The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 37: I shall transcribe the important and decisive
passage of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir
profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra
hostem se armavit, renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique se
cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur
permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus contra
Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes se nunquam in ejusdem
pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis defensione
viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]

[Footnote 38: A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156;)
a most cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims
the zealous Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,) and
Theophanes, (p. 344,) who talks of Pharaoh's numbering the male
children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar to the
Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historians, it was imposed
a few years afterwards in France by his patron Louis XIV.]

[Footnote 39: See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in the
Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i.,) whose
deeper shade of barbarism marks the difference between Rome and
Ravenna. Yet we are indebted to him for some curious and
domestic facts - the quarters and factions of Ravenna, (p. 154,)
the revenge of Justinian II, (p. 160, 161,) the defeat of the
Greeks, (p. 170, 171,) &c.]

[Footnote 40: Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis
.... imaginum sacrarum .... destructor .... extiterit, sit
extorris a cor pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesiae
unitate. The canonists may decide whether the guilt or the name
constitutes the excommunication; and the decision is of the last
importance to their safety, since, according to the oracle
(Gratian, Caus. xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim, Hist. Imag. p.
112) homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]

[Footnote 41: Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans
conversionem principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne desisterent ab
amore et fide R. J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style Leo and
Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the strange
epithet of Piissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran (A.D. 798)
represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and the
banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p.
337.)]

The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms
and arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty
years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By
the Caesars, the triumphs of the consuls had been annihilated: in
the decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the sacred
boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean, the Rhine, the
Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her ancient
territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth
of the Tyber. ^42 When the kings were banished, the republic
reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their wisdom
and virtue. Their perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two
annual magistrates: the senate continued to exercise the powers
of administration and counsel; and the legislative authority was
distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a
well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the
arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of
government and war: the will of the community was absolute: the
rights of individuals were sacred: one hundred and thirty
thousand citizens were armed for defence or conquest; and a band
of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation deserving of
freedom and ambitious of glory. ^43 When the sovereignty of the
Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the
sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a habit, her
liberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object
of her own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the
substance, or even the forms, of the constitution, was
obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans; and they
were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the fabric of
a commonwealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves
and strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the victorious
Barbarians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed their
most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman; "and in
this name," says the bishop Liutprand, "we include whatever is
base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the extremes
of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the
dignity of human nature." ^44 ^* By the necessity of their
situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough model
of a republican government: they were compelled to elect some
judges in peace, and some leaders in war: the nobles assembled to
deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed without the
union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman
senate and people was revived, ^45 but the spirit was fled; and
their new independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict
of vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be
supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign and
domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the bishop.
His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and
prelates of the West, his recent services, their gratitude, and
oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first
magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the
popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord; and their
face and inscription are still apparent on the most ancient
coins. ^46 Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the
reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the
free choice of a people, whom they had redeemed from slavery.

[Footnote 42: I have traced the Roman duchy according to the
maps, and the maps according to the excellent dissertation of
father Beretti, (de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi, sect. xx. p.
216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of Lombard
foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was usurped by the
Greeks.]

[Footnote 43: On the extent, population, &c., of the Roman
kingdom, the reader may peruse, with pleasure, the Discours
Preliminaire to the Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort, (tom.
i.,) who will not be accused of too much credulity for the early
ages of Rome.]

[Footnote 44: Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones,
Franci, Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto
dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, nil aliud contumeliarum
nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo, id est Romanorum nomine, quicquid
ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiae, quicquid
luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est
comprehendentes, (Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom. ii. para
i. p. 481.) For the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might have
imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this barbarous
passage.]

[Footnote *: Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by Robertson
(Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by the angry
bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he admits to be the
genuine descendants of Romulus. - M.]

[Footnote 45: Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque
universa populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis. Codex
Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 160.
The names of senatus and senator were never totally extinct,
(Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216, 217;) but in the middle ages they
signified little more than nobiles, optimates, &c., (Ducange,
Gloss. Latin.)]

[Footnote 46: See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom.
ii. Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read
Hadrianus Papa (A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn. with the
word Conob, which the Pere Joubert (Science des Medailles, tom.
ii. p. 42) explains by Constantinopoli Officina B (secunda.)]

