Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/287

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 265 the church of St. Peter, and after performing his devotions, offered his sword and dagger, his cuirass and mantle, his silver cross and his crown of gold, on the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervour was the illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the moment ; the sense of interest is strong and lasting ; the love of arms and rapine was congenial to the Lombards ; and both the prince and people were irresistibly tempted by the disorders of Italy, the nakedness of Rome, and the unwarlike profession of her new chief On the first edicts of the em- peror, they declared themselves the champions of the holy images ; Liutprand invaded the province of Romagna, which had already assumed that distinctive appellation ; the Catholics of the Exarchate yielded without reluctance to his civil and military power ; and a foreign enemy was introduced for the [a.d. tss?] first time into the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. That city and fortress were speedily recovered by the active diligence [ad. 740] and maritime forces of the Venetians ; and those faithful sub- jects obeyed the exhortation of Gregory himself, in separating the personal guilt of Leo from the general cause of the Roman empire.*-' The Greeks were less mindful of the service than the Lombards of the injury ; the two nations, hostile in their faith, were reconciled in a dangerous and unnatural alliance ; the king and the exarch marched to the conquest of Spoleto [a.d. 742] and Rome ; the storm evaporated without effect ; but the policy of Liutprand alarmed Italy with a vexatious alternative of hostility and truce. His successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the emperor and the pope ; Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery,'*^ and this final conquest ex- [a.d. 7501] tinguished the series of the exarchs, who had reigned with a subordinate power since the time of Justinian and the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was summoned to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her lawful sovereign ; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the ransom of each ^^The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus (Chron. Venet. p. 13) and the doge Andrew Dandolo (Scriptores Rer. Ital. torn. xii. p. 135), have preserved this epistle of Gregory. The loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus Diaconus (de Gest. Langobard. 1. vi. c. 49, 54, in Script. Ital. torn. i. pars i. p. 506, 508) ; but our chronologists, Pagi, Muratori, &c. cannot ascertain the date or circumstances. [Monticolo, Le spedizioni di Liutprando, ike, in the Arch. d. R. Soc. Rom. di storia patria (1892), p. 321 sqq. ; Hodgkin, op. cit. vi. note F. p. 505-8. The date of the recovery of Ravenna was probably A.D. 740, that of the capture a.d. 738 or 739 ; but Monticolo places both in A.D. 735.] '"The option will depend on the various readings of the Mss. of Anastasius — decepcrat, or decerpserat (Script. Ital. torn. iii. pars i. p. 167). [Decerpserat has no Ms. authority. See Lib. Pont. i. p. 444, ed. Duchesne.]