authority of the Italian Kings, there existed two powers in the
Peninsula--the one secular, monarchical, with the military strength of
the barbarians imposed upon its ancient municipal organization; the
other ecclesiastical, pontifical, relying on the undefined ambitions of
S. Peter's See and the unconquered instincts of the Roman people
scattered through the still surviving cities.[1] Justinian, bent upon
asserting his rights as the successor of the Cæsars, wrested Italy from
the hands of the Goths; but scarcely was this revolution effected when
Narses, the successor of Belisarius, called a new nation of barbarians
to support his policy in Italy. Narses died before the advent of the
Lombards; but they descended, in forces far more formidable than the
Goths, and established a second kingdom at Pavia. Under the Lombard
domination Rome was left untouched. Venice, with her population gathered
from the ruins of the neighboring Roman cities, remained in
quasi-subjection to the Empire of the East. Ravenna became a Greek
garrison, ruling the Exarchate and Pentapolis under the name of the
Byzantine Emperors. The western coast escaped the Lombard domination;
for Genoa grew slowly into power upon her narrow cornice between hills
and sea, while Pisa defied the barbarians intrenched in military
stations at Fiesole and Lucca. In like manner the islands, Sicily,
Sardinia, and Corsica, were detached from the Lombard Kingdom; and the
maritime cities of Southern Italy, Bari, Naples, Amalfi, and Gaeta
asserted independence under the shadow of the Greek ascendency. What the
Lombards achieved in their conquest, and what they failed to accomplish,
decided the future of Italy. They broke the country up into unequal
blocks; for while the inland regions of the north obeyed Pavia, while
the great duchies of Spoleto in the center and of Benevento in the south
owned the nominal sway of Alboin's successors,[2] Venice and the
Riviera, Pisa and the maritime republics of Apulia and Calabria,
Ravenna and the islands, repelled their sovereignty. Rome remained