In the quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis
enjoyed a perpetual peace, under the protection of Jupiter, and
in the exercise of the Olympic games. ^47 Happy would it have
been for the Romans, if a similar privilege had guarded the
patrimony of St. Peter from the calamities of war; if the
Christians, who visited the holy threshold, would have sheathed
their swords in the presence of the apostle and his successor.
But this mystic circle could have been traced only by the wand of
a legislator and a sage: this pacific system was incompatible
with the zeal and ambition of the popes the Romans were not
addicted, like the inhabitants of Elis, to the innocent and
placid labors of agriculture; and the Barbarians of Italy, though
softened by the climate, were far below the Grecian states in the
institutions of public and private life. A memorable example of
repentance and piety was exhibited by Liutprand, king of the
Lombards. In arms, at the gate of the Vatican, the conqueror
listened to the voice of Gregory the Second, ^48 withdrew his
troops, resigned his conquests, respectfully visited the church
of St. Peter, and after performing his devotions, offered his
sword and dagger, his cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and
his crown of gold, on the tomb of the apostle. But this
religious fervor was the illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the
moment; the sense of interest is strong and lasting; the love of
arms and rapine was congenial to the Lombards; and both the
prince and people were irresistibly tempted by the disorders of
Italy, the nakedness of Rome, and the unwarlike profession of her
new chief. On the first edicts of the emperor, they declared
themselves the champions of the holy images: Liutprand invaded
the province of Romagna, which had already assumed that
distinctive appellation; the Catholics of the Exarchate yielded
without reluctance to his civil and military power; and a foreign
enemy was introduced for the first time into the impregnable
fortress of Ravenna. That city and fortress were speedily
recovered by the active diligence and maritime forces of the
Venetians; and those faithful subjects obeyed the exhortation of
Gregory himself, in separating the personal guilt of Leo from the
general cause of the Roman empire. ^49 The Greeks were less
mindful of the service, than the Lombards of the injury: the two
nations, hostile in their faith, were reconciled in a dangerous
and unnatural alliance: the king and the exarch marched to the
conquest of Spoleto and Rome: the storm evaporated without
effect, but the policy of Liutprand alarmed Italy with a
vexatious alternative of hostility and truce. His successor
Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the emperor and the
pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery, ^50 and this
final conquest extinguished the series of the exarchs, who had
reigned with a subordinate power since the time of Justinian and
the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was summoned to acknowledge
the victorious Lombard as her lawful sovereign; the annual
tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the ransom of each
citizen, and the sword of destruction was unsheathed to exact the
penalty of her disobedience. The Romans hesitated; they
entreated; they complained; and the threatening Barbarians were
checked by arms and negotiations, till the popes had engaged the
friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the Alps. ^51

[Footnote 47: See West's Dissertation on the Olympic Games,
(Pindar. vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the judicious
reflections of Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit Gronov.)]

[Footnote 48: The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is finely
composed by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii.
p. 173,) who imitates the license and the spirit of Sallust or
Livy.]

[Footnote 49: The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus, (Chron.
Venet. p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores Rer.
Ital. tom. xii. p. 135,) have preserved this epistle of Gregory.
The loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus
Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi. c. 42, 54, in Script. Ital.
tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our chronologists, Pagi,
Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or circumstances]

[Footnote 50: The option will depend on the various readings of
the Mss. of Anastasius - deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script.
Ital. tom. iii. pars i. p. 167.)]

[Footnote 51: The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles
of the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,)
Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was
formed by the last of these princes. His original and authentic
Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis) is now in the Imperial library of
Vienna, and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori,
(Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75, &c.)]

