to live and die in the defence of the pope and the holy images;
the Roman people was devoted to their father, and even the
Lombards were ambitious to share the merit and advantage of this
holy war. The most treasonable act, but the most obvious
revenge, was the destruction of the statues of Leo himself: the
most effectual and pleasing measure of rebellion, was the
withholding the tribute of Italy, and depriving him of a power
which he had recently abused by the imposition of a new
capitation. ^38 A form of administration was preserved by the
election of magistrates and governors; and so high was the public
indignation, that the Italians were prepared to create an
orthodox emperor, and to conduct him with a fleet and army to the
palace of Constantinople. In that palace, the Roman bishops, the
second and third Gregory, were condemned as the authors of the
revolt, and every attempt was made, either by fraud or force, to
seize their persons, and to strike at their lives. The city was
repeatedly visited or assaulted by captains of the guards, and
dukes and exarchs of high dignity or secret trust; they landed
with foreign troops, they obtained some domestic aid, and the
superstition of Naples may blush that her fathers were attached
to the cause of heresy. But these clandestine or open attacks
were repelled by the courage and vigilance of the Romans; the
Greeks were overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an
ignominious death, and the popes, however inclined to mercy,
refused to intercede for these guilty victims. At Ravenna, ^39
the several quarters of the city had long exercised a bloody and
hereditary feud; in religious controversy they found a new
aliment of faction: but the votaries of images were superior in
numbers or spirit, and the exarch, who attempted to stem the
torrent, lost his life in a popular sedition. To punish this