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ministers,) who have abused my confidence, and inflamed my passions, will appear with me before the tribunal of Christ. I have been dazzled by the splendour of the diadem: be thou wise and modest; remember what you have been, remember what you are. You see around us your slaves and your children; with the authority, assume the tenderness, of a parent. Love your people like yourself; cultivate the affections, maintain the discipline, of the army: protect the fortunes of the rich, relieve the necessities of the poor." The assembly, in silence and in tears, applauded the counsels, and sympathized with the repentance, of their prince: the patriarch rehearsed the prayers of the church; Tiberius received the diadem on his knees; and Justin, who in his abdication appeared most worthy to reign, addressed the new monarch in the following words: "If you consent, I live; if you command, I die: may the God of heaven and earth infuse into your heart whatever I have neglected or forgotten." The last four years of the Death of Justin emperor Justin were passed in tranquil obscurity: his conscience was no longer tormented by the remembrance of those duties which he was incapable of discharging; and his choice was justified by the filial reverence and gratitude of Tiberius.

by the historian as a serious truth or a salutary prejudice. Yet a candid suspicion will arise, that the sentiments of Justin were pure and benevolent, and that he might have filled his station without reproach, if the faculties of his mind had not been impaired by disease, which deprived the emperor of the use of his feet, and confined him to the palace, a stranger to the complaints of the people and the vices of the government. The tardy knowledge of his own impotence determined him to lay down the weight of the diadem ; and in the choice of a worthy substitute, he showed some symptoms of a discerning and even magnanimous spirit. The only son of Justin and Sophia died in his infancy: their daughter Arabia was the wife of Baduarius, superintendant of the palace, and afterwards commander of the Italian armies, who vainly aspired to confirm the rights of marriage by those of adoption. While the empire appeared an object of desire, Justin was accustomed to behold with jealousy and hatred his brothers and cousins, the rivals of his hopes; nor could he depend on the gratitude of those who would accept the purple as a restitution, rather than a gift. Of these competitors, one had been removed by exile, and afterwards by death; and the emperor himself had inflicted such cruel insults on another, that he must either dread his resentment or Cas despise his patience. This domestic animosity was refined into a generous resolution of seeking a successor, not in his family, but in the republic: and Association of Ti. the artful Sophia recommended Tibeberius, rius, his faithful captain of the guards, whose virtues and fortune the emperor might cherish as the fruit of his judicious choice. The ceremony of his elevation to the rank of Cæsar, or Augustus, was performed in the portico of the palace, in the presence of the patriarch and the senate. Justin collected the remaining strength of his mind and body, but the popular belief that his speech was inspired by the Deity, betrays a very humble opinion both of the man and the times. "You behold," said the emperor, "the ensigns of supreme power. You are about to receive them not from my hand, but from the hand of God. Honour them, and from them you will derive honour. Respect the empress your mother; you are now her son; before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood, abstain from revenge, avoid those actions by which I have incurred the public hatred, and consult the experience, rather than the example, of your predecessor. As a man, I have sinned; as a sinner, even in this life, I have been severely punished: but these servants, (and he pointed to his

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a Dispositorque novus sacræ Baduarius aulæ. Successor soceri mox factus Cura palati. Corippus. Baduarius is enumerated among the descendants and allies of the house A family of noble Venetians (Casa Badoero) built churches and gave dukes to the republic as early as the ninth century; and if their descent be admitted, no kings in Europe can produce a pedigree so ancient and illustrious. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 99. Amelot de la Houssaye, Gouvernement de Veuise, tom. ii. p. 555.

The praise bestowed on princes before their elevation, is the purest and most weighty. Corippus has celebrated Tiberius at the time of the accession of Justin, (1. i. 212-222.) Yet even a captain of the guards might attract the flattery of an African exile.

e Evagríus (l. v. c. 13.) has added the reproach to his ministers. He

II.
A. D. 578.
October 5.

Reign of Tibe-
rius II.
A. D. 578.
Sept. 26.-
A. D. 582.
Aug. 14.

