unknown; the nations and families of Italy, who lived under the Roman and Barbaric laws, were insensibly mingled in a common mass; and some faint tradition, some imperfect fragments, preserved the memory of the code and pandects of Justinian. With their liberty, the Romans might doubtless have restored the appellation and office of consuls; had they not disdained a title so promiscuously adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settled on the humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign land.* But the rights of the tribunes, the formidable word that arrested the public counsels, suppose or must produce legitimate democracy. The old patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the tyrants, of the state; nor would the enemies of peace and order, who insulted the vicar of Christ, have long respected the unarmed sanctity of a plebeian magistrate.t

In the revolution of the twelfth century, which gave a new existence and era to Rome, we may observe the real and important events that marked or confirmed her political independence. I. The Capitoline hill, one of her seven eminences, is about four hundred yards in length, and two

merit of the establishment. (Plin. Hist. Natur. 33. 3. Beaufort, République Romaine, tom. i. p. 144-155.) * [The first com

mercial consuls were appointed by the great trading cities of Italy, to protect their interests at Constantinople and rule their countrymen who frequented the great market of the East. They were magistrates, armed with the full powers of the chiefs of their respective states, "exceptis tamen majoribus criminibus." (Ducange, 1. 1008.) They were elected annually, and were termed consuls after the magistrates whom they represented. The Venetians called them bajuli, or bailiffs. (Pachymer de Mich. Palæol. 1. 2, c. 32.) As international law became more explicit and effective, their powers were restricted and their dignity lowered; but the name of consul still records what they once were.-ED.] The republican plan of Arnold of

Brescia is thus stated by Gunther:

Quin etiam titulos urbis renovare vetustos; Nomine plebeio secernere nomen equestre, Jura tribunorum, sanctum reparare senatum, Et senio fessas mutasque reponere leges. Lapsa ruinosis, et adhuc pendentia muris Reddere primævo Capitolia prisca nitori. But of these reformations, some were no more than ideas, others no more than words. After many disputes among the antiquaries of Rome, it seems determined, that the summit of the Capitoline hill next the river is strictly the Mons Tarpeius, the Arx; and that on the other summit, the church and convent of Ara Cœli, the

hundred in breadth. A flight of a hundred steps led to the summit of the Tarpeian rock; and far steeper was the ascent before the declivities had been smoothed, and the precipices filled by the ruins of fallen edifices. From the earliest ages, the Capitol had been used as a temple in peace, a fortress in war: after the loss of the city, it maintained a siege against the victorious Gauls; and the sanctuary of empire was occupied, assaulted and burnt, in the civil wars of Vitellius and Vespasian.* The temples of Jupiter and his kindred deities had crumbled into dust; their place was supplied by monasteries and houses; and the solid walls, the long and shelving porticoes, were decayed or ruined by the lapse of time. It was the first act of the Romans, an act of freedom, to restore the strength, though not the beauty, of the Capitol; to fortify the seat of their arms and counsels; and as often as they ascended the hill, the coldest minds must have glowed with the remembrance of their ancestors. II. The first Cæsars had been invested with the exclusive coinage of the gold and silver; to the senate they abandoned the baser metal of bronze or copper.† The emblems and legends were inscribed on a more ample field by the genius of flattery; and the prince was relieved from the care of celebrating his own virtues. The successors of Diocletian despised even the flattery of the senate; their royal officers at Rome, and in the provinces, assumed the sole direction of the mint; and the same prerogative was inhe rited by the Gothic kings of Italy, and the long series of

barefoot friars of St. Francis occupy the temple of Jupiter. (Nardini, Roma Antica, 1. 5, c. 11-16.) [See note at the second page of ch. 71. -ED.] * Tacit. Hist. 3. 69, 70.