In his distress, the first ^* Gregory had implored the aid
of the hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the
French monarchy with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who,
by his signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his country,
and perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of
the pope were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the
greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life,
prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a
friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of
his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of the
Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have
been prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger
was on the banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the Seine,
and our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen the Third embraced the
generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy
and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite
the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the
public despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this
laborious journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and
the Greek emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but
his threats could not silence the complaints, nor retard the
speed of the Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps,
reposed in the abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to grasp the
right hand of his protector; a hand which was never lifted in
vain, either in war or friendship. Stephen was entertained as
the visible successor of the apostle; at the next assembly, the
field of March or of May, his injuries were exposed to a devout
and warlike nation, and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant,
but as a conqueror, at the head of a French army, which was led
by the king in person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance,
obtained an ignominious peace, and swore to restore the
possessions, and to respect the sanctity, of the Roman church.
But no sooner was Astolphus delivered from the presence of the
French arms, than he forgot his promise and resented his
disgrace. Rome was again encompassed by his arms; and Stephen,
apprehensive of fatiguing the zeal of his Transalpine allies
enforced his complaint and request by an eloquent letter in the
name and person of St. Peter himself. ^52 The apostle assures his
adopted sons, the king, the clergy, and the nobles of France,
that, dead in the flesh, he is still alive in the spirit; that
they now hear, and must obey, the voice of the founder and
guardian of the Roman church; that the Virgin, the angels, the
saints, and the martyrs, and all the host of heaven, unanimously
urge the request, and will confess the obligation; that riches,
victory, and paradise, will crown their pious enterprise, and
that eternal damnation will be the penalty of their neglect, if
they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his people, to fall into
the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The second expedition of
Pepin was not less rapid and fortunate than the first: St. Peter
was satisfied, Rome was again saved, and Astolphus was taught the
lessons of justice and sincerity by the scourge of a foreign
master. After this double chastisement, the Lombards languished
about twenty years in a state of languor and decay. But their
minds were not yet humbled to their condition; and instead of
affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they peevishly
harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims, evasions, and
inroads, which they undertook without reflection, and terminated
without glory. On either side, their expiring monarchy was
pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the First, the
genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the son of
Pepin; these heroes of the church and state were united in public
and domestic friendship, and while they trampled on the
prostrate, they varnished their proceedings with the fairest
colors of equity and moderation. ^53 The passes of the Alps, and
the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards; the
former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of
Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, ^* Desiderius, the last
of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his capital.

Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of
their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, rather
than the subjects, of the Franks; who derived their blood, and
manners, and language, from the same Germanic origin. ^54

[Footnote *: Gregory I. had been dead above a century; read
Gregory III. - M]

[Footnote 52: See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex
Carolinus, epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have
charged them with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to
persuade rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or
of immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though it is
executed on this occasion in the rude fashion of the age.]

[Footnote 53: Except in the divorce of the daughter of
Desiderius, whom Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine.
Pope Stephen IV. had most furiously opposed the alliance of a
noble Frank - cum perfida, horrida nec dicenda, foetentissima
natione Longobardorum - to whom he imputes the first stain of
leprosy, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.) Another reason
against the marriage was the existence of a first wife,
(Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236, 237.) But
Charlemagne indulged himself in the freedom of polygamy or
concubinage.]

[Footnote *: Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p.
187. - M.]

[Footnote 54: See the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, tom. vi., and
the three first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. i.]

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.

Part III.

The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian
family form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil
and ecclesiastical, history. In the conquest of Italy, the
champions of the Roman church obtained a favorable occasion, a
specious title, the wishes of the people, the prayers and
intrigues of the clergy. But the most essential gifts of the
popes to the Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of
France, ^55 and of patrician of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal
monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the practice
of seeking, on the banks of the Tyber, their kings, their laws,
and the oracles of their fate. The Franks were perplexed between
the name and substance of their government. All the powers of
royalty were exercised by Pepin, mayor of the palace; and
nothing, except the regal title, was wanting to his ambition.
His enemies were crushed by his valor; his friends were
multiplied by his liberality; his father had been the savior of
Christendom; and the claims of personal merit were repeated and
ennobled in a descent of four generations. The name and image of
royalty was still preserved in the last descendant of Clovis, the
feeble Childeric; but his obsolete right could only be used as an
instrument of sedition: the nation was desirous of restoring the
simplicity of the constitution; and Pepin, a subject and a
prince, was ambitious to ascertain his own rank and the fortune
of his family. The mayor and the nobles were bound, by an oath
of fidelity, to the royal phantom: the blood of Clovis was pure
and sacred in their eyes; and their common ambassadors addressed
the Roman pontiff, to dispel their scruples, or to absolve their
promise. The interest of Pope Zachary, the successor of the two
Gregories, prompted him to decide, and to decide in their favor:
he pronounced that the nation might lawfully unite in the same
person the title and authority of king; and that the unfortunate
Childeric, a victim of the public safety, should be degraded,
shaved, and confined in a monastery for the remainder of his
days. An answer so agreeable to their wishes was accepted by the
Franks as the opinion of a casuist, the sentence of a judge, or
the oracle of a prophet: the Merovingian race disappeared from
the earth; and Pepin was exalted on a buckler by the suffrage of
a free people, accustomed to obey his laws and to march under his
standard. His coronation was twice performed, with the sanction
of the popes, by their most faithful servant St. Boniface, the
apostle of Germany, and by the grateful hands of Stephen the
Third, who, in the monastery of St. Denys placed the diadem on
the head of his benefactor. The royal unction of the kings of
Israel was dexterously applied: ^56 the successor of St. Peter
assumed the character of a divine ambassador: a German chieftain
was transformed into the Lord's anointed; and this Jewish rite
has been diffused and maintained by the superstition and vanity
of modern Europe. The Franks were absolved from their ancient
oath; but a dire anathema was thundered against them and their
posterity, if they should dare to renew the same freedom of
choice, or to elect a king, except in the holy and meritorious
race of the Carlovingian princes. Without apprehending the
future danger, these princes gloried in their present security:
the secretary of Charlemagne affirms, that the French sceptre was
transferred by the authority of the popes; ^57 and in their
boldest enterprises, they insist, with confidence, on this signal
and successful act of temporal jurisdiction.

