Identifier: historyofdeclin05gibb (find matches)
Title: The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794 Bury, J. B. (John Bagnell), 1861-1927
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Methuen
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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the city; andhe dismissed the patrician with his best advice, either to bribethe Lombard chiefs or to purchase the aid of the kings ofFrance. Notwithstandmg this weak invention, Italy was still (A.D. 579) afflicted, Eome was again besieged, and the suburb of Classe,only three miles from Ravenna, was pillaged and occupied bythe troops of a simple duke of Spoleto. Maurice gave audienceto a second deputation of priests and senators; the duties andthe menaces of rehgion were forcibly urged in the letters of theRoman pontiff; and his nuncio, the deacon Gregory, was alikequalified to solicit the powers either of heaven or of the earth.The emperor adopted, with stronger effect, the measures ofhis predecessor; some formidable chiefs were persuaded to em-brace the friendship of the Romans, and one of them, a mildand faithful barbarian, lived and died in the service of theexarch; the passes of the Alps were delivered to the Franks;and the pope encouraged them to violate, without scruple, their
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GOLD CROSS OF A(;il.ULF, KINO OF THE LOMI.ARDS, EARLV SEVENTH CENTURY(treasury of the cathedral of .monza) Chap, xlv) OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 23 oaths and engagements to the misbelievers. Childebert, theCA.D.584)great-grandson of Clovis, was persuaded to invade Italy by thepayment of fifty thousand pieces; but, as he had viewed with (£3o,ooo)delight some Byzantine coin of the weight of one pound ofgold, the king of Austrasia might stipulate that the gift shouldbe rendered more worthy of his acceptance by a proper mixtmeof these respectable medals. The dukes of the Lombards had (a.d. 568-provoked by frequent inroads their powerful neighbours of Gaul.As soon as they were apprehensive of a just retaliation, theyrenounced their feeble and disorderly independence; the ad-vantages of regal government, union, secrecy, and vigour, wereunanimously confessed; and Autharis, the son of Clepho, had Autbaris,already attained the strength and reputation of a warrior. Dombarcis^Under the standard of the

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