"ground. The Milvian bridge, which they had broken, CHAP. " is restored and fortified for your safe passage; and LXIX. "your army may enter the city without being annoyed "from the castle of St. Angelo. All that we have done, "and all that we design, is for your honour and ser"vice, in the loyal hope, that you will speedily appear "in person, to vindicate those rights which have been "invaded by the clergy, to revive the dignity of the em"pire, and to surpass the fame and glory of your pre"decessors. May you fix your residence in Rome, the "capital of the world; give laws to Italy, and the Teu"tonic kingdom; and imitate the example of Constan"tine and Justinian", who by the vigour of the senate "and people obtained the sceptre of the earth"." But these splendid and fallacious wishes were not cherished by Conrad the Franconian, whose eyes were fixed on the Holy Land, and who died without visiting Rome soon after his return from the Holy Land. His nephew and successor Frederic Barbarossa, was Frederic I. more ambitious of the Imperial crown; nor had any of A.D. 1155. the successors of Otho acquired such absolute sway over the kingdom of Italy. Surrounded by his ecclesiastical and secular princes, he gave audience in his camp at Sutri to the ambassadors of Rome, who thus addressed him in a free and florid oration: "Incline your ear to the queen of cities; approach with a "peaceful and friendly mind the precincts of Rome, "which has cast away the yoke of the clergy, and is "impatient to crown her legitimate emperor. Under "your auspicious influence, may the primitive times be "restored. Assert the prerogatives of the eternal city, "and reduce under her monarchy, the insolence of the "world. You are not ignorant, that, in former ages, by "the wisdom of the senate, by the valour and discipline of the equestrian order, she extended her victo"rious arms to the East and West, beyond the Alps, "and over the islands of the ocean. By our sins, in the "absence of our princes, the noble institution of the se"nate has sunk in oblivion: and with our prudence, "our strength has likewise decreased. We have reviv 54 We desire (said the ignorant Romans) to restore the empire in eum statum, quo fuit tempore Constantini et Justiniani, qui totum orbem vigore senatus et populi Romani suis tenuere manibus. 55 Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I. 1. i. c. 28. p. 662-664. CHAP. "ed the senate, and the equestrian order; the counsels LXIX. "of the one, the arms of the other, will be devoted to "your person and the service of the empire. Do you "not hear the language of the Roman matron? You "were a guest, I have adopted you as a citizen; a "Transalpine stranger, I have elected you for my so"vereign; and given you myself, and all that is mine. "Your first and most sacred duty, is to swear and sub"scribe, that you will shed your blood for the republic; "that you will maintain in peace and justice, the laws "of the city and the charters of your predecessors; and "that you will reward with five thousand pounds of "silver the faithful senators who shall proclaim your ti❝tles in the Capitol. With the name, assume the cha"racter, of Augustus." The flowers of Latin rhetoric were not yet exhausted; but Frederic, impatient of their vanity, interrupted the orators in the high tone of royalty and conquest. "Famous indeed have been the "fortitude and wisdom of the ancient Romans: but your speech is not seasoned with wisdom, and I could "wish that fortitude were conspicuous in your actions. "Like all sublunary things, Rome has felt the vicissi❝tudes of time and fortune. Your noblest families were "translated to the East, to the royal city of Constan"tine; and the remains of your strength and freedom, "have long since been exhausted by the Greeks and "Franks. Are you desirous of beholding the ancient 66 glory of Rome, the gravity of the senate, the spirit of "the knights, the discipline of the camp, the valour of "the legions? you will find them in the German repub"lic. It is not empire, naked and alone, the ornaments "and virtues of empire have likewise migrated beyond "the Alps to a more deserving people": they will be "employed in your defence, but they claim your obediYou pretend that myself or my predecessors "have been invited by the Romans: you mistake the "word, they were not invited; they were implored, "From its foreign and domestic tyrants, the city was "rescued by Charlemagne and Otho, whose ashes re ❝ence. 56 Hospes eras, civem feci. Advena fuisti ex Transalpinis partibus; principem constitui. 57 Non cessit nobis nudum imperium, virtute sua amictum venit, ornamenta sua secum traxit. Penes nos sunt consules tui, &c. Cicero or Livy would not have rejected these images, the eloquence of a Barbarian born and educated in the Hercynian forest. LXIX. pose in our country: and their dominion was the price CHAP. "of your deliverance. Under that dominion your ances"tors lived and died. I claim by the right of inheritance "and possession, and who shall dare to extort you from 66 my hands? Is the hand of the Franks and Germans "enfeebled by age? Am I vanquished? Am I a cap"tive? Am I not encompassed with the banners of a "potent and invincible army? You impose conditious 66 on your master; you require oaths: if the conditions "are just, an oath is superfluous; if unjust, it is crimi"nal. Can you doubt my equity? It is extended to the "meanest of my subjects. Will not my sword be un"sheathed in the defence of the Capitol? By that sword "the northern kingdom of Denmark has been restored "to the Roman empire. You prescribe the measure and "the objects of my bounty, which flows in a copious but "a voluntary stream. All will be given to patient me"rit; all will be denied to rude importunity." Neither the emperor nor the senate could maintain these lofty pretensions of dominion and liberty. United with the pope, and suspicious of the Romans, Frederic continued his march to the Vatican: his coronation was disturbed by a sally from the Capitol; and if the numbers and valour of the Germans prevailed in a bloody conflict, he could not safely encamp in the presence of a city of which he styled himself the sovereign. About twelve years afterwards, he besieged Rome, to seat an antipope in the chair of St. Peter; and twelve Pisan gallies were introduced into the Tyber: but the senate and people were saved by the arts of negotiation and the progress of disease; nor did Frederic or his successors reiterate the hostile attempt. Their laborious reigns were exercised by the popes, the crusades, and the independence of Lombardy and Germany; they courted the alliance of the Romans; and Frederic the second offered in the Capitol the great standard, the Caroccio of Milano. 58 Otho of Frisingen, who surely understood the language of the court and diet of Germany, speaks of the Franks in the xiith century as the reigning nation (Proceres Franci, equites Franci, manus Francorum); he adds, however, the epithet of Teutonic. 59 Otho Frising. de Gestis Frederici I. 1. ii. c. 22. p. 720-723. These original and authentic acts I have translated and abridged with freedom, yet with fidelity. 60 From the Chronicles of Ricobaldo and Francis Pipin, Muratori (dissert. xxvi. tom. ii. p. 492.) has transcribed this curious fact with the doggrel verses that accompanied the gift: VOL. VIII. Сс CHAP. After the extinction of the house of Swabia, they were LXIX. banished beyond the Alps; and their last coronations betrayed the impotence and poverty of the Teutonic Cæ Wars of the Ro mans against the neigh. bouring cities. sars1. Under the reign of Adrian, when the empire extended from the Euphrates to the ocean, from mount Atlas to the Grampian hills, a fanciful historian2 amused the Romans with the picture of their infant wars. "There "was a time," says Florus, "when-Tibur and Præ"neste, our summer retreats, were the objects of hos❝tile vows in the Capitol, when we dreaded the shades "of the Arician groves, when we could triumph with❝out a blush over the nameless villages of the Sabines and Latius, and even Corioli could afford a title not “unworthy of a victorious general." The pride of his contemporaries was gratified by the contrast of the past and the present: they would have been humbled by the prospect of futurity; by the prediction, that after a thousand years, Rome, despoiled of empire and contracted to her primæval limits, would renew the same hostilities, on the same ground which was then decorated with her villas and gardens. The adjacent territory on either side of the Tyber was always claimed, and sometimes possessed, as the patrimony of St. Peter; but the barons assumed a lawless independence, and the cities too faithfully copied the revolt and discord of the metropolis. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Romans incessantly laboured to reduce or destroy the contumacious vassals of the church and senate; and if their headstrong and selfish ambition was moderated Ave decus orbis ave! victus tibi destinor, ave! Ergo triumphorum urbs potes memor esse priorum Ne si dee tacere (I now use the Italian Dissertations, tom. i. p. 411.) che 61 The decline of the Imperial arms and authority in Italy, is related with impartial learning in the Annals of Muratori (tom. x, xi, xii); and the reader may compare his narrative with the Histoire des Allemands (tom.iii. iv.), by Schmidt, who has deserved the esteem of his countrymen. 62 Tibur nunc suburbanum, et æstivæ Præneste delicia, nuncupatis in Capitolio votis petebantur. The whole passage of Florus (1. i. c. 11.) may be read with pleasure, and has deserved the praise of a man of genius (Eu vres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 634, 635. quarto edition.) LXIX. by the pope, he often encouraged their zeal by the alli- CHAP. ance of his spiritual arms. Their warfare was that of the first consuls and dictators, who were taken from the plough. They assembled in arms at the foot of the Capitol; sallied from the gates, plundered or burnt the harvests of their neighbours, engaged in tumultuary conflict, and returned home after an expedition of fifteen or twenty days. Their sieges were tedious and unskil ful in the use of victory, they indulged the meaner passions of jealousy and revenge; and instead of adopting the valour, they trampled on the misfortunes, of their adversaries. The captives, in their shirts, with a rope round their necks, solicited their pardon: the fortifications and even the buildings of the rival cities were demolished, and the inhabitants were scattered in the adjacent villages. It was thus that the seats of the cardinal bishops, Porto, Ostia, Albanum, Tusculum, Præneste, and Tibur or Tivoli, were successively overthrown by the ferocious hostility of the Romans63. Of these, Porto and Ostia, the two keys of the Tyber, are still vacant and desolate: the marshy and unwholesome banks are peopled with herds of buffaloes, and the river is lost to every purpose of navigation and trade. The hills which afford a shady retirement from the autumnal heats, have again smiled with the blessings of peace: Frescati has arisen near the ruins of Tusculum: Tibur or Tivoli has resumed the honours of a city, and the meaner towns of Albano and Palestrina are decorated with the villas of the cardinals and princes of Rome. In the work of destruction, the ambition of the Romans was often checked and repulsed by the neighbouring cities and their allies in the first siege of Tibur, they were driven from their camp; and the battles of Tusculum 66 63 Ne a feritate Romanorum, sicut fuerant Hostienses, Portuenses, Tus. culanenses, Albanenses, Labicenses, et nuper Tiburtini destruerentur (Mats thew Paris, p. 757.) These events are marked in the Annals and Index (the xviiith volume) of Muratori. 64 For the state or ruin of these suburban cities, the banks of the Tyber, &c.see the lively picture of the P. Labat (Voyage en Espagne et en Italie), who had long resided in the neighbourhood of Rome; and the more accu rate description of which P. Eschinard (Roma, 1750, in octavo) has added to the topographical map of Cingolani. 65 Labat (tom. iii. p. 233.) mentions a recent decree of the Roman government, which has severely mortified the pride and poverty of Tivoli: in civitate Tiburtina non viviture civiliter. 66 I depart from my usual method, of quoting only by the date the Andals of Muratori, in consideration of the critical balance in which he has |