Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/190

 170 THE DECLINE AND FALL world, attd too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The city of Bari rose to dignity and wealthy as the iS^blrdia] metropolis of the new theme or province of Lombardy ; the title of patrician, and afterwards the singular name oi Calapan,^ was assigned to the supreme governor ; and the policy both of the church and state was modelled in exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople. As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy, their efforts were feeble and adverse ; and the Greeks resisted or eluded the forces of Ger- many, which descended from the Alps under the Imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of Bari : the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and barons, escaped Defeat of with houour froui the bloody field of Crotona. On that day i'D°^[^]' the scale of war v,as turned against the Franks by the valour of the Saracens.^ These corsairs had indeed been driven by the Capuano et Beneventano, ser-is meis, quos oppugnare dispono. . . Nova (potius noiu) res est quod eorum patres et avi nostro Imperio iributa dederunt (Liutprand, in Legat. p. 484). Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script. Rer. Ital. torn. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this change in the style of the anonymous chronicle. On the rational ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria. [The revival of East-Roman influence in Southern Italy in the last 3'ears of the ninth century is illustrated by the fact that an Imperial officer (of the rank of protospathar) resided at the court of the Dukes of Beneventum from A.D. S91. The allegiance of Naples, Amalfi, and Gaeta was indeed little more than nominal. For the history of (iaeta the chief source is the Code.x Caietanus, published in the Tabularium Casinense (189c, 1892).] "See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange (KaTcTriiu), catapanus), and his notes on the Ale.xias (p. 275). Against the contemporary notion, which derives it from Ka-d Trii-^ juxta omne, he treats it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc has accurately observed (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924) that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy. [The Theme of Italy extended from the Ofanto in the north and the Bradano in the west to the southern point of ApuHa, and in- cluded the south of Calabria (the old Bruttii). It must not be confounded with the Capitanata. It was probably about the year 1000 thjjt the governors of the Theme of Italy conquered the land on the north side of their province, between the Ofanto and Fortore (see Heinemann. Gesch. der Normannen in Unter-Italien und Sicilien, i. p. 20). From the title of the governors, Katepano, this conquest was called the Catepanata, and this became (through the inlluence of popular etymolog)') Capitanata.] Oil fioi'or Sia TTokinmv aKpi^u)^ eicreray/xercoi' rb TOioi'TOi- i/n-ijyaye to eSros (the Lom- bards), aXAd Kai ayivoCici'0S Kal StKoiocrui'Tj xal xpijOTTOTrjTi, €Tri«iicio« re TOi? TTpoa^pXOtJ.ii'Oi? ~poo"(/i6p6fit:i'09, Kal TTji' eAeu^ept'aj' aoroL^ rrdar}^ re 5ouAetas Ka'i T'MV dAAwi' (JopoAoytMi' x'lpi^o'if ''OS (Leon. Tactic, c. xv. p. 741). The little Chronicle of Bene- ventum (tom. ii. pars i. p. 280) gives a far different character of the Greeks during the five years (a.u. 891-896) that Leo was master of the city. [For good accounts of the expedition and defeat of Otto II. see Giesebrecht, Gesch. der deutschen Kaiserzeit, i. p. 595 st^i/., and Schlumberger, L"(pop6e byzantine, p. 502 s^^. The battle was fought in July 982, near Stilo, south of Croton.]