[Footnote 55: Besides the common historians, three French
critics, Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p.
477-487,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,)
and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p.
96-107,) have treated this subject of the deposition of Childeric
with learning and attention, but with a strong bias to save the
independence of the crown. Yet they are hard pressed by the
texts which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the old
annals, Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]

[Footnote 56: Not absolutely for the first time. On a less
conspicuous theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith
centuries, by the provincial bishops of Britain and Spain. The
royal unction of Constantinople was borrowed from the Latins in
the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses mentions that of
Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible ceremony. See
Selden's Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol. iii. part i. p.
234-249.]

[Footnote 57: See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9,
&c., c. iii. p. 24. Childeric was deposed - jussu, the
Carlovingians were established - auctoritate, Pontificis Romani.
Launoy, &c., pretend that these strong words are susceptible of a
very soft interpretation. Be it so; yet Eginhard understood the
world, the court, and the Latin language.]

II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of
Rome ^58 were far removed from the senate of Romulus, on the
palace of Constantine, from the free nobles of the republic, or
the fictitious parents of the emperor. After the recovery of
Italy and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the importance and
danger of those remote provinces required the presence of a
supreme magistrate; he was indifferently styled the exarch or the
patrician; and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their place
in the chronology of princes, extended their jurisdiction over
the Roman city. Since the revolt of Italy and the loss of the
Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted some sacrifice
of their independence. Yet, even in this act, they exercised the
right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate
and people successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity
with the honors of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful
nation would have disdained a servile title and subordinate
office; but the reign of the Greek emperors was suspended; and,
in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a more glorious
commission from the pope and the republic. The Roman ambassadors
presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine of St.
Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner
which it was their right and duty to unfurl in the defence of the
church and city. ^59 In the time of Charles Martel and of Pepin,
the interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the freedom,
while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and the patriciate
represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of these
distant protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne
annihilated an enemy, and imposed a master. In his first visit
to the capital, he was received with all the honors which had
formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of the
emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations from the
joy and gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. ^60 No sooner was he
informed of the sudden approach of the monarch, than he
despatched the magistrates and nobles of Rome to meet him, with
the banner, about thirty miles from the city. At the distance of
one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with the schools, or
national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.: the Roman
youth were under arms; and the children of a more tender age,
with palms and olive branches in their hands, chanted the praises
of their great deliverer. At the aspect of the holy crosses, and
ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led the
procession of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended the
stairs, devoutly kissed each step of the threshold of the
apostles. In the portico, Adrian expected him at the head of his
clergy: they embraced, as friends and equals; but in their march
to the altar, the king or patrician assumed the right hand of the
pope. Nor was the Frank content with these vain and empty
demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that elapsed
between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation,
Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his
own, to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance
to his person and family: in his name money was coined, and
justice was administered; and the election of the popes was
examined and confirmed by his authority. Except an original and
self-inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any prerogative
remaining, which the title of emperor could add to the patrician
of Rome. ^61