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Rh induced the Venetians to make an act of submission—though not upon oath. The terms of this pact resulted in the first diploma conferred on Venice as a separate community (584). But it was inevitable that, when the barbarians, Lombard or Frank, were once established on the mainland of Italy, Venice should be brought first into trading and then into political relations with their near neighbours, who as masters of Italy also put forward a claim to sovereignty in the lagoons. It is between the two claims of east and west that Venice struggled for and achieved recognized independence.

Turning to the other problem, that of internal fusion and consolidation, we find that in 466, fourteen years after the fall of Aquileia, the population of the twelve lagoon townships met at Grado for the election of one tribune from each island for the better government of the separate communities, and above all to put an end to rivalries which had already begun to play a disintegrating part. But when the lagoon population was largely augmented in 568 as the result of Alboin's invasion, these jealousies were accentuated, and in 584 it was found expedient to appoint twelve other tribunes, known as the Tribuni Majores, who formed a kind of central committee to deal with all matters affecting the general weal of the lagoon communities. But the Tribuni Majores were equally powerless to allay the jealousies of the growing townships which formed the lagoon community. Rivalry in fishing and in trading, coupled with ancient antipathies inherited from the various mainland cities of origin, were no doubt the cause of these internecine feuds. A crisis was reached when Christopher, patriarch of Grado, convened the people of the lagoon at Heraclea, and urged them to suppress the twelve tribunes and to choose a single head of the state. To this they agreed, and in 697 Venice elected her first doge, Paulo Lucio Anafesto.

The growing importance of the lagoon townships, owing to their maritime skill, their expanding trade, created by their position between east and west, their monopoly of salt and salted fish, which gave them a strong position in the mainland markets, rendered it inevitable that a clash must come over the question of independence, when either east or west should claim that Venice belonged to them; and inside the lagoons the growing prosperity, coupled with the external threat to their liberties, concentrated the population into two well-defined parties—what may be called the aristocratic party, because it leaned towards imperial Byzantium and also displayed a tendency to make the dogeship hereditary, and the democratic party, connected with the original population of the lagoons, aspiring to free institutions, and consequently leaning more towards the church and the Frankish kingdom which protected the church. The aristocratic party was captained by the township of Heraclea, which had given the first doge, Anafesto, to the newly formed community. The democratic party was championed first by Jesolo and then by Malamocco.

The advent of the Franks determined the final solution. The emperor Leo, the Isaurian, came to open rupture with Pope Gregory II. over the question of images. The pope appealed to Liutprand, the powerful king of the Lombards, to attack the imperial possessions in Ravenna. He did so, and expelled the exarch Paul, who took refuge in Venice and was restored to his post by the doge of the Heraclean or Byzantine party, Orso, who in return for this assistance received the imperial title of hypatos, and trading rights in Ravenna. The pope, however, soon had cause for alarm at the spread of the Lombard power which he had encouraged. Liutprand proceeded to occupy territory in the Ducato Romano. The pope, looking about for a saviour, cast his eyes on Charles Martel, whose victory at Tours had riveted the attention of the world. Charles's son, Pippin, was crowned king of Italy, entered the peninsula at the head of the Franks, defeated the Lombards, took Ravenna and presented it to the pope, while retaining a feudal superiority. Desiderius, the last Lombard king, endeavoured to recover Ravenna. Charlemagne, Pippin's son, descended upon Italy, broke up the Lombard kingdom (774), confirmed his father's donation to the pope, and in reprisals for Venetian assistance to the exarch, ordered the pope to expel the Venetians from the Pentapolis. Venice was now brought face to face with the Franks under their powerful sovereign, who soon showed that he intended to claim the lagoons as part of his new kingdom. In Venice the result of this menace was a decided reaction towards Byzantium. In opposition to the Frankish claim, Venice resolved to affirm her dependence on the Eastern empire. But the democratic party, the Frankish party in Venice, was powerful. Feeling ran high. A crisis was rapidly approaching. The Byzantine Doge Giovanni Galbaio attacked Grado, the see of the Francophil Patriarch Giovanni, captured it, and flung the bishop from the tower of his palace. But the murdered patriarch was succeeded by his no less Francophil nephew Fortunatus, a strong partisan, a restless and indomitable man, who along with Obelerio of Malamocco now assumed the lead of the democratic party. He and his followers plotted the murder of the doge, were discovered, and sought safety at the court of Charlemagne, where Fortunatus strongly urged the Franks to attack the lagoons.

Meantime the internal politics of Venice had been steadily preparing the way for the approaching fusion at Rialto. The period from the election of the first doge to the appearance of the Franks was characterized by fierce struggles between Heraclea and Jesolo. At length the whole population agreed to fix their capital at Malamocco, a compromise between the two incompatible parties, marking an important step towards final fusion at Rialto.

That central event of early Venetian history was reached when Pippin resolved to make good his title as king of Italy. He turned his attention to the lagoon of Venice, which had been steadily growing in commercial and maritime importance, and had, on the whole, shown a sympathy for Byzantium rather than for the Franks. Pippin determined to subdue the lagoons. He gathered a fleet at Ravenna, captured Chioggia, and pushed on up the Lido towards the capital of the lagoons at Malamocco. But the Venetians, in face of the danger, once more removed their capital, this time to Rialto, that group of islands we now call Venice, lying in mid-lagoon between the lidi and the mainland. This step was fatal to Pippin's designs. The intricate water-ways and the stubborn Venetian defence baffled all his attempts to reach Rialto; the summer heats came on; the Lido was unhealthy. Pippin was forced to retire. A treaty between Charlemagne and Nicephorus (81o) recognized the Venetians as subjects of the Eastern empire, while preserving to them the trading rights on the mainland of Italy which they had acquired under Liutprand.

The concentration at Rialto marks the beginning of the history of Venice as a full-grown state. The external menace to their independence had welded together the place and the people; the same pressure had brought about the fusion of the conflicting parties in the lagoon townships into one homogeneous whole. There was for the future one Venice and one Venetian people dwelling at Rialto, the city of compromise between the dangers from the mainland, exemplified by Attila and Alboin, and the perils from the sea, illustrated by Pippin's attack. The position of Venice was now assured. The state was a vassal of a weak and distant empire, which would leave it virtually free to pursue its own career; it was an independent tributary of a near and powerful kingdom with which it could trade, and trade between east and west became henceforth the note of its development.

The first doge elected in Rialto was Angelo Particiaco, a Heraclean noble, with a strong bias towards Byzantium, and his reign was signalized by the building of the first church of San Marco, and by the translation of the saint's body from Alexandria, as though to affirm and to symbolize the creation of united Venice.

The history of Venice during the next two hundred years is marked externally by the growth of the city, thanks to an ever-expanding trade, both down the Adriatic, which brought the republic into collision with the Dalmatian pirates and led to their final conquest, in 1000, by the doge Pietro Orseolo II.,