178 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
On this occasion Proclus, the bishop, preached a sermon in the church 
which was greatly admired, in which he applied a prophecy out of 
Ezekiel [xxxvill. 2, 22, 23] to the deliverance which had been 
effected by God in the late emergency. This is the language of the 
prophecy : ‘And thou Son of Man, prophesy against Gog, the Prince 
of Rhos, Misoch, and Thobel,’”’ &c.*° 
Proclus did not attain the episcopal rank till 426,” so that the 
event described may be set down as not being earlier than that date. 
Theodoret begins his history at a.p. 322, and ends at 428, and he re- 
lates the same occurrence,* like Socrates, without specific date. The 
event, therefore, cannot have been earlier than 426, or later than 428, 
and is thus brought within identically the same chronological limits in 
Byzantine as in Irish history. Theodoret, who wrote in Asia Minor, 
at a greater distance from the scene of the event than Socrates, de- 
scribes the invaders (1. v., c. xxxvu.) as Nomad Scythians, who had 
crossed the Danube under the leadership of Roilas, who, he agrees, 
was slain by a thunderbolt, vouchsafed to the prayers of Theodosius 
on that occasion, and lays the scene of the event in Thrace. The 
same story, varying the name of the leader as Roas, Roilas, and 
Rugilas, is told by the later ecclesiastical writers Nicephorus and 
Epiphanius Scholasticus, all apparently grounding on the original 
narrative of Socrates. 
It appears in the highest degree improbable that two leaders of 
two barbarian incursions over the Roman frontier should both have 
met their deaths at or about the same time in a manner so exceptional; 
and probably the conclusion of most minds will be that, whether it be 
the disaster of the Hun applied to the Scot by Irish, or that of the 
Scot applied to the Hun by the Byzantine chroniclers—whether the 
thunderbolt was accorded to the prayers of the Byzantine emperor or 
of the Alpine hermit—the event in both sets of annals is one and the 
same. In any case, it cannot be denied that the concurrence of his- 
toric notices so respectable adds materially to the interest of the Irish 
story, and requires for it a more serious attention than probably it 
ever would have received if standing only on Irish bardic authority. 
Circumstantiality of detail, in a narrative of respectable antiquity, 
is certainly presumptive of genuineness; and it is remarkable that the 
item in the Byzantine account which may best claim the credit of cir- 
cumstantiality, the mention of the leader’s name, is that which, in the 
estimation of critics, has chiefly brought the entire statement ito 
question ; for Rougas, Roas, Roilas, or Rugilas, a noted leader of 
the Huns, and uncle of Attila, certainly did not perish on the occasion 
in question, but lived to dictate terms of peace to the Romans, at a 
later stage of the war, and is recorded in the annals of Prosper, a co- 
36 Socrates, Heel. Hist., 1. vil. c. 43. 
37 Socrates, Hecl. Hist., L. yiil., c. 43. 
88 Theodoret, 1. v. c. 137. 
39 Gibbon, ¢. 34. 
