Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2: Studies from the Chronicles of RomeCrawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
History
Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2: Studies from the Chronicles of Rome
Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
The success and long supremacy of Arnold's teaching have been unfairly
called his 'reign'; yet he neither caused himself to be elected a
Senator, nor at any time, so far as we can learn, occupied any office
whatsoever; neither did he profit in fortune by the changes he had
wrought, and to the last he wore the garb of poverty and led the simple
life which had extorted the reluctant admiration of his noblest
adversary. But he could not impose upon others the virtues he practised
himself, nor was it in his power to direct the force his teachings had
called into life. For the time being the Popes were powerless against
the new order. Innocent is said to have died of grief and humiliation,
almost before the revolution was complete. His successor, Celestin the
Second, reigned but five months and a half, busy in a quarrel with King
Roger, and still the new Senate ruled the city.
[Illustration: ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS]
But saving that it endured, it left no mark of good in Rome; the nobles
saw that a new weapon was placed in their hands, they easily elected
themselves to office, and the people, deluded by the name of a Republic,
had exchanged the sovereignty of the Pope, or the allegiance of the
Emperor, for the far more ruthless tyranny of the barons. The Jewish
Pierleoni were rich and powerful still, but since Rome was strong enough
to resist the Vatican, the Pontificate was no longer a prize worth
seizing, and they took instead, by bribery or force, the Consulship or
the Presidency of the Senate. Jordan, the brother of the antipope
Anacletus, obtained the office, and the violent death of the next Pope,
Lucius the Second, was one of the first events of his domination.
Lucius refused to bear any longer the humiliation to which his
predecessors had tamely submitted. Himself in arms, and accompanied by
such followers as he could collect, the Pope made a desperate attempt to
dislodge the Senate and their guards from the Capitol, and at the head
of the storming party he endeavoured to ascend the old road, known then
as Fabatosta. But the Pierleoni and their men were well prepared for the
assault, and made a desperate and successful resistance. The Pope fell
at the head of his soldiers, struck by a stone on the temple, mortally
wounded, but not dead. