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rates; his valour and conduct were fignalized in CHAP. the Perfian war; and he returned to Constantinople to accept as his juft reward, the inheritance of the empire. Maurice afcended the throne at the mature age of forty-three years; and he reigned above twenty years over the Eaft and over himself 3°; expelling from his mind the wild democracy of paffions, and establishing (according to the quaint expreffion of Evagrius) a perfect aristocracy of reafon and virtue. Some fufpicion will degrade the testimony of a fubject, though he protests that his fecret praise fhould never reach the ear of his fovereign ", and fome failings feem to place the character of Maurice below the purer merit of his predeceffor. His cold and referved demeanour might be imputed to arrogance; his justice was 'not always exempt from cruelty, nor his clemency from weakness; and his rigid oeconomy too often exposed him to the reproach of avarice. But the rational wishes of an abfolute monarch must tend to the happiness of his people; Maurice was endowed with fenfe and courage to promote that happiness, and his administration was directed by the principles and example of Tiberius. The pufillanimity of the Greeks had introduced fo complete a

30 Confult, for the character and reign of Maurice, the fifth and fixth books of Evagrius, particularly l. vi. c. 1.; the eight books of his prolix and florid hiftory by Theophylact Simocatta. Theophanes p. 213, &c. Zonaras, tom. ii. I. xiv. p. 73. Credenus, p. 394.

31 Αυτοκράτωρ οντως γενομενος την μεν οχλοκρατείαν των παθών εκ της οικείας εξενηλατησε ψυχης αρισοκρατείαν δε εν τοις εαυτε λογισμοίς κατ Tacnoaμeves. Evagrius compofed his hiftory in the twelfth year of Maurice; and he had been fo wifely indifcreet, that the emperor knew and rewarded his favourable opinion (1. vi, C. 24.).

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CHA P. feparation between the offices of king and of general, that a private foldier who had deferved and obtained the purple, feldom or never appeared at the head of his armies. Yet the emperor Maurice enjoyed the glory of restoring the Perfian monarch to his throne: his lieutenants waged a doubtful war against the Avars of the Danube, and he caft an eye of pity, of ineffectual pity, on the abject and distressful state of his Italian provinces.

Diftress of Italy.

From Italy the emperors were inceffantly tormented by tales of mifery and demands of fuccour, which extorted the humiliating confeffion of their own weakness. The expiring dignity of Rome was only marked by the freedom and energy of her complaints: "If you are incapable," fhe faid, "of delivering us from the fword of the Lom"bards, fave us at least from the calamity of "famine." Tiberius forgave the reproach, and relieved the distress: a fupply of corn was tranfported from Egypt to the Tyber; and the Roman people, invoking the name, not of Camillus, but of St. Peter, repulfed the Barbarians from their walls. But, the relief was accidental, the danger was perpetual and preffing; and the clergy and fenate, collecting the remains of their ancient opulence, a fum of three thousand pounds of gold, dispatched 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 Eaft, were diverted by the Persian war but the juftice of Tiberius applied the fubfidy to the defence of the city; and he dimiffed

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the patrician with his best advice, either to bribe CHAP. the Lombard chiefs, or to purchase the aid of the kings of France. Notwithstanding this weak invention, Italy was ftill afflicted, Rome was again befieged, and the suburb of Claffe, only three miles from Ravenna, was pillaged and occupied by the troops of a fimple duke of Spoleto. Maurice gave audience to a fecond deputation of priests and fenators; 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 folicit the powers either of heaven or of the earth. The emperor adopted, with ftronger effect, the measures of his predeceffor: fome formidable chiefs were perfuaded to embrace the friendship of the Romans; and one of them, a mild and faithful Barbarian, lived and died in the fervice of the exarch: the paffes of the Alps were delivered to the Franks; and the pope encouraged them to violate, without fcruple, their oaths and engagements to the misbelievers. Childebert, the great-grandfon of Clovis, was perfuaded 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 Auftrafia might ftipulate, that the gift should be rendered more worthy of his acceptance, by a proper mixture of these refpectable medals. The dukes of the Lombards had provoked by frequent inroads their powerful neighbours of Gaul. As foon as they were apprehenfive of a juft retaliation, they renounced their feeble and disorderly independence:

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CHAP. pendence: the advantages of regal government, union, fecrefy, and vigour, were unanimously Autharis, confeffled; and Autharis, the fon of Clepho, had king of the Lom already attained the ftrength and reputation of a warrior. Under the standard of their new king, 584-590. the conquerors of Italy withstood three fucceffive invafions, one of which was led by Childebert himself, the last of the Merovingian race who defcended from the Alps. The firft expedition was defeated by the jealous animofity of the Franks and Alemanni. In the fecond they were vanquifhed in a bloody battle, with more lofs and dishonour than they had fuftained fince 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 treafures of the Lombards were distributed in the walled towns between the Alps and the Apennine. A nation, lefs fenfible of danger, than of fatigue and delay, foon murmured against the folly of their twenty commanders; and the hot vapours of an Italian fun infected with difeafe thofe tramontane bodies which had already fuffered the viciffitudes of intemperance and famine. The powers that were inadequate to the conqueft, were more than fufficient for the defolation, of the country; nor could the trembling natives diftinguish 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 fubverted the throne of the Lombards; but the Franks expected fix days the fignal

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of a flaming village, and the arms of the Greeks CHAP. were idly employed in the reduction of Modena and Parma, which were torn from them after the retreat of their Tranfalpine allies. The victorious Autharis afferted his claim to the dominion of Italy. At the foot of the Rhætian Alps, he fubdued the resistance, and rifled the hidden treasures, of a fequeftered island in the lake of Comum. At the extreme point of Calabria, he touched with his fpear a column on the fea-fhore of Rhegium 3, proclaiming that ancient land-mark to ftand the immoveable boundary of his kingdom 3*.

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During a period of two hundred years, Italy was unequally divided between the kingdom of the Lombards and the exarchate of Ravenna. The offices and profeffions, which the jealousy of Conftantine had separated, were united by the indulgence of Juftinian; and eighteen fucceffive exarchs were invested in the decline of the empire, with the full remains of civil, of military, and even of ecclefiaftical power. Their immediate jurifdiction, which was afterwards confecrated as the patrimony of St. Peter, extended

32 The Columna Rhegina, in the narrowest part of the Faro of Meffina, one hundred ftadia from Rhegium itself, is frequently mentioned in ancient geography. Cluver. Ital. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 1295. Lucas Holstein. Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 301. Weffeling, Itinerar./ P. 106.

33 The Greek historians afford fome faint hints of the wars of Italy (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 124. 126. Theophylact, 1. iii. c. 4.), The Latins are more fatisfactory; and especially Paul Warnefrid (1. iii. 13-34.), who had read the more ancient hif tories of Secundus and Gregory of Tours. Baronius produces fome letters of the popes, &c.; and the times are measured by the accu. rate scale of Pagi and Muratori.

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