Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/288

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in strength and renown. From the time when the inhabitants of that portion of Italy, now known as Venetian Lombardy, were driven by Alaric, the barbarian conqueror, to seek refuge in the small islands of the Adriatic, near the mouth of the Brenta, their progress had been one of almost uninterrupted prosperity. Devoting their attention exclusively to the pursuits of commerce, and avoiding, by every means in their power, interference with the affairs of their neighbours, the Venetians drew towards their infant colony all whose habits and tempers induced them to seek industrial pursuits. Among these, many families of Aquileia, Padua, and other towns, fleeing from the sword of the Huns and similar barbarous tribes, found a safe but obscure refuge. A modern writer has eloquently described Venice as "immoveable on the bosom of the waters from which her palaces emerge, contemplating the tides of continental convulsions and invasions, the rise and fall of empires, and the change of dynasties;" and certainly no description could be more true of the splendour and position of Venice, and of the policy of its rulers, when at the height of its prosperity.

But many centuries elapsed from the time when the infant colony was planted, before "the water fowl, who had fixed their nests on the bosom of the waves," obtained a prominent and independent position as a great maritime nation. Although in the early career of the Venetians their independence was more especially due to their determination to attend to their own affairs, and not to trouble themselves with