Thus ended the first attempt to erect a Barbarian kingdom in Italy. Its failure proved that without the support of the Catholic Church it was impossible to establish a kingdom of Italy, for the Church controlled the Latin people, and though these never fought, they had an hundred ways of helping friends and hindering foes. FOOTNOTES: [2] _Rome in the Middle Ages_, Gregorovius, vol. i, p. 296. [3] _Le invasioni barbariche_, Villari, pp. 167, 168, translated. CHAPTER III THE LOMBARD INVASION (568) The Imperial dominion over all Italy had lasted scarce a dozen years before another Barbarian nation, the Lombards, came and repeated the experiment in which the Goths had failed. The period of Lombard dominion lasted two hundred years (568-774). It is rather an uninteresting time; nevertheless, like most history, it has a dramatic side. It makes a play for four characters. The Lombards occupy the larger part of the stage, but the protagonist is the Papacy. The Empire is the third character. Finally, the Franks come in and dispossess the Lombards. The plot, though it must spread over several chapters, is simple. The scene of the play was pitiful. For nearly twenty years (535-553) Italy had been one perpetual battlefield; whichever side won, the unfortunate natives had to lodge and feed a foreign army, and endure all the insolence of a brutal soldiery. Plague, pestilence, and famine followed. The ordinary business of life came to a stop. Houses, churches, aqueducts went to ruin; roads were left unmended, rivers undiked. Great tracts of fertile land were abandoned. Cattle roamed without herdsmen, harvests withered up, grapes shrivelled on the vines. From lack of food came the pest. Mothers abandoned sick babies, sons left their fathers' bodies unburied. The inhabitants of the cities fared no better. Rome, for instance, had been captured five times. Before the war her population had been 250,000; at its close not one tenth was left. It is said that in one period every living thing deserted the city, and for forty days the ancient mistress of the world lay like a city of the dead. With peace came some respite; but the frightful squeeze of Byzantine taxation was as bad as Barbarian conquest. Italy sank into ignorance and misery. The Latin inhabitants hardly cared who their masters were. They never had spirit enough to take arms and fight, but meekly bowed their heads. Such was the scene on which these three great actors, the Lombards, the Papacy, and the Empire, played their parts. It is now time to describe the actors. We give precedence to the Empire, as is its due.