Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/812

Rh 788 HOME [HISTORY. fested in the case of Theophylact, was repeated in those of Alberic, Brancaleone, Crescenzio, Cola di Rienzo, and others. One of the many causes of this tendency may be traced to the conception of the new empire of which Rome was the original and enduring fountainhead. As Rome had once transferred the empire from Byzantium to the Franks, so Rome -was surely entitled to reclaim it. The imperial authority was represented by the office of patri- cian, now virtually assumed by Alberic. That he gave the name of Octavian to his son is an additional proof of this fact. In the Eternal City the mediaeval political idea has always the aspect of a resurrection or transformation of classic antiquity. This is another characteristic of the history of the Roman commune. Alberic's strength was due to his connexion with the nobility, to his father's valiant service against the Saracens at the battle of Garigliano, and to the militia under his command, on which everything depended amid the internal and external dangers now threatening the new state. As yet no genuine municipal constitution was possible in Rome, where neither the people nor the wealthy burghers engaged in industry and commerce had any fixed organization. All was in the hands of the nobles, and Alberic, as their chief, frequently convened them in council, although obliged to use pressure to keep them united and avoid falling a prey to their disputes. Hence the whole power was concentrated in his grasp ; he was at the head of the tribunals as well as of the army. The judices de clero and judices de militia still existed, but no longer met in the Lateran or the Vatican, under the presidency of emperor and pope or their missi. Alberic himself was their president ; and, a still more significant fact, their sittings were often held in his private dwelling. There is no longer any mention of prefect or patricius. The papal coinage was inscribed with Alberic's name instead of the emperor's. His chief attention was given to the militia, which was still arranged in scholae, and it is highly probable that he was the author of the new division of the city into twelve regions, with a corresponding classi- fication of the army in as many regiments under twelve flags and twelve banderesi, one for every region. The organization of the scholae could not have been very dissimilar, but doubtless Alberic had some important motive for altering the old method of classification. By means of the armed regions he included the people in the forces. It is certain that after his time we find the army much changed and far more democratic. It was only natural that so excellent a statesman should seek the aid of the popular element as a defence against the arrogance of the nobles, and it was requisite to reinforce the army in order to be prepared for the attacks threatened from abroad. This change effected, Alberic felt prepared for the worst, and began to rule with energy, moderation, and justice. His contemporaries award him high praise, and he seems to have been exempt from the vices of his mother and grandmother. In 933 Hugo made his first attack upon the city, and was repulsed. A second attempt in 936 proved still more unfortunate, for his army was decimated by a pestilence. Thoroughly disheartened, he not only made peace, but gave his daughter in marriage to Alberic, thus satisfying the latter's desire to ally himself with a royal house. But this union led to no conciliation with Hugo. For Alberic, finding his power increased, marched at the head of his troops to consolidate his rule in the Campagna and the Sabine land. On the death of his brother, Pope John XL, in 936, he controlled the elec- tion of several successive popes, quelled a conspiracy formed against him by the clergy and certain nobles insti- gated by Hugo, and brilliantly repulsed, in 941, another attack by that potentate. At last, however, this inveter- ate foe withdrew from Rome, being summoned to the north by the victories of his rival Berengarius. But Alberic, after procuring the election of various popes who were docile instruments of his will, experienced a check when Agapetus II. (946-955), a man of firmness and resource, was raised to the papal throne. The fortunes of Berengarius were now in the ascendant. In 950 he had seized the iron crown, and ruled in the Pentapolis and the exarchate. This being singularly painful to the pope, he proceeded to make alliance with all those enemies of Berengarius preferring a distant emperor to a neigh- bouring and effective sovereign, with the Roman nobles who were discontented with Alberic, and with all who foresaw danger, even to Rome, from the extended power of Berengarius. And Agapetus recurred to the old papal policy, by making appeal to Otho I., whose rule in Ger- many was distinguished by a prestige almost comparable with that of Charlemagne. Otho immediately responded to the appeal and descended into Italy ; but his envoys were indignantly repulsed by Alberic, and, being prudent as well as firm, he decided to wait a more opportune moment for the accomplishment of his designs. Meanwhile Alberic died in 954, and the curtain fell on the first great drama of the Roman republic. He had reigned for twenty-two years with justice, energy, and prudence ; he had repelled foreign invaders, main- tained order and authority. He seems, however, to have realized that the aspect of affairs was about to change, that the work he had accomplished would be exposed to new dangers. These dangers, in fact, had already begun with the accession of an enterprising pope to the Holy See. The name of Octavian given by Alberic to his son leads to the inference that he meant to make his power hereditary. But, suddenly, he began to educate this son for the priesthood, and, assembling the nobles in St~Peter's shortly before his death, he made them swear to elect Octavian as pope on the decease of Agapetus II. They kept their word, for in this way they freed themselves from a ruler. Possibly Alberic trusted that both offices might be united, and that his son would be head of the state as well as the church. But the nobles knew this to be a delusion, especially in the case of a nature such as Octavian's. The lad was sixteen years old when his father died, received princely honours until the death of Agapetus, and was then elected pope with the name of John XII. He had inherited the ungoverned passions of his grandmother Marozia and great-grandmother Theodora, but without their intelligence and cunning. His palace was the scene of the most scandalous licence, while his public acts were those of a baby tyrant. He conferred a bishopric on a child of ten, consecrated a deacon in a stable, invoked Venus and Jupiter in his games, and drank to the devil's health. He desired to be both pope and prince, but utterly failed to be either. Before long, realizing the impossibility of holding in check Berengarius, who still ruled over the exarchate, he sought in 960 the aid of Otho I., and promised him the imperial crown. Thus the new ruler was summoned by the son of the man by whom he had been repulsed. Otho vowed to defend the church, to restore her territories, to refrain from usurping the power of the pope or the republic, and was crowned on the 2d February 962 with unheard-of pomp and display. Accordingly, after being extinct for thirty-seven years, the empire was revived under different but no less diffi- cult conditions. The politico-religious unity founded by Charlemagne had been dissolved, partly on account of the heterogeneous elements of which it was composed, and partly because other nations were in course of formation. Oth crov em] i