This partition of the noble and baser metals between the emperor and senate must however be adopted, not as a positive fact, but as the probable opinion of the best antiquaries. (See the Science des Medailles of the Père Joubert, tom. ii. p. 208-211, in the improved and scarce edition of the Baron de la Bastie.) [The baser metal was here the most important. From the earliest ages of Rome, the copper coinage was the national standard of value; no transfer of property, except the most trifling, was valid, unless the agreed number of Ases were weighed and delivered in the presence of witnesses. (See Notes, ch. 44. vol. v. p. 64 and 93.) This national coinage the emperors wisely left under the care of the Senate; it bore the letters s. c. to denote that it was issued and regulated ex Senatus Consulto; and it was often used as a public record of victories gained and countries conquered by the Roman arms. Humphreys,Coin Coll. Man. 250-312, and Addison's Works, vol. i. p. 263. Bohn's editions.-ED.]

the Greek, the French, and the German dynasties. After an abdication of eight hundred years, the Roman senate asserted this honourable and lucrative privilege; which was tacitly renounced by the popes, from Paschal the Second to the establishment of their residence beyond the Alps. Some of these republican coins of the twelfth and thirteenth cenOn one of turies are shewn in the cabinets of the curious. these, a gold medal, Christ is depictured holding in his left hand a book with this inscription: "THE VOW OF THE ROMAN SENATE AND PEOPLE: ROME THE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD;" on the reverse, St. Peter delivering a banner to a kneeling senator in his cap and gown, with the name and arms of his family impressed on a shield.* III. With the empire, the prefect of the city had declined to a municipal officer; yet he still exercised in the last appeal the civil and criminal jurisdiction; and a drawn sword, which he received from the successors of Otho, was the mode of his investiture and the emblem of his functions. The dignity was confined to the noble families of Rome; the choice of the people was ratified by the pope ; but a triple oath of fidelity must have often em

* In his twenty-seventh dissertation on the Antiquities of Italy (tom. ii. p. 559-569), Muratori exhibits a series of the senatorian coins, which bore the obscure names of Affortiati, Infortiati, Provisini, Paparini. During this period, all the popes, without excepting Boniface VIII. abstained from the right of coining, which was resumed by his successor Benedict XI. and regularly exercised in the court of Avignon. [The privilege granted by Charlemagne to Adrian I. (see note, p. 343) does not appear to have been revoked by any succeeding emperors. From 1199 to 1303 the popes had no authority in Rome; the coins of that period are inscribed Senat. Popul. Q. R., accompanied by the name of the Senator who was at the time governor of the city. Their names are generally obscure; but among them is seen, in 1253, that of Brancaleone; and after him, in the time of Charles of Anjou, the Roman coins have on one side a lion and fleurde-lys, with the inscription CAROLUS REX. SENATOR URBIS; and on the other a crowned female figure holding a globe and palm-branch, surrounded by the legend, ROMA CAPUT MUNDI. S. P. Q. R. The series of papal coins recommences with Clement V. Humphreys, p. 514.-ED.]

+ A German historian, Gerard of Reichersperg (in Baluz. Miscell. tom. v. p. 64, apud Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii. p. 265), thus describes the constitution of Rome in the eleventh century: Grandiora urbis et orbis negotia spectant ad Romanum pontificem itemque ad Romanum imperatorem; sive illius vicarium urbis præfectum, qui de suâ dignitate respicit utrumque, videlicet dominum papam cui facit hominium, et dominum imperatorem a quo accipit suæ potestatis insigne, scilicet gladium exertum.

barrassed the prefect in the conflict of adverse duties.* A servant, in whom they possessed but a third share, was dis missed by the independent Romans; in his place they elected a patrician; but this title, which Charlemagne had not disdained, was too lofty for a citizen or a subject; and, after the first fervour of rebellion, they consented without reluctance to the restoration of the prefect. About fifty years after this event, Innocent the Third, the most ambitious, or at least the most fortunate, of the pontiffs, delivered the Romans and himself from this badge of foreign dominion; he invested the prefect with a banner instead of a sword, and absolved him from all dependence of oaths or service to the German emperors.† In his place an ecclesiastic, a present or future cardinal, was named by the pope to the civil government of Rome; but his jurisdiction has been reduced to a narrow compass; and in the days of freedom, the right or exercise was derived from the senate and people. IV. After the revival of the senate, the conscript fathers (if I may use the expression) were invested with the legislative and executive power; but their views seldom reached beyond the present day; and that day was most frequently disturbed by violence and tumult. In its utmost plenitude, the order or assembly consisted of fifty-six senators, the most eminent of whom were distinguished by the title of counsellors: they were nominated, perhaps annually, by the people; and a previous choice of their electors, ten persons in each region, or parish, might afford a basis for a free and permanent constitution. The popes, who in this

