Hydatius
HYDATIUS
Bishop of Chaves? (Portugal) and historian; b. Lemica, c. 395; d. Galicia?, after 468. As a child he visited the Levant. He was a priest in 416, bishop in 427, and legate to Aetius in 431. He opposed the misrule of the Sueves and the heresies of manichaeism and priscillianism (441–447). Hydatius seems to have annotated and kept
up to date a list of consuls (Fasti ) from 509 b.c. to a.d. 468 at the same time that he continued the chronicle of jerome from 379 to 468. Dates in his chronicle are erratic, and signs and wonders become portentous; but he gives a valuable contemporary account of the barbarian invasions of Spain. After isidore of seville his work was neglected.
Bibliography: isidore of seville, Vir. illus., ch. 9. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi (Berlin 1826—) 9:197–247, 11:3–36. o. seeck, Paulys Realencyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. g. wissowa et al. (Stuttgart 1893—) 9.1 (1914) 40–43. c. torres rodrÍguez, "Hidacio, el primer cronista Español," Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, 62 (1956), 755–794. j. kraus, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 5:554. f. tollu, Catholicisme, 5:1170.
[e. p. colbert]