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 for orthodoxy (Greg. Tur. iv. 27; Venant. Fort. vi. 2, 3, Migne, Patr. Lat. lxxxviii. 204–209. For the character and accomplishments of this queen, who in later life became almost supreme in France, see also Fauriel, ii. 166 sqq.). The remainder of the reign was taken up with miserable civil wars between the brothers, in which Chilperic strove to capture parts of Sigebert's dominion; Tours and Poictiers, with their respective districts, being his principal object of attack. Two years running (A.D. 574–575) his armies overran those districts (Greg. Tur. iv. 46, 48). On the second occasion Gregory, after depicting the churches burnt and plundered, clergy killed, monasteries in ruins, and nuns outraged, uses these memorable words: "fuitque illo in tempore pejor in ecclesiis gemitus quam tempore persecutionis Diocletiani" (iv. 48. See too his outburst of indignation in c. 49). Sigebert recruited his forces with pagan Germans from beyond the Rhine (iv. 50, 51), and finally in 575, with the assistance of Guntram, carried his arms to Paris and Rouen, and while Chilperic was shut up in Tournay, was raised by his subjects on the shield and declared king in his place. At that very moment, however, he was struck down by assassins, probably emissaries of Fredegund (Greg. Tur. iv. 52; Marius Avent. Chronicon.; Venant. Fort. Miscell. ix. 2, Migne, u.s. 298 sqq.). He left a son of five years, Childebert II.

Sigebert was much the best of the sons of Clotaire. In happier circumstances he might have been a humane and enlightened king, but his misfortune was to reign at perhaps the darkest period of French history. His clemency towards Chilperic's son Theodebert, who had invaded his territory (Greg. Tur. iv. 23), his motives in seeking Brunichild's hand in marriage, as described by Gregory (iv. 27), and his intrepid attempts to restrain his barbarian trans-Rhenish allies from plundering (iv. 30), throw light upon his character. He was true to the orthodoxy of his race (iv. 27), and recalled St. Nicetius of Trèves from exile and appointed Gregory to Tours.

[S.A.B.]

Sigismundus, St., martyr, 5th king of the Burgundians (516–524), brought up under the influence of Avitus, the orthodox archbp. of Vienne, who succeeded in winning him, with two of his children, from the Arianism of his nation and family (Avitus, Epp. 27, 29, Migne, Patr. Lat. lix. 243, 246; Agobardus, adv. Leg. Gund. xiii. Patr. Lat. civ. 124), and sought to lead his inclinations towards the Roman empire (see Mascou, Annotation ii., where the passages are collected, and Fauriel, Hist. de la Gaule Mérid. ii. 100). He married Ostrogotha, the daughter of Theodoric the Ostrogothic king of Italy (Jornandes in Bouquet, ii. 28). While his father was still living, Sigismund was invested with regal dignity and held his court at Geneva (Avit. Epp. 29, 30; Greg. Tur. Epitom. xxxiv.). In 515 he founded or (Hist. litt. de la France, iii. 89, 91) refounded the monastery of St. Maurice at Agaunum, where tradition placed the martyrdom of the Legio Thebaea (Marius Avent. Chronicon, Patr. Lat. lxxii. 796). In 516 he succeeded his father (Marius, ib.), and in 517 convened a council, under the presidency of Avitus, at Epaunum (supposed to be the present Iene on the Rhone; "Epaon," D. C. A.; Hist. litt. iii. 9). If the extent of his dominion may be inferred from the sees of the bishops present, Burgundy then included, besides the later duchy and county, Dauphiny and Savoy, the city and dominion of Lyons and the Valais, besides a part of the present Switzerland (Mascou, xi. 10, 31). In 523 Clodomir, Clotaire, and Childebert, three of the four sons of Clovis, stirred up by their mother the widowed Clotilda, invaded Burgundy. Sigismund was defeated and fled to St. Maurice, where he was betrayed by his own subjects to Clodomir and carried prisoner in the garb of a monk to Orleans. Shortly afterwards, with his wife and two children, he was murdered at the neighbouring village of Coulmiers, by being cast alive, as was said, into a well (Marius, ib.; Greg. Tur. iii. 6). His brother, Godemar, succeeded him as 6th and last king of the Burgundians.

Sigismund was well-intentioned but weak. He apparently yielded too much to the influence of Roman ideas and habits for the king of a barbarian people, neighboured on one side by the powerful Ostrogothic monarchy and on others by the fiercely aggressive Franks. His partisanship for the orthodox faith, while it harmed him with his subjects, was not thorough-going enough to win the clergy from their leaning towards the Franks (see Fauriel, ii. 100 sqq.).

[S.A.B.]

Silvania. [.]

Silvanus (2), bp. of Gaza, a martyr in the persecution of Maximin, c. 305. He was a presbyter at its outbreak, and from the very beginning he endured many varied sufferings with the greatest fortitude. Not long before his martyrdom, which was one of the last in Palestine, he obtained the episcopate. Eusebius speaks with high admiration of his Christian endurance, saying that he was "reserved to the last to set the seal, as it were, to the conflict in Palestine" (Eus. H. E. viii. 7, 13). He was decapitated, according to the Roman martyrology, on May 4., 308. Theoph. p. 9; Le Quien, ''Or. Christ.'' iii. 605.

[E.V.]

Silvanus (3), bp. of Emesa. In extreme old age, after 40 years' episcopate, he was thrown to the wild beasts in Diocletian's persecution. Eus. H. E. viii. 13; ix. 6; Theophan. p. 9; Le Quien, ''Or. Christ.'' ii. 837.

[E.V.]

Silvanus (4), bp. of Cirta, subdeacon under Paulus, bp. of that see during the persecution under Diocletian, and, as well as he, guilty of "tradition." These facts were elicited at the inquiry under Zenophilus, 320, at which it was proved, by ample evidence, that Silvanus was guilty of this charge, and also that with others he had appropriated plate and ornaments from the heathen temple of Serapis; and after he became a bishop received as a bribe for ordaining Victor, a fuller, to be a presbyter, money which ought to have been given to the poor. After the inquiry he was banished for refusing to communicate with Ursacius and Zenophilus, at the time of the mission of Macarius, 348. Aug. Petil. i. 23, iii. 69, 70; ''de Gest. Emer. 5; c. Cresc.'' iii. 32, 33, 34, iv. 66; de Unico Bapt. 30. 31; Aug. Ep. 53. 4; ''Mon. Vet. D.'' pp. 178, 180, 182, ed. Oberthür; pp. 167–171 ed. Dupin.

[H.W.P.]

Silvanus (6), bp. of Tarsus and metropolitan,