Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/284

 262 THE DECLINE AND FALL horrence of the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the Roman pontiff' convened a synod of ninety- three bishops against the heresy of the Iconoclasts. With their consent he pronounced a general excommunication against all who by word or deed should attack the tradition of the fathers and the images of the saints ; in this sentence the emperor was tacitly involved ; ^^ but the vote of a last and hopeless remon- strance may seem to imply that the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and the freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have relaxed of their severity and to have spared the relics of the Byzantine dominion. Their moderate counsels delayed and prevented the election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians not to separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch was permit- ted to reside within the walls of Ravenna, a captive rather than a master ; and, till the Imperial coronation of Charlemagne, the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the successors of Constantine.^^ tome'"'' °' The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By the Caesars, the triumphs of the consuls had been annihi- lated : in the decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the sacred boundary, had insensibly receded fi-om the ocean, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her ancient territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth of the Tiber. ^- When the kings were banished, the republic reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their wisdom and virtue. Their perpetual juris- •^ Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis . . . imaginum sacrarum . . . destructor . . . extiterit sit extorris a corpore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesise unitate. The canonists may decide whether the guilt oi the name con- stitutes the excommunication ; and the decision is of the last importance to their safety, since, according to the oracle (Gratian Caus. xxiii. q. 5, c. 47, apud Span- heim, Hist. Imag. p. 112), homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant. ■*! Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans conversionem principis (Anastas. p. 156). Sed ne desisterent ab amore et tide R. J. admonebat (p. 157). The popes style Leo and Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the strange epithet of Fiissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran (a.d. 798) represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and the banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali d'ltalia, tom. vi. p. 337). ■^2 1 have traced the Roman duchy according to the maps, and the maps accord- ing to the excellent dissertation of father Berelti (de Chorographia Italias Medii /Evi, sect. x.x. p. 216-232). Yet I must nicely observe that Viterbo is of Lombard foundation (p. 211), and that Terracina was usurped by the Greeks.