporary of Abd al-Rahman I, Umayyad Emir of Córdoba, and of Charlemagne.

In Silo's time, monarchs were apparently elected by the nobility as in the earlier Visigothic Kingdom. Monarchs were chosen from among a small number of dynasties. Preference tended to go to the son of a king or, where that was not possible, to the husband of a king's daughter, as had happened in the case of Alfonso and of Silo himself, or, failing that, to another male of royal lineage thought capable of governing.

Nevertheless, there is academic controversy about the mode of succession: election after the Visigothic style, matrilineal succession according to indigenous practice, and hereditary in royal lineages. Each of these theories leads to a somewhat different account of Silo's accession to the throne.

According to the Chronicon Albeldense, Silo kept peace with the Muslims ob causam matris, "for his mother's sake". The meaning of this phrase has been debated by scholars. It could mean that his mother was a Muslim with some sort of connection to the Umayyad Emir Abd al-Rahman I, or that she was a hostage of Abd al-Rahman in Córdoba, or it could mean yet something else.

One could explain the inactivity of the Muslims with respect to the Kingdom of Asturias by the fact that Silo's reign coincided with the intervention of Charlemagne in Spain in 778. Charlemagne could not maintain the siege of Zaragoza and had to retire by way of Roncesvalles, suffering a great defeat there, and the subsequent campaign of Abd-al-Rahman I in 781 into the Ebro Valley in revenge against those who had been favorably disposed toward the French invasion.