Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/63

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 43 were consecrated to repair the losses of" St. Peter ; and his sanctuarj' was decorated with a plate of gold the weight of two hundred and sixteen pounds ; embossed with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a string of pearls. Yet this vain magnificence reflects less glory on the character of Leo than the paternal care with which he rebuilt the walls of Horta and Ameria ; and transported the wandering inhabit- ants of Centumcellae to his new foundation of Leopolis, twelve miles from the seashore. i°" By his liberality a colony of Corsicans, with their wives and children, was planted in the station of Porto at the mouth of the Tiber ; the falling city was [Rebuilding of restored for their use, the fields and vineyards were divided among the new settlers ; their first efforts were assisted by a gift of horses and cattle ; and the hardy exiles, who breathed revenge against the Saracens, swore to live and die under the standard of St. Peter. The nations of the West and North, who visited the threshold of the apostles, had gradually formed the large and populous suburb of the Vatican, and their various habitations were distinguished, in the language of the times, as the xchoula of the Greeks and Goths, of the Lombards and Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to sacrilegious insult ; the design of inclosing it with walls and towers exhausted all that authority could command or charity would supply ; and the pious labour of four years was animated in every season, and at every hour, by the presence of the inde- fatigable pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but worldly passion, may be detected in the name of the Leonine cili/, which Foundation ot he bestowed on the Vatican ; yet the pride of the dedication city. "ad. was tempered with Christian penance and humility. The boundary was trod by the bishop and his clergy, barefoot, in sackcloth and ashes ; the songs of triumph were modulated to psalms and litanies ; the walls were besprinkled with holy water ; and the ceremony was concluded with a prayer that, under the guardian care of the apostles and the angelic host, lO^Beretti (Chorog^aphia Italias Medii j¥lvi, p. io6, io8) has illustrated Cen- tumcellae, Leopolis, Ciyitas Leonina, and the other places of the Roman duchy. [Leopolis never flourished. For the walls of the Leonine city see Gregorovius, op. cit., p. gj sqq. The fortification of the Vatican had been already designed and begun by Pope Leo IH. " The line of Leo the Fourth's walls, built almost in the form of a horseshoe, is still in part preserved, and may be traced in the Borgo near the passage of Alexander the Sixth, near the Mint or the papal garden as far as the thick corner tower, also in the line of the Porta Pertusa, and at the point where the walls form a bend between another corner tower and the Porta Fabrica." Gre- gororius, ib., p. 98.]