168 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
occurred in 77g vath,° i.e. ‘in royal land,” an expression which, in its 
context, appears to point to some portion of the imperial territory, the 
Cesar being usually designated in Irish compositions of this class 17 
domain, or King of the World. Roman territory at and on this side of 
the Alps, in Dathi’s period, with the exception possibly of a narrow 
line of communication, accessible only by permission of the garrison of 
Lyons, and not likely to have been essayed by such invaders, can 
hardly be said to have existed anywhere from the Mediterranean to 
the valley of the Upper Rhine. Though the consul Atius still held 
the central and northern parts of Gaul, the Goths at that time, with 
Toulouse for their capital, occupied Narbonne.® The Burgundians 
had extended their kingdom from Dijon to Geneva and the western 
parts of Switzerland.’ The central plain of Switzerland was overrun 
as far as Lake Leman by the Alemanni.* Helvetia had just undergone 
the second of its ‘‘ruinae” or desolations,® and possessed nothing to 
tempt the cupidity of an invader. Its chief attraction indeed at this 
time was for Christian hermits and recluses. The passion for ascetic 
seclusion was then at its height in southern Kurope. A colony of monks, 
observing the rule of the Egyptian desert, had been led to the islands of 
Lerins," off the Ligurian coast, between Toulon and Nice, where our 
own Patrick is supposed just about this time to have spent some years 
in probationary discipline.’ From that extremity of the maritime Alps 
5 see post, p. 1738. 
8 Recueil des Hist. de France, vol. i., p. 11. 
7 a.p. 406. 8vo Honorii. Hoc anno Burgundi et Neucthones, Germanie populi, 
facta in Galliam irruptione, Helvetiam occiduam ab Ursa flumine, Genevam 
usque, cum provincia Sequana occupant (Suicert Chron. Helvet. apud Thes. Hist. 
Helvet, p. 11). 
The Province Maxima Sequanorum included Besancon west of the Jura, and 
Neuchatel, Avenne, Basle, Windish, Yverdun, and a port presumably on Lake 
Constance (Burchard Notitia, apud Rad. de Diceto M. R. edn., vol.i., p. 6). Iam 
unacquainted with Suicher’s authority for Geneva. 
8 They had been allowed to settle in the country east of the Jura by Theodosius 
(Vales. 1. v., p. 237), and in a.p. 411, when Servius completed his Commentary on 
Virgil, were settled about Lake Leman (Sery. in 4th Georgic). 
9 The first ‘‘desolation’’ had been in a.p. 300: some only of the restorations 
had been effected before the second :—‘‘ Allemanni irruptione facta, urbes Helvetize 
diruunt. Victi tamen a Constantino Chloro ad Vindonissam pedem referunt. 
Restaurantur urbes Helvetie ; Forum Tiberii per Certum; Constantia per Con- 
stantinum, Virodurum per Aurelium Proculum et Tigurium per Decium urbis 
praefectum sub quo Felix et Regula Martyrium passi sunt Tiguri (Swicert Chron., 
ibid. p. 11). 
no ene Eccles. Hist. ad init. quinti sec. 
11 The islands resorted to by Patrick, and called in his lives by the various 
names Alanenses, Aralenenses, and Tamerenses, which Mac Firbis, apparently 
founding on old Latin authority, puts ‘‘in Australi parte Gallorum, iuxta Mare 
Terrenum’’ (Hy-Kiachrach, 414), are considered with much probability to be 
these Insule Lerinenses (Todd’s St. Patrick, p. 336, .). The kind of life 
led there may be collected from the epistle of Kucherius to Honoratus (Dupin, 
Eccl. Writers, 5th Century, London ed., p. 117). He describes Lerins as a sweet 
place, full of fountains, overspread with herbs, abounding with most pleasant 