*The words of a contemporary writer (Pandulph. Pisan. in Vit. Paschal. II. p. 357, 358) describe the election and oath of the prefect in 1118, inconsultis patribus .. loca præfectoria . . .. Laudes præfectoriæ. comitiorum applausum . juraturum populo in ambonem sublevant confirmari eum in urbe præfectum petunt. Urbis præfectum ad ligiam fidelitatem recepit, et per mantum quod illi donavit de præfecturâ eum publice investivit, qui usque ad id tempus juramento fidelitatis imperatori fuit obligatus, et ab eo præfecturæ tenuit honorem. (Gesta Innocent. III. in Muratori, tom. iii. p. 1, p. 487.)

See Otho. Frising. Chron. 7. 31, de Gest. Frederic. I. 1. 1, c. 27. [Muratori (Annal. xiii. 408) makes it appear that the functions of the revived senate were very limited. Quoting more fully the passage in Gerard of Reichersperg (see preceding page), he includes words omitted by Gibbon speaking of the senate that writer says: "Grandiora urbis et orbis negotia longe superexcedunt eorum judicia."-ED.]

§ Our countryman, Roger Hoveden, speaks of the single senators,

tempest submitted rather to bend than to break, confirmed, by treaty, the establishment and privileges of the senate, and expected from time, peace, and religion, the restoration of their government. The motives of public and private interest might sometimes draw from the Romans an occasional and temporary sacrifice of their claims; and they renewed their oath of allegiance to the successor of St. Peter and Constantine, the lawful head of the church and the republic.*

The union and vigour of a public council was dissolved in a lawless city; and the Romans soon adopted a more strong and simple mode of administration. They condensed the name and authority of the senate in a single magistrate, or two colleagues; and as they were changed at the end of a year, or of six months, the greatness of the trust was compensated by the shortness of the term. But in this transient reign, the senators of Rome indulged their avarice and ambition; their justice was perverted by the interest of their family and faction; and as they punished only their enemies, they were obeyed only by their adherents. Anarchy, no longer tempered by the pastoral care of their bishop, admonished the Romans that they were incapable of governing themselves; and they sought abroad those blessings which they were hopeless of finding at home. In the same age, and from the same motives, most of the Italian republics were prompted to embrace a measure, which, however strange may seem, was adapted to their situation, and productive of the most salutary effects. They chose in some foreign but friendly city, an impartial magistrate of noble birth and unblemished character, a soldier and a statesman, recommended by the voice of fame and his country, to whom they of the Capuzzi family &c. quorum temporibus melius regebatur Roma quam nunc (A.D. 1194) est temporibus lvi. senatorum. (Ducange, Gloss. tom. vi. p. 191. SENATORES.) * Muratori (Dissert. 42, tom. iii. p. 785-788) has published an original treaty: Concordia inter D. nostrum papam Clementem III. et senatores populi Romani super regalibus et aliis dignitatibus urbis, &c. anno 44° senatûs. The senate speaks, and speaks with authority: Redimus ad præsens

it

habebimus

....

dabitis presbyteria. jurabimus pacem et fidelitatem, &c. A chartula de Tenementis Tusculani, dated in the forty-seventh year of the same era, and confirmed decreto amplissimi ordinis senatus, acclamatione P. R. publice Capitolio consistentis. It is there we find the difference of senatores consiliarii and simple senators. Muratori, dissert. 42, tom. iii. p. 787-789.)

+ Muratori (dissert. 45, tom. iv. p. 64-92) has fully explained this