orthodox clergy, the more so because Justinian gave large powers in
local administration to their bishops. Of outward pomp there was enough
to gild corruption and inefficiency with a deceptive splendour; but in
fact the restored Empire was little more civilised, in the true sense of
the word, than the barbarian states of the past and future. Upon the
Italians the Emperor conferred the boon of his famous _Corpus Juris_, a
compendium of that legal wisdom which constitutes the best title of Rome
to the world's gratitude. For the future it was momentous that Italy
learned, at this early date, to regard the _Corpus_ as the perfection of
legal wisdom. Through the Italian schools of later times (Ravenna,
Bologna, etc.) the _Corpus_ has influenced the law of every European
state and has dictated the principles of scientific jurisprudence. But
in the sixth century good laws availed nothing for want of good
government.

In 568, only fifteen years after the restoration, the Lombards descended
upon Italy from the Middle Danube, following the track of Theodoric and
inspirited by the fame of his success. A few years made them masters of
the North Italian plain still known as Lombardy. Within three-quarters
of a century they had demonstrated the hollowness of the Byzantine
power. The power of their kings, whose capital was Pavia, extended on
the one side into Liguria and Tuscany, on the other into Emilia and
Friuli; far away in the south, behind the line of fortresses which
linked Rome with Ravenna, the semi-independent dukes of Spoleto and
Benevento were masters of the land on both sides of the Apennines,
excepting Naples and the toe of the Bruttian peninsula. Apart from these
districts there remained in the imperial allegiance only the fisher-folk
of the Venetian lagoons and the lands which afterwards were to be known
as the Papal States. What the Byzantines achieved by the maintenance of
this precarious foothold was nothing less than the political disruption