Ammaia's role as horse station and key link in the road network declined as east–west trade plummeted. The Visigothic capital was in Toledo, on the river Tagus: this favoured river transport of goods to-and-from Santarem and Lisbon. Ammaia's decline in this period can be contrasted with the buoyant Visigothic development of Idanha-a-Velha on the north of the Tagus.