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590-605] boundary, at all events, was secured, and the Lombards were only threatened from one side, by the imperials. But Authari did not live to see the definite treaty of peace; he is said to have been poisoned and died (5 Sept. 590). The result of his active life was the establishment of a kingdom and the Lombard State, though many difficulties still awaited the Lombards from within and without.

Two months after Authari's death, Agilulf, duke of Turin, obtained the crown and married his predecessor's widow, Theodelinda. In May 591 an assembly of Lombards at Milan acknowledged him solemnly, but a number of North Italian dukes had then to be subdued in repeated battles; also Piacenza and Parma were again subjected, and in the latter town the king's son-in-law was established as duke, as the king generally claimed the right to nominate the dukes himself. He ensured the northern boundary by an agreement with the Avars which became a defensive and offensive alliance later on. The time had now come for a systematic attack on the imperialists. The newly nominated duke of Benevento, Arichis, who had consolidated his duchy by gaining nearly all the territories in South Italy with the exception of a few towns on the coast, had the especial task of marching against Naples and threatening Rome from the south, while Ariulf of Spoleto had already destroyed the land communication between Rome and Ravenna in April 592, and even appeared before Rome in the summer, afterwards turning to the north and taking the castles on the upper Tiber. To be sure, the exarch succeeded in regaining them during the time he was free of Agilulf; but in 593 the king himself advanced southward, occupied Perusia, and appeared before Rome. The siege ended in a treaty with Pope Gregory who only wished for peace, but it was not acknowledged by the exarch after the king had marched off; the war did not cease, and the Lombards made constant progress. It was only after the Exarch Romanus' death (596) that, by the pope's urging, the transactions were renewed seriously; it is true that the new exarch, Callinicus, carried on the war in North Italy, but he concluded an armistice of a year in autumn 598 on the basis of the status quo and engaged himself to pay 500 pounds in gold to the Lombard king. The armistice was renewed for the time from spring 600-601 but, when the war was taken up again, the exarch succeeded in making prisoners of the duke of Parma and his wife, Agilulf's daughter; but the Lombard king took Padua, devastated Istria with Slav and Avar troops, conquered the fortified town of Monselice, enforced peace on the rebellious dukes of Friuli and Tridentum, and occupied in 603 Cremona and Mantua. The central position of the imperialists at Ravenna appeared to be endangered after the subjugation of all the north of Italy, and the Exarch Smaragdus, who was again sent to Italy after the fall of the Emperor Maurice, hastily concluded a new armistice till 605, and surrendered the king's daughter. Then Agilulf crossed the Apennines