necessity, this pope became the most potent personage in Rome. Power fell naturally into his hands; he was the true representative of the city, the born defender of church and state. His ecclesiastical authority, already great throughout Italy, was specially great in the Roman diocese and in southern Italy. The continual offerings of the faithful had previously endowed the church with enormous possessions in the province of Rome, in Sicily, Sardinia and other parts. The administration of all this property soon assumed the shape of a small government council in Rome. In the middle ages the owner of the land was also master of the men who cultivated it, and exercised political authority as well; these administrators therefore protected and succoured the oppressed, settled disputes, nominated judges and controlled the ecclesiastical authorities. The use made by the pope of his revenues greatly contributed to the increase of his moral and political authority. When the city was besieged by the Lombards, and the emperor left his army unpaid, Gregory supplied the required funds and thus made resistance possible. And, when the defence could be no longer maintained, he alone, by the weight of his personal influence and the payment of large sums, induced the Lombards to raise the siege. He negotiated in person with Agilulph, and was recognized by him as the true representative of the city. Thus Rome, after being five times taken and sacked by the barbarians, was, on this occasion, saved by its bishop. The exarch, although unable to give any help, protested against the assumption of so much authority by the pope; but Gregory was no usurper; his attitude was the natural result of events. “For twenty-seven years”—so wrote this pontiff to the imperial government of Constantinople—“we lived in terror of the Longobards, nor can I say what sums we had to pay them. There is an imperial treasurer with the army at Ravenna; but here it is I who am treasurer. Likewise I have to provide for the clergy, the poor and the people, and even to succour the distress of other churches.”
It was at this moment that the new Roman commune began to take shape and acquire increasing vigour owing to its The Roman commune. distance from the seat of the empire and its resistance to the Lombard besiegers. Its special character was now to be traced in the preponderance of the military over the civil power. A Roman element had penetrated into the army, which was already possessed of considerable political importance. The prefect of Rome loses authority and seems almost a nullity compared with the magister militum. Hardly anything is heard of the senate. “Quia enim Senatus deest, populus interiit,” exclaims Gregory in a moment of despair. The popes now make common cause with the people against the Lombards on the one hand and the emperor on the other. But they avoid an absolute rupture with the empire, lest they should have to face the Lombard power without any prospect of help. Later, when the growing strength of the commune becomes menacing, they remain faithful to the empire in order not to be at the mercy of the people. It was a permanent feature of their policy never to allow the complete independence of the city until they should be its sole and absolute masters. But that time was still in the future. Meanwhile pope and people joined in the defence of their common interests.
This alliance was cemented by the religious disputes of the East and the West. First came the Monothelite controversy regarding the twofold nature of Christ. Later a long and violent struggle ensued, in which the people of Rome and of other Italian cities sided so vigorously with the popes that John VI. (701-5) had to interpose in order to release the exarch from captivity and prevent a definitive rupture with the empire. Then (710-11) Ravenna revolted against the emperor, organized its armed population under twelve flags, and almost all the cities of the exarchate joined in a resistance that was the first step towards the independence of the Italian communes. A still fiercer religious quarrel then broke out concerning images. Pope Gregory II. (715-31) opposed the celebrated edict of the iconoclastic emperor Leo the Isaurian. Venice and the Pentapolis took up arms in favour of the pope, and elected dukes of their own without applying to the emperor. Again public disorder rose to such a pitch that the pope was obliged to check it lest it should go too far.
In the midst of these warlike tumults a new constitution, almost a new state, was being set up in Rome. During the The duchy of Rome. conflict with Philippicus, the Monothelite and heretical emperor who ascended the throne in 711, the Liber Pontificalis makes the first mention of the duchy of Rome (ducatus Romanae urbis), and we find the people struggling to elect a duke of their own. In the early days of the Byzantine rule the territory appertaining to the city was no greater than under the Roman Empire. But, partly through the weakness of the government of Constantinople, and above all through the decomposition of the Italian provinces under the Lombards, who destroyed all unity of government in the peninsula, this dukedom was widely extended, and its limits were always changing in accordance with the course of events. It was watered by the Tiber, and stretched into Tuscia to the right, starting from the mouth of the Marta, by Tolfa and Bleda, and reaching as far as Orte. Viterbo was a frontier city of the Lombards. On the left the duchy extended into Latium as far as the Garigliano. It spread very little to the north-east and was badly defended on that side, inasmuch as the duchy of Spoleto reached to within fourteen miles of the Salara gate. On the other side, towards Umbria, the river Nera was its boundary line.
The constitution of the city now begins to show the results of the conditions amid which it took shape. The separation The first constitution of the commune. of the civil from the military power has entirely disappeared. This is proved by the fact that, after the year 600, there is no further mention of the prefect. His office still survived, but with a gradual change of functions, until, in the 8th century, he once more appears as president of a criminal tribunal. The constitution of the duchy and of the new republic formed during the wars with the Lombards and the exarch was substantially of an aristocratic-military nature. At its head was the duke, first appointed by the emperor, then by the pope and the people, and, as his strength and influence grew with those of the commune, he gradually became the most respected and powerful personage in Rome. The duke inhabited the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill, and had both the civil and the military power in his hands; he was at the head of the army, which, being composed of the best citizens and highest nobility of Rome, was a truly national force. This army was styled the felicissimus or florens exercitus Romanus or also the militia Romana. Its members never lost their citizen stamp; on the contrary they formed the true body of the citizens. We find mention of other duces in Rome, but these were probably other leaders or superior officers of the army. Counts and tribunes are found in the subject cities bound to furnish aid to the capital. In fact during the pontificate of Sergius II. (844), when the duchy was threatened by a Saracenic invasion, they were requested to send troops to defend the coast, and as many soldiers as possible to the city.
At that time the inhabitants of Rome were divided into four principal classes—clergy, nobles, soldiers and simple citizens. The different classes of society in Rome. The nobles were divided into two categories, first the genuine optimates, i.e. members of old and wealthy families with large estates, and filling high, and often hereditary, offices in the state, the church and the army. These were styled proceres and primates. The second category comprised landed proprietors, of moderate means but exalted position, mentioned as nubiles by Gregory I., and constituting in fact a numerous petty nobility and the bulk of the army. Next followed the citizens, i.e. the commercial class, merchants and craftsmen, who, having as yet no fixed organization and but little influence, were simply designated as honesti cives. These, however, were quite distinct from the plebeians, plebs, vulgus populi, viri humiles, who in their turn ranked above bondsmen and slaves. The honesti cives did not
