the calamities of his unfortunate epoch, he relates with truthfulness the invasion of Galicia by the Sueves, and paints their methods of raiding the country with the most lively colours. But for him the Spaniards would to-day be in ignorance of many of the facts which later historians--St. Isidore, and Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, and others--have handed down, for they constantly copied word for word from the chronicles of Idatius. Until the year 1615, historians possessed only fragmentary editions of the chronicle, bearing the title _Chronographia ex Idatio collectore quodem Caroli Maequali_. But about that date a more complete and a more correct parchment copy was discovered in a monastery at Metz, and from this editions appeared in Rome, Paris, Leyden, Amsterdam, Frankfort, and other places. There is also his second chronicle, called _Cronicon pequeño de Idacio_, because it is practically an extract, or _résumé_, of the first. It begins twenty-six years later and terminates a hundred years later. In spite of its brevity, it contains several facts that are not included in the larger one, as, for instance, the conversion of Idatius above alluded to. Another document, _Fastos Consulares_ (from the year 45 B.C. to A.D. 468), has been called, by the Jesuit Sirmondo, _Idacianos_, though it bears no author’s name; but Florez has proved in his _España Sagrada_ that Idatius was not the author, and that it must have been penned by some Spaniard of the sixth century. “Truth to say,” concludes Dr. Macias, “Idatius can dispense with this new mark of literary fame. Great enough is the honour due to him as a writer for having traced, in the midst of such calamitous times, the first page of our mediæval history, a gloomy picture indeed, but one of rugged grandeur, in which his own venerable personality stands clearly forth, a glory to Galicia and an honour to the city of the Limicos.”