RONAN
180
RONSARD
dobad succeeded. At Ra^•enna Gundobad appointed
the soUiier Glyeerius a^ emperor, but Leo, the Etistern
Roman Emperor, chose Julius Xepos, a relative of
Empress Verina, who had succeedeil his uncle Mar-
cellinus as Governor of Dalmatia. Nepos advanced
with the fleet to Ravenna and forced Glyeerius to
become Bishop of Salona. Leo's successor, Zeno
the Isaurian, wthdrew the fleet which Nepos had had,
and thus the latter was forced to depend upon his
own resources, while the turmoil in Rome and Gaul
constantly increased. Nepos appointed Orestes
"magister militum" and made him a patrician.
Orestes had been minister of Attila, after whose
death he had come to Rome. Nepos commissioned
Orestes to advance into Gaul to restore order with
the troops still available. Orestes however prevailed
upon the mercenaries to march against Ravenna in-
stead of going to Gaul. Nepos fled to Dalniatia while
Orestes entered Ravenna on 28 August, 475.
Orestes allowed two months to pass without ap- pointing a new emperor, and the troops growing im- jjatient proclaimed his son. On account of the boy's youth (he was only thirteen years old) he was called Augustulus, the little emperor. The administration was carried on cautiously and shrewdly by Orestes. He obtained the recognition of his son by the emperor of the Eastern Empire, made treaties for the protec- tion of Italv with the German princes in Africa, Gaul, and Spain," and thus gained a few years of peace for the country. However, the German warriors in his army, who had driven out the Emperor Nepos in the belief that they would receive grants of land, now demanded a third of the territory of Italy, according to the custom existing in the Roman army. When Orestes refused the troops mutinied under the leader- shij) of the Skyrian Odoacer. Orestes advanced against them, but was obliged to fall back on Pavia, which city was stormed by Odoacer; Orestes was taken prisoner and beheaded at Piacenza in 476. Odoacer was proclaimed king by his troops and inarched against Ravenna where Romulus waited in fear. Odoacer spared his life, gave him a year's income, and sent him wdth his relatives to Cape Miscnum opposite Baia. Odoacer now reigned as first King of Italy, while three deposed emperors •Iragged out inglorious an<l powerless Uves: Romulus .\ugu.stulus in jirivate life on his estate in Campania, (ilyccrius as Bisliop of Salona, and Julius Nepos as commander in Dalmatia. The Roman Empire of the West had ceased, and the conception of imperial power was henceforth exclusively connected with the person of the Eastern emperor.
NiT/.HfH, iJeulsrhe Gesch., I; VON Ranke, Weltgeschichte, IV; Pkeii>chipter, Theodorich der Grosse in Weltgesch. in KaratUerljMern (.Mainz, 1910).
Karl Hoeber.
Ronan, Saint. — There are twelve Irish saints bearing the name of Ronan commemorated in the "Martyrologj' of Donegal"; of these the most celfbrated are: St. Ronan of Ulster, brother of St. Carneeh, and grandson of Loarn, d. 11 January, 5:i5; St. Itonan, mn of Berach, a disciple of the great St. Eecliin of Fore. He became first Abbot of Drum- fihallon, and d. IH November, 665. St. Ronan Fionn is honoured as patron of Lan Ronan (Kelminiog) in Iveagh. His feast is celebrated on 22 May, both in Ireland and Scotland. St. Ronan of lona is explicitly refern;d to by St. Bede as one of the
ErotagoniHts of the Roman custom of celebrating laater an against the Irish tradition, and he had a warm controversy on the subject with his country- man St. Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, in 660. This controversy was ended at the Synod of Whitby, in 664, when St. Ronan's views were upheld. St. Rfjnan of Lisrnore was a distinguished successor of St. Carthage, and several .Munst<;r churches were built in his honour. His feaat is celebrated on 9
February, 763. Anoth(>r saint of this name is best
known by the ruined church of Kilronan, Co. Ros-
common, where Turlogh O'Carolan and Bishop
O'Rourke are buried.
Acta SS.; Colgan, Acta Sanct. Hib. (Louvain, 1645); Lanigan, Eccl. Hist, of Ireland (Dublin, 1S29); O'Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints (Dublin, s. d.).
W. H. Grattan-Flood.
Ronsard, Pierre de, French poet, b. 2 (or 11) Sept., 1524, at the Chateau de la Poissonniere, near Vendome; d. 27 Dec, 1585, at the priory of Saint- Cosme-en I'lsle, near Tours. He was first educated at home by a jirivate tutor, and at the age of nine was sent to the College of Navarre, in Paris. Hav- ing left the college before graduating he was ap- pointed page to the Duke of Orleans, son of Francis I, and soon afterwards to James V, King of Scotland. After a sojourn of three years in Scotland and Eng- land, during which he became thoroughly proficient in the English language, he travelled in Germany, Piedmont, and other countries. In 1541, being afflicted with an in- curable deafness, he retired from pub- lic life and for seven years devoted his entire time to study. He studied Greek under the famous scholar Dor at, at the College de Co- queret. His ambi- tion was to find new paths for French poetry, and he was soon recognized as the "Prince of Poets", a title he merited by his "Odes" (1550), "Amours de Cas- sandre", etc. He was a great favour- ite with Charles IX ; Elizabeth, Queen of England, sent him a diamond; Mary Stuart found relief in her imprisonment in reading his poems ; the City of Toulouse presented him with a .solid silver Minerva; and the literary men of that time acknowledged him as ihoir leader. His last ten years were saddened by ill-health. He re- tired to Croix-Val-en-Vciidoniois, in the forest of Gas- tine, and then to the i)riory of Saint-Cosme-en I'Lsle, where he died. The works of Ronsard are numerous and their chronology is very intricate. In twenty- four years (1560-84) six editions of his works were published, and the number of occasional pieces is almost incalculable. The following are the most im- portant: "Les Amours de Cassandre" (2 books of sonnets, Paris, 1.5.50), "Odes" (5 books, Paris, 1551- 1552), "Le bocage royal" (Paris, 1.554), "LesHymnes" (2 books, Paris, 1556), "Poemes" (2 books, Paris, 1.560-73), " Discours .sur les miseres du temps" (1560), "La Franciade" (Paris, 1572). His influence and his reforms were far-reaching. He enriched the French vocabulary with a multitude of words borrowed not only from Greek and Latin, but from the old romance dialects as well as from the technical languages of trades, sports, and sciences. His many rules con- cerning vense-making were as influential as numer- ous. He invented a larg(! variety of metres, adopted the regular intertwining of masculine and feminine rhymes, proscribed the hiatus, and introduced har- mony in French verse. He was perhaps the gr(>at- est French lyrical poet prior to the nineteenth (century. His themes are as varied as their forms. simi)I(! and sublime, ironical and tender, solemn and fairiiliar.