Among the virtues of Tiberius, his beauty (he was one of the tallest and most comely of the Romans) might introduce him to the favour of Sophia; and the widow of Justin was persuaded, that she should preserve her station and influence under the reign of a second and more youthful husband. But if the ambitious candidate had been tempted to flatter and dissemble, it was no longer in his power to fulfil her expectations, or his own promise. The factions of the hippodrome demanded, with some impatience, the name of their new empress; both the people and Sophia were astonished by the proclamation of Anastasia, the secret though lawful wife of the emperor Tiberius. Whatever could alleviate the disappointment of Sophia, imperial honours, a stately palace, a numerous household, was liberally bestowed by the piety of her adopted son; on solemn occasions he attended and consulted the widow of his benefactor:

but her ambition disdained the vain semblance of royalty, and the respectful appellation of mother served to exasperate, rather than appease, the rage of an injured woman. While she accepted, and repaid with a courtly smile, the fair expressions of regard and confidence, a secret alliance was con

applies this speech to the ceremony when Tiberius was invested with the rank of Cæsar. The loose expression, rather than the positive error, of Theophanes, &c. has delayed it to his Augustan investiture immediately before the death of Justin.

d Theophylact Simocatta (1. iii. c. 11.) declares that he shall give to posterity the speech of Justin as it was pronounced, without attempting to correct the imperfections of language or rhetoric. Perhaps the vain sophist would have been incapable of producing such sentiments.

e For the character and reign of Tiberius, see Evagrius, 1. v. 13. Theophylact, I. iii. c. 12, &c. Theophanes, in Chron. p. 210-213. Zonaras, tom. ii. 1. xiv. p. 72. Cedrenus, p. 392. Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis Langobard, 1. iii. c. 11, 12. The deacon of Forum Julii appears to have possessed some curious and authentic facts.

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might be imputed to arrogance; his justice was not always exempt from cruelty, nor his clemency from weakness; and his rigid economy too often exposed him to the reproach of avarice. But the rational wishes of an absolute monarch must tend to the happiness of his people; Maurice was endowed with sense and courage to promote that happiness, and his administration was directed by the principles and example of Tiberius. The pusillanimity of the Greeks had introduced so complete a separation between the offices of king and of general, that a private soldier who had deserved and obtained the purple, seldom or never appeared at the head of his armies. Yet the emperor Maurice enjoyed the glory of restoring the Persian monarch to his throne; his lieutenants waged a doubtful war against the Avars of the Danube, and he cast an eye of pity, of ineffectual pity, on the abject and distressful state of his Italian provinces.

Distress of Italy.

