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CHAP.

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Laws,
D. 643,

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cution of their decrees, depended on the approba tion of the faithful people, the fortunate army of the Lombards. About fourfcore years after the conqueft of Italy, their traditional customs were transcribed in Teutonic Latin "3, and ratified by the confent of the prince and people; fome new regulations were introduced, more fuitable to their prefent condition; the example of Rotharis was imitated by the wifeft of his fucceffors, and the laws of the Lombards have been esteemed the least imperfect of the Barbaric codes 4. Secure by their courage in the poffeffion of liberty, thefe rude and hafty legislators were incapable of balancing the powers of the conftitution, or of difcuffing the nice theory of political government. Such crimes as threatened the life of the fovereign, or the fafety of the state, were adjudged worthy of death; but their attention was principally confined to the defence of the perfon and property of the fubject. According to the ftrange jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood might be redeemed by a fine; yet the high price of nine hundred pieces of gold declares a juft fenfe of the value of a fimple citizen. Lefs atrocious injuries, a wound, a fracture, a blow, an opprobrious word, were measured with fcrupulous and almost ridiculous diligence; and the prudence of the legiflator encouraged the ignoble practice of

* The most accurate edition of the laws of the Lombards is to be found in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. part ii. p. 1- -181. collated from the most ancient MSS. and illustrated by the critical notes of Muratori.

53 Montefquieu, Efprit des Loix, Į. xxviii, c. 1. Les loix des Bourguignons font affez judicieuses: celles de Rotharis et des autres princes Lombards le font encore plus.

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bartering honour and revenge for a pecuniary compenfation. The ignorance of the Lombards, in m the state of Paganism or Christianity, gave implicit credit to the malice and mischief of witchcraft ; but the judges of the feventeenth century might have been inftructed and confounded by the wifdom of Rotharis, who derides the abfurd fuperftition, and protects the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty ". The fame spirit of a legislator, fuperior to his age and country, may be afcribed to Luitprand, who condemns, while he tolerates, the impious and inveterate abuse of duels ", obferving from his own experience, that the juster cause had often been oppreffed by fuccessful violence. Whatever merit may be difcovered in the laws of the Lombards, they are the genuine fruit of the reason of the Barbarians, who never admitted the bishops of Italy to a feat in their legiflative councils. But the fucceffion of their kings is marked with virtue and ability; the troubled feries of their annals is adorned with fair intervals of peace, order, and domestic happiness; and the Italians enjoyed a milder and more equitable government, than any

55 See Leges Rotharis, N° 379, p. 47. Striga is used as the name of a witch. It is of the pureft claffic origin (Horat. epod. v. 20. Petron. c. 134.); and, from the words of Petronius, (quæ ftriges comederunt nervos tuos?) it may inferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather than Barbaric extraction.

56 Quia incerte fumus de judicioDei, et multos audivimus per pugnam fine justâ caufâ fuam caufam perdere. Sed propter consuetudinem gentem noftram Langobardorum legem impiam vetare non poffumus. See p. 74. N° 65. of the Laws of Luitprand, promulgated A. D. 734.

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CHAP. of the other kingdoms which had been founded on the ruins of the Western empire "7.

L
Mifery of
Rome.

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Amidft the arms of the Lombards, and under the defpotism of the Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Rome ", which had reached, about the close of the fixth century, the lowest period of her depreffion. By the removal of the feat of empire, and the fucceffive lofs of the provinces, the fources of public and private opulence were exhausted; the lofty tree, under whofe fhade the nations of the earth had repofed, was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the faplefs trunk was left to wither on the ground. The ministers of command, and the meffengers of victory, no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way; and the hostile approach of the Lombards was often felt and continually feared. The inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital, who vifit without an anxious thought the garden of the adjacent country, will faintly picture in their fancy the diftrefs of the Romans: they fhut or opened their gates with a trembling hand, beheld from the walls the flames of their houses, and heard the lamentations of their brethren, who were coupled together like dogs, and dragged away into distant flavery beyond the fea and moun

57 Read the hiftory of Paul Warnefrid; particularly 1. iii. c. 16, Baronius rejects the praise, which appears to contradict the invec-tives of pope Gregory the Great; but Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. v. p. 217.) prefumes to infinuate that the faint may have magnified the faults of Arians and enemies.

The paffages of the homilies of Gregory, which represent the miserable state of the city and country, are transcribed in the Annals of Baronius, A. D. 590, No 16. A. D. 595, N° 2, &c. &c.

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tains. Such inceffant alarms muft annihilate the CHAP. pleasures and interrupt the labours of a rural life; and the Campagna of Rome was speedily reduced to the state of a dreary wilderness, in which the land is barren, the waters are impure, and the air is infectious. Curiofity and ambition no longer attracted the nations to the capital of the world: but if chance or neceffity directed the steps of a wandering stranger, he contemplated with horror the vacancy and folitude of the city, and might be tempted to ask, where is the fenate, and where are the people? In a feafon of exceffive rains, the Tyber fwelled above its banks, and rufhed with irresistible violence into the vallies of the feven hills. A peftilential disease arose from the ftagnation of the deluge, and fo rapid was the contagion, that fourfcore perfons expired in an hour in the midst of a folemn proceffion, which implored the mercy of heaven 5. A fociety in which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails, foon repairs the accidental loffes of peftilence and war: but as the far greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless indigence and celibacy, the depopulation was conftant and visible, and the gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the human Yet the number of citizens ftill exceeded

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59 The inundation and plague were reported by a deacon, whom his bifhop, Gregory of Tours, had dispatched to Rome for fome. relics. The ingenious meffenger embellished his tale and the river with a great dragon and a train of little ferpents (Greg.Turon. 1.x. e. 1.).

60 Gregory of Rome (Dialog. 1. ii. c. 15.) relates a memorable - prediction of St. Benedict. Róma a Gentilibus non exterminabitur sfed tempeftatibus, corufcis turbinibus ac terræ motû in femetipfa

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CHAP. the measure of fubfiftence: their precarious food

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was fupplied from the harvests of Sicily or Egypt; and the frequent repetition of famine betrays the inattention of the emperor to a distant province. The edifices of Rome were exposed to the fame ruin and decay the mouldering fabrics were easily overthrown by inundations, tempefts, and earthquakes, and the monks who had occupied the most advantageous stations, exulted in their base triumph over the ruins of antiquity. It is commonly believed, that pope Gregory the first attacked the temples and mutilated the statues of the city; that by the command of the Barbarian, the Palatine library was reduced to ashes, and that the history of Livy was the peculiar mark of his abfurd and mifchievous fanaticism. The writings of Gregory himself reveal his implacable averfion to the monuments of claffic genius; and he points his fe verest cenfure against the profane learning of a bifhop, who taught the art of grammar, ftudied the Latin poets, and pronounced with the fame voice the praises of Jupiter and those of Christ. But the evidence of his deftructive rage is doubtful and recent; the Temple of Peace, or the theatre of Marcellus, have been demolished by the flow operation of ages, and a formal profcription would have multiplied the copies of Virgil and Livy in

marcefcet. Such a prophecy melts into true hiftory, and becomes the evidence of the fact after which it was invented.

61 Quia in uno fe ore cum Jovis laudibus, Chrifti laudes non capiunt,et quam grave nefandumque fit epifcopis canere quod nec laico religiofo conveniat, ipfe confidera (1. ix. ep. 4.). The writings of Gregory himself attest his innocence of any claffic taste or literature.

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