Isidore, a man of great distinction, bishop of the church of Seville, successor and brother of bishop Leander, flourished from the time of Emperor Maurice and King Reccared. In him antiquity reasserted itself—or rather, our time laid in him a picture of the wisdom of antiquity: a man practiced in every form of speech, he adapted himself in the quality of his words to the ignorant and the learned, and was distinguished for unequalled eloquence when there was fit opportunity.[23] Furthermore, the intelligent reader will be able to understand easily from his diversified studies and the works he has completed, how great was his wisdom.... God raised him up in recent times after the many reverses of Spain (I suppose to revive the works of the ancients that we might not always grow duller from boorish rusticity), and set him as a sort of support. And with good right do we apply to him the famous words of the philosopher:[24] “While we were strangers in our own city, and were, so to speak, sojourners who had lost our way, your books brought us home, as it were, so that we could at last recognize who and where we were. You have discussed the antiquity of our fatherland, the orderly arrangement of chronology, the laws of sacrifices and of priests, the discipline of the home and the state, the situation of regions and places, the names, kinds, functions and causes of all things human and divine.” [23] The reference in this passage is undoubtedly to the difference between the colloquial Latin and that of the scholar. The same consideration may perhaps explain the decidedly peculiar comment of Ildephonsus on Isidore as a public speaker: “Nam tantae jucunditatis affluentem copiam in eloquendo promeruit, ut ubertas admiranda dicendi ex eo in stuporem verteret audientes, ex quo audita bis, qui audisset non nisi repetita saepius commendaret.” Migne, _P. L._ 82, col. 68. [24] This passage is found in Cicero, _Academica Posteriora_ 1, 3, and is addressed to Varro. From this characterization, as well as from the very brief life by another contemporary, Bishop Ildephonsus of Toledo, it is evident that Isidore impressed his own age chiefly as a writer and man of learning. Both Braulio and Ildephonsus give lists of his works. That of the former, who was Isidore’s pupil and correspondent, is the fuller, and may be regarded as the more reliable. With its running comment on the content of each title, it is as follows: