enemy, would have been less impatient to divide the spoils of the
Barbarian; and if the emperor had intrusted Stephen to solicit in
his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not absolve the
pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the
rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept, without
injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice.
The Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to the
Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger
sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the
Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in a double
expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully
alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the Greeks
he piously replied that no human consideration should tempt him
to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman Pontiff
for the remission of his sins, and the salvation of his soul.
The splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute
dominion, and the world beheld for the first time a Christian
bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the
choice of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of
taxes, and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the
dissolution of the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy
of Spoleto ^64 sought a refuge from the storm, shaved their heads
after the Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants and
subjects of St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary
surrender, the present circle of the ecclesiastical state. That
mysterious circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by the
verbal or written donation of Charlemagne, ^65 who, in the first
transports of his victory, despoiled himself and the Greek
emperor of the cities and islands which had formerly been annexed
to the Exarchate. But, in the cooler moments of absence and