A. D. 584-590.

787

arch: the passes of the Alps were delivered to the Franks; and the pope encouraged them to violate, without scruple, their oaths and engagements to the misbelievers. Childebert, the great-grandson of Clovis, was persuaded to invade Italy by the payment of fifty thousand pieces; but as he had viewed with delight some Byzantine coin of the weight of one pound of gold, the king of Austrasia might stipulate, that the gift should be rendered more worthy of his acceptance, by a proper mixture of these respectable medals. The dukes of the Lombards had provoked by frequent inroads their powerful neighbours of Gaul. As soon as they were apprehensive of a just retaliation, they renounced their feeble and disorderly independence: the advantages of regal government, union, secrecy, and vigour, were unanimously conAutharis, king of fessed; and Autharis, the son of the Lombards, Clepho, had already attained the strength and reputation of a warrior. Under the standard of their new king, the conquerors of Italy withstood three successive invasions, one of which was led by Childebert himself, the last of the Merovingian race who descended from the Alps. The first expedition was defeated by the jealous animosity of the Franks and Alemanni. In the second they were vanquished in a bloody battle, with more loss and dishonour than they had sustained since the foundation of their monarchy. Impatient for revenge, they returned a third time with accumulated force, and Autharis yielded to the fury of the torrent. The troops and treasures of the Lombards were distributed in the walled towns between the Alps and the Apennine. A nation, less sensible of danger, than of fatigue and delay, soon murmured against the folly of their twenty commanders; and the hot vapours of an Italian sun infected with disease those tramontane bodies which had already suffered the vicissitudes of intemperance and famine. The powers that were inadequate to the conquest, were more than sufficient for the desolation, of the country; nor could the trembling natives distinguish between their enemies and their deliverers. If the junction of the Merovingian and imperial forces had been effected in the neighbourhood of Milan, perhaps they might have subverted the throne of the Lombards; but the Franks expected six days the signal of a flaming village, and the arms of the Greeks were idly employed in the reduction of Modena and Parma, which were torn from them after the retreat of their transalpine allies. The victorious Autharis asserted his claim to the dominion of Italy. At the foot of the Rhætian Alps, he subdued the resistance, and rifled the hidden treasures, of a sequestered island in the lake of Comum. At the extreme point of Calabria, he touched with his spear a column on the sea-shore of Rhegium, i proclaiming that ancient landmark to stand the immovable boundary of his kingdom.* Lucas Holsten. Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 301. Wesseling, Itinerar. p. k The Greek historians afford some faint hints of the wars of Italy.

From Italy the emperors were incessantly tormented by tales of misery and demands of succour, which extorted the humiliating confession of their own weakness. The expiring dignity of Rome was only marked by the freedom and energy of her complaints: "If you are incapable," she said, "of delivering us from the sword of the Lombards, save us at least from the calamity of famine." Tiberius forgave the reproach, and relieved the distress: a supply of corn was transported from Egypt to the Tiber; and the Roman people, invoking the name, not of Camillus, but of St. Peter, repulsed the barbarians from their walls. But the relief was accidental, the danger was perpetual and pressing: and the clergy and senate, collecting the remains of their ancient opulence, a sum of three thousand pounds of gold, despatched the patrician Pamphronius to lay their gifts and their complaints at the foot of the Byzantine throne. The attention of the court, and the forces of the east, were diverted by the Persian war; but the justice of Tiberius applied the subsidy to the defence of the city; and he dismissed the patrician with his best advice, either to bribe the Lombard chiefs, or to purchase the aid of the kings of France. Notwithstanding this weak invention, Italy was still afflicted, Rome was again besieged, and the suburb of Classe, only three miles from Ravenna, was pillaged and occupied by the troops of a simple duke of Spoleto. Maurice gave audience to a second deputation of priests and senators; the duties and the menaces of religion were forcibly urged in the letters of the Roman pontiff; and his nuncio, the deacon Gregory, was alike qualified to solicit the powers either of heaven or of the earth. The emperor adopted, with stronger effect, the measures of his predecessor; some formidable chiefs were persuaded to embrace the friendship of the Romans; and one of them, a mild and faithful barbarian, lived and died in the service of the ex

The Columna Rhegina, in the narrowest part of the Faro of Messina, one hundred stadia from Rhegium itself, is frequently mentioned in ancient geography. Cluver. Ital. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 1295.

106.

The exarchate

of Ravenna..

the Lombards.

Lombards.

During a period of two hundred | and population. The most faithful and valuable years, Italy was unequally divided subjects escaped from the barbarian yoke; and the between the kingdom of the Lombards and the ex- banners of Pavia and Verona, of Milan and Padua, archate of Ravenna. The offices and professions, were displayed in their respective quarters by the which the jealousy of Constantine had separated, new inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of were united by the indulgence of Justinian; and Italy was possessed by the Lombards; The kingdom of eighteen successive exarchs were invested, in the and from Pavia, the royal seat, their decline of the empire, with the full remains of civil, kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and of military, and even of ecclesiastical power. Their the west, as far as the confines of the Avars, the immediate jurisdiction, which was afterwards con- Bavarians, and the Franks of Austrasia and Bursecrated as the patrimony of St. Peter, extended gundy. In the language of modern geography, it is over the modern Romagna, the marshes or valleys of now represented, by the Terra Firma of the VeneFerrara and Commachio,' five maritime cities from tian republic, Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont, the Rimini to Ancona, and a second, inland Pentapolis, coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, the between the Adriatic coast and the hills of the grand duchy of Tuscany, and a large portion of Apennine. Three subordinate provinces, of Rome, the ecclesiastical state from Perugia to the Adriatic. of Venice, and of Naples, which were divided by The dukes, and at length the princes, of Beneventum hostile lands from the palace of Ravenna, acknow- survived the monarchy, and propagated the name ledged, both in peace and war, the supremacy of of the Lombards. From Capua to Tarentum, they the exarch. The duchy of Rome appears to have reigned near five hundred years over the greatest included the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latian conquests part of the present kingdom of Naples." of the first four hundred years of the city, and the limits may be distinctly traced along the coast, from Civita Vecchia to Terracina, and with the course of the Tiber from Ameria and Narni to the port of Ostia. The numerous islands from Grado to Chiozza, composed the infant dominion of Venice; but the more accessible towns on the continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who beheld with impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power of the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the adjacent isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by the Roman colony of Amalphi," whose industrious citizens, by the invention of the mariner's compass, have unveiled the face of the globe. The three islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, still adhered to the empire; and the acquisition of the further Calabria removed the landmark of Autharis from the shore of Regium to the isthmus of Consentia. In Sardinia, the savage mountaineers preserved the liberty and religion of their ancestors; but the husbandmen of Sicily were chained to their rich and cultivated soil. Rome was oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek, perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her own dukes ; the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of commerce; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally ennobled by an equal alliance with the eastern empire. On the map of Italy, the measure of the exarchate occupies a very inadequate space, but it included an ample proportion of wealth, industry, (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 124. 126. Theophylact, l. iii. c. 4.) The Latins are more satisfactory; and especially Paul Warnefrid, (1. iii. 13-34.) who had read the more ancient histories of Secundus and Gregory of Tours. Baronius produces some letters of the popes, &c.; and the times are measured by the accurate scale of Pagi and Muratori. 1 The papal advocates, Zacagni and. Fontanini, might justly claim the valley or morass of Commachio as a part of the exarchate. But the ambition of including Modena, Reggio, Parma, and Placentia, has dark. ened a geographical question somewhat doubtful and obscure. Even Muratori, as the servant of the house of Este, is not free from partiality and prejudice.

Sec Brenemann, Dissert. Ima de Republica Amalphitanâ, p. 142. ad calcem Hist. Pandect. Florent.

a Gregor. Magn. I. iii, epist. 23. 25 – 27.

In comparing the proportion of the Language and victorious and the vanquished people, manners of the the change of language will afford the most probable inference. According to this standard it will appear that the Lombards of Italy, and the Visigoths of Spain, were less numerous than the Franks or Burgundians; and the conquerors of Gaul must yield, in their turn, to the multitude of Saxons and Angles who almost eradicated the idioms of Britain. The modern Italian has been the insensibly formed by the mixture of nations; awkwardness of the barbarians in the nice management of declensions and conjugations, reduced them to the use of articles and auxiliary verbs; and many new ideas have been expressed by Teutonic appellations. Yet the principal stock of technical and familiar words is found to be of Latin derivation; and if we were sufficiently conversant with the obsolete, the rustic, and the municipal dialects of ancient Italy, we should trace the origin of many terms which might, perhaps, be rejected by the classic purity of Rome. A numerous army tutes but a small nation, and the powers of the Lombards were soon diminished by the retreat of twenty thousand Saxons, who scorned a dependent situation, and returned, after many bold and perilous adventures, to their native country. The camp of Alboin was of formidable extent, but the extent of a camp would be easily circumscribed within the limits of a city; and its martial inhabitants must be thinly scattered over the face of a large country. When Alboin descended from the Alps, he in

consti

I have described the state of Italy from the excellent Dissertation of Beretti. Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. i. p. 374-387.) has followed Naples. After the loss of the true Calabria, the vanity of the Greeks substituted that name instead of the more ignoble appellation of Brut tium; and the change appears to have taken place before the time of Charlemagne. (Eginard. p. 75.)

Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 310-321.) and Muratori, (Antichita Italiane, tom. ii. Dissertazion, xxxii. xxxiii. p. 71-365 have asserted the native claims of the Italian idiom: the former with enthusiasm, the latter with discretion; both with learning, ingenuity,

and truth.

q Paul, de Gest. Langobard. J. iii, c. 5–7.

ing to the idleness of the barbarians. In the rich meadows of Venetia, they restored and improved the breed of horses, for which that province had once been illustrious ;" and the Italians beheld with astonishment a foreign race of oxen or buffaloes.* The depopulation of Lombardy, and the increase of forests, afforded an ample range for the pleasures of the chace.y That marvellous art which teaches the birds of the air to acknowledge the voice, and execute the commands, of their master, had been unknown to the ingenuity of the Greeks and Romans." Scandinavia and Scythia produce the boldest and most tractable falcons: they were tamed and educated by the roving inhabitants, always on horseback and in the field. This favourite amusement of our ancestors was introduced by the barbarians into the Roman provinces; and the laws of Italy esteem the sword and the hawk as of equal dignity and importance in the hands of a noble Lombard.b

Dress and mar.

vested his nephew, the first duke of Friuli, with | the occupations of a pastoral life were more pleasthe command of the province and the people: but the prudent Gisulf would have declined the dangerous office, unless he had been permitted to choose, among the nobles of the Lombards, a sufficient number of families' to form a perpetual colony of soldiers and subjects. In the progress of conquest, the same option could not be granted to the dukes of Brescia or Bergamo, of Pavia or Turin, of Spoleto or Beneventum ; but each of these, and each of their colleagues, settled in his appointed district with a band of followers who resorted to his standard in war, and his tribunal in peace. Their attachment was free and honourable : resigning the gifts and benefits which they had accepted, they might emigrate with their families into the jurisdic- | tion of another duke; but their absence from the kingdom was punished with death, as a crime of military desertion. The posterity of the first conquerors struck a deeper root into the soil, which by every motive of interest and honour they were bound to defend. A Lombard was born the soldier of his king and his duke; and the civil assemblies of the nation displayed the banners, and assumed the appellation, of a regular army. Of this army, the pay and the rewards were drawn from the conquered provinces; and the distribution, which was not effected till after the death of Alboin, is disgraced by the foul marks of injustice and rapine. Many of the most wealthy Italians were slain or banished; the remainder were divided among the strangers, and a tributary obligation was imposed, (under the name of hospitality,) of paying to the Lombards a third part of the fruits of the earth. Within less than seventy years, this artificial system was abolished by a more simple and solid tenure. Either the Roman landlord was expelled by his strong and insolent guest; or the annual payment, a third of the produce, was exchanged by a more equitable transaction for an adequate proportion of landed property. Under these foreign masters, the business of agriculture, in the cultivation of corn, vines, and olives, was exercised with degenerate skill and industry by the labour of the slaves and natives. But

Paul. 1. ii. c. 9. He calls these families or generations by the Teutonic name of Faras, which is likewise used in the Lombard laws. The humble deacon was not insensible of the nobility of his own race. See

1. iv. c. 49.

Compare No. 3. and 177. of the laws of Rotharis.

Paul, 1. ii. c. 31, 32, 1. iii. c. 16. The laws of Rotharis, promulgated A. D. 643, do not contain the smallest vestige of this payment of thirds; but they preserve many curious circumstances of the state of Italy and the manners of the Lombards.

The studs of Dionysius of Syracuse, and his frequent victories in the Olympic games, had diffused among the Greeks the fame of the Venetian horses; but the breed was extinct in the time of Strabo, (l. V. p. 325.) Gisulf obtained from his uncle generosarum equarum gre ges. Paul, 1. ii. c. 9. The Lombards afterwards introduced caballi sylvatici-wild horses. Paul, 1. iv. c. 11.

xTunc, (A. D. 596.) primum, bubali in Italiam delati Italiæ populis miracula fuere. (Paul Warnefrid, 1. iv. c. 11.) The buffaloes, whose native climate appears to be Africa and India, are unknown to Europe, except in Italy, where they are numerous and useful. The ancients were ignorant of these animals, unless Aristotle, (Hist. Animal. I. ii. c. 1. p. 58. Paris. 1783.) Has described them as the wild oxen of Arachosia. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. and Supplement, tom. vi. Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. i. p. 7. 481. ii. 195. iii. 291. iv. 234, 461. v. 193. vi. 491. viii. 400. x. 666. Pennant's Quadrupedes, p. 24. Dictionnaire d'Hist. Naturelle, par Valmont de Romare, tom. ii. p. 74. Yet I must not conceal the suspicion that Paul, by a vulgar error, may have applied the name of bubalus to the aurochs, or wild bull, of an

cient Germany.

So rapid was the influence of climate and example, that the Lombards of the riage. fourth generation surveyed with curiosity and affright the portraits of their savage forefathers. Their heads were shaven behind, but the shaggy locks hung over their eyes and mouth, and a long beard represented the name and character of the nation. Their dress consisted of loose linen garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons, which were decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes of variegated colours. The legs and feet were clothed in long hose, and open sandals; and even in the security of peace a trusty sword was constantly girt to their side. Yet this strange apparel, and horrid aspect, often concealed a gentle and generous disposition; and as soon as the rage of battle had subsided, the captives and subjects were sometimes surprised by the humanity of the victor. The vices of the Lombards were the effect of passion, of ignorance, of intoxication; their virtues are the more laudable, as they were not affected by the hypocrisy of social manners, nor imposed by the rigid constraint of laws and education. I should not be

y Consult the twenty-first Dissertation of Muratori.

z Their ignorance is proved by the silence even of those who professedly treat of the arts of hunting and the history of animals. Aris. totle, (Hist. Animal. I. ix. c. 36. tom. i. p. 586. and the Notes of his last editor, M. Camus, tom. ii. p. 314.) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. I. x. c. 10.) Elian, (de Natur. Animal, 1. 1. c. 42.) and perhaps Homer, (Odyss. xxii. 302-306.) describe with astonishment a tacit league and common chace between the hawks and the Thracian fowlers.

a Particularly the gerfaut, or gyrfalcon, of the size of a small eagle. See the animated description of M. de Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xvi. p. 239, &c.

b Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. part ii. p. 129. This is the sixteenth law of the emperor Lewis the Pious. His father Charlemagne had falconers in his household as well as huntsmen. (Memoirs sur l'Ancienne Chevaleire, par M. de St. Palaye, tom. iii. p. 175.) I observe in the laws of Rotharis a more early mention of the art of hawking, (No. 322.) and in Gaul, in the fifth century, it is celebrated by Sidonius Apollinaris among the talents of Avitus, (202-207.)

e The epitaph of Droctulf (Paul, 1. iii. c. 19.) may be applied to many of his countrymen :

Terribilis visu facies, sed corda benignus,

Longaque robusto pectore harba fuit. The portraits of the old Lombards might still be seen in the palace of Monsa, twelve miles from Milan, which had been founded or restored by Queen Theudelinda, (l. iv. 22, 23.) See Muratori, tom. i. dissertaz. xxiii. p. 300.