CHAP. the Arabs difdained both the gofpel and the le LII. racens. gend; and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their coftly offerings; a filver altar was torn away from the fhrine of St. Peter; and if the bodies or the buildings were left entire, their deliverance must be imputed to the haste, rather than the fcruples, of the SaIn their courfe along the Appian way, they pillaged Fundi and befieged Gayeta; but they had turned afide from the walls of Rome, and, by their divifions, the Capitol was faved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca. The fame danger ftill impended on the heads of the Roman people; and their domestic force was unequal to the affault of an African emir. They claimed the protection of their Latin fovereign; but the Carlovingian standard was overthrown by a detachment of the Barbarians: they meditated the restoration of the Greek emperors; but the attempt was treasonable, and the fuccour remote and precarious 3. Their distress appeared to receive fome aggravation from the death of their spiritual and temporal chief; but the preffing emergency fuperfeded the forms and intrigues of an election; and the unanimous choice of pope 86 86 One of the most eminent Romans (Gratianus, magifter militum et Romani palatii fuperista) was accused of declaring, Quia Franci nihil nobis boni faciunt, neque adjutorium præbent, fed magis quæ noftra funt violenter tollunt. Quare non advocamus Græcos, et cum eis foedus pacis componentes, Francorum regem et gentem de nostro regno et dominatione expellimus? Anastasius in Leone IV. p. 199. Leo 87 LII. Leo the fourth was the fafety of the church and CHAP. city. This pontiff was born a Roman; the courage of the first of the first ages of the republic glowed in his breast; and, amidst the ruins of his country, he ftood erect, like one of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads above the fragments of the Roman forum. The first days of his reign were confecrated to the purification and removal of relics, to prayers and proceffions, and to all the folemn offices of religion, which served at least to heal the imagination, and restore the hopes, of the multitude. The public defence had been long neglected, not from the prefumption of peace, but from the distress and poverty of the times. far as the fcantinefs of his means and the shortnefs of his leifure would allow, the ancient walls were repaired by the command of Leo; fifteen towers, in the most acceffible stations, were built or renewed; two of thefe commanded on either fide the Tyber; and an iron chain was drawn across the stream to impede the ascent of an hostile navy. The Romans were affured of a short respite by the welcome news, that the fiege of Gayeta had been raised, and that a part of the enemy, with their facrilegious plunder, had perished in the waves. As But the ftorm, which had been delayed, foon burst upon them with redoubled violence. The 87 Voltaire (Hift. Generale, tom. ii. c. 38. p. 124.) appears to be remarkably ftruck with the character of pope Leo IV. I have borrowed his general expreffion, but the fight of the forum has furnished me with a more diftinct and lively image. Aglabite, LII. CHAP. Aglabite ", who reigned in Africa, had inherited from his father a treasure and an army: a fleet of Arabs and Moors, after a fhort refreshment in the harbours of Sardinia, caft anchor before the mouth of the Tyber, fixteen miles from the city; and their difcipline and numbers appeared to threaten, not a tranfient inroad, but a serious defign of conquest and dominion. But the vigilance of Leo had formed an alliance with the vaffals of the Greek empire, the free and maritime states of Gayeta, Naples, and Amalfi; and in the hour of danger, their gallies appeared in the port of Oftia under the command of Cæfarius the fon of the Neapolitan duke, a noble and valiant youth, who had already vanquished the fleets of the SaraWith his principal companions, Cæfarius was invited to the Lateran palace, and the dextrous pontiff affected to enquire their errand, and to accept with joy and furprise their providential fuccour. The city bands, in arms, attended their father to Oftia, where he reviewed and blessed his generous deliverers. They kiffed his feet, received the communion with martial devotion, and liftened to the prayer of Leo, that the fame God who had fupported St. Peter and St. Paul on the waves of the fea, would ftrengthen the hands of his champions against the adversaries of his holy name. After a similar prayer, and with equal refolution, the Moflems advanced to the attack of the Christian gallies, which preserved their advantageous station cens. 38 De Guignes, Hift. Generale des Huns, tom. i. p. 363, 364. Cardonne, Hift. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, fous la Domination des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 24, 25. I obferve, and cannot reconcile, the difference of these writers in the fucceffion of the Aglabites. along LII. along the coaft. The victory inclined to the fide CHA P. of the allies, when it was lefs gloriously decided in their favour by a fudden tempeft, which confounded the skill and courage of the stouteft mariners. The Christians were sheltered in a friendly harbour, while the Africans were fcattered and dafhed in pieces among the rocks and islands of an hoftile fhore. Those who escaped from fhipwreck and hunger, neither found nor deserved mercy at the hands of their implacable purfuers. The fword and the gibbet reduced the dangerous multitude of captives; and the remainder was more usefully employed, to restore the facred edifices which they had attempted to fubvert. The pontiff, at the head of the citizens and allies, paid his grateful devotion at the fhrines of the apostles; and, among the spoils of this naval victory, thirteen Arabian bows of pure and maffy filver were fufpended round the altar of the fisherman of Galilee. The reign of Leo the fourth was employed in the defence and ornament of the Roman ftate. The churches were renewed and embellished: near four thousand pounds of filver were confecrated to repair the loffes of St. Peter; and his fanctuary was decorated with a plate of gold the weight of two hundred and fixteen pounds; emboffed with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a ftring of pearls. Yet this vain magnificence reflects lefs glory on the character of Leo, than the paternal care with which he rebuilt the walls of Horta and Ameria; and tranfported the wandering inhabitants of Centumcellæ to his new foundation of Leopolis, twelve miles from the feaVOL. X. fhore. F LII. CHAP. fhore. By his liberality a colony of Corficans, with their wives and children, was planted in the station of Porto at the mouth of the Tiber; the falling city was restored for their ufe, the fields and vineyards were divided among the new fettlers: their firft efforts were assisted by a gift of horses and cattle; and the hardy exiles, who breathed revenge against the Saracens, fwore to live and die under the standard of St. Peter. The nations of the West and North who visited the threshold of the apoftles had gradually formed the large and populous fuburb of the Vatican, and their various habitations were distinguished, in the language of the times, as the Schools of the Greeks and Goths, of the Lombards and Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to facrilegious infult: the design of inclosing it with walls and towers exhaufted all that authority could command, or charity would fupply: and the pious labour of four years was animated in every feason, and at every hour, by the presence of the indefatigable pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but worldly paffion, may be detected in the name of the Leonine city, which he bestowed on the Vatican, yet the pride of the dedication city, A. D. was tempered with Christian penance and humility. The boundary was trod by the bishop and his clergy, barefoot, in fackcloth and afhes; the fongs of triumph were modulated to pfalms and litanies; the walls were befprinkled with holy water; and the ceremony was concluded with a Founda tion of the Leonine 852. 89 Beretti (Chorographia Italia Medii Ævi, p. 106. 108.) has illustrated Centumcellæ, Leopolis, Civitas Leonina, and the other places of the Roman dutchy. prayer, |