Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/200

 ROME

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ROME

in taking the city, and sacked it. It is false, however, that the destruction of Rome began then. Under Alarie, as in the Gothic war of the sixth century, onlv so much was destroyed as mihtary exigencies rendered inevitable. The inter\ention of St. Leo the Great saved the Eternal City from the fury of Attila, but could not prevent the Vandals, in 456, from sacking it without mercy for fifteen days: statues, gold, silver, bronze, brass — whether the property of the State, or of the Church, or of private per.sons — were taken and shipped to Cartilage.

Rome still called itself the capital of the empire, but since the second century it had seen the emperors only at rare and fleeting moments; even the kings of Italy preferred Ravenna as a residence. Theodoric, nevertheless, made provision for the outward mag- nificence of the city, preserving its monuments so far as was possiljle. Pope St. Agapetus and the learned Cassiodorus entertained the idea of creating at Rome a school of advanced Scripture studies, on the model of that which flourished at Edessa, but the Gothic invasion made shipwreck of this design. In that Titanic war Rome stood five sieges. ^ In 53G Belisarius took it without striking a blow. Next year Vitiges besieged it, cutting the aqueducts, plundering the outlying villas, and even penetrating into the catacombs;" the city would have been taken, had not the garrison of Hadrian's tomb defended themselves with fragments of the statues of heroes and gods which they found in that monument. Soon after the departure of Pope VigiUus from Rome (November, 54.5), King Totila invested it and cap- tured a fleet bearing supplies sent by Vigilius, who by that time had passed over to Sicily. In December, 54G, the city was captured, through the treachery of the Isaurian soldierj^ and once more sacked. Totila, obliged to set out for the south, forced the whole population of Rome to leave the city, so that it was left uninhabited; but they returned with BeUsarius in .547. Two years later, another Isaurian treachery made Totila once more master of the city, which then for the last time saw the games of the circus. After the battle of Taginjc (552), Rome opened its gates to Nar.ses and became Byzantine. The ancient Senate and the Roman nobility were extinct. There was a breathing-space of sixteen years, and then the Lombards drew near to Rome, pillaging and de- stroying the neighbouring regions. St. Gregory the Great has described the lamentable condition of the city; the same saint did his best to remedy matters. The seventh century was disastrously marked by a violent assault on the Lateran made by Mauricius, the chartularius of the Exarch of Ravenna (640), by the exile of Pope St. Martin (653), and by the visit of the Emperor Constans I (663). The imprisonment of St. SrTgius, which had been ordered by Justinian II, was prevented by the native troops of the Ex- archate.

In the eighth century the Ix)mbards, with Liut- prand, were seized with the old idea of occupying all Italy, and Rome in particular. The popes, from Gregor>' II on, saved the city and Italy from Lom- bard domination by the power of their threats, until they were finally rescued by the aid of Pepin, when R/jrne and the peninsula came under Prankish domination. Provision wafi made for the material well-being of the city by repairs on the wails and the ac^iueducts, and by the establishment of agricultural Cf)loni(« idomuH cuUo') for the cultivation of the wide domains surrounding the city. But in Rome itself there v/ere various Tactions — favouring either the Franks or the Ixjmbards, or, later on. Prankish or Nationalist — and these fac-tions often caused tumults, an, in particular, on the death of Paul I (767) and at the beginning of Ix-o Ill's pontificate (795). With the coronation of Charlfrriugne (799) Rome became finally detached from the Empire of the East. Though

the pope was master of Rome, the power of the Sword was wielded by the imperial missi, and this arrange- ment came to be more clearly defined by the Constitu- tion of Lothair (824). Thus the government was divided. In the ninth century the pope had to defend Rome and Central Italy against the Saracens. Gregoriopolis, the Leonine City, placed outside the walls for the defence of the Basilica of St. Peter, and sacked in 846, and Joannipolis, for the defence of St. Paul's, were built by Gregory I\', Leo IV, and John Vlll. The latter two and John X also gained splendid victories over these barbarians.

The decline of the Carlovingian dynasty was not without its eff"ect upon the papacy and upon Rome, which became a mere lordship of the great feudal families, especially those of Theodora and Marozia. When Hugh of Provence wished to marrj^ Marozia, so as to become master of Rome, his son Alberic rebelled against him, and was elected their chief by the Romans, with the title of Patrician {Palricius) and Consul. The temporal power of the pope might then have come to an end, had not John, Alberic's son, reunited the two powers. But John's life and his conduct of the government necessitated the inter- vention of the Emperor Otto I (963), who instituted the office of pripfeclus nrbis, to represent the imperial authority. (This office became hereditary in the Vico family.) Order did not reign for long: Crescentius, leader of the anti-papal part}', deposed and murdered popes. It was only for a few brief intervals that Otto II (980) and Otto III (996-998-1002) were able to re-establish the imperial and pontifical authority. At the beginning of the eleventh century three pojies of the family of the counts of Tusculum immediately succeeded each other, and the last of the three, Bene- dict IX, led a life so scandalous as made it necessary for Henry III to intervene (1046). The schism of Honorius II and the struggle between Gregory VII and Henry IV exasperated party passions at Rome, and con.spicuous in the struggle was another Crescen- tius, a member of the Imperialist Party. Robert Guiscard, called to the rescue by Gregory VII, sacked the city and burned a great part of it, with immense destruction of monuments and documents. The struggle was revived under Henr>' V, and Rome was repeatedly besieged by the imj)erial troops.

Then followed the schism of Pier Leone (Anacletus II), which had hardly been ended, in 1143, when Girolamo di Pierlcone, counselled by Arnold of Brescia, made Rome into a republic, modelled after the Lombard communes, under the rule of fiftj'-six senators. In vain did Lucius II attack the Capitol, attempting to drive out the usurpers. The commune was in opposition no less to the imperial than to the papal authority. At first the popes thought to lean on the emperors, and thus Adrian IV induced Barba- rossa to burn Arnold alive (11.55). Still, just as in the preceding centurj-, every coronation of an emperor was accoiiipaiiicd by (luiirrcls and fights between the Romans and the inijx'rial soldiery. In 1188 a 77iodus vircndi was establish<'d between the commune and Clement III, the people n-cognizing the pope's sovereignty and conceding to him the right of coinage, the senators and military cai)tain8 being obliged to swear fealty to him. But the friction did not ceiise. Innocent 111 (1203) was obliged to flee from Rome, but, on the other hand, the friendly disposition of the mercantile niidflle class facilitated his return and secured to him some influence in the affairs of the communes, in which he obtained the appointment of a chief of the Senate, known as "the senator" (1207). The Senate, therefore, was reduced to the status of the Communal Council of Rome; the senator was the syndic, or mayor, and remained so until 1870. In the conflicts between the popes, on the one hand, and, on the other, Frederick II and his heirs, the Senate waa mostly Imperialist, cherishing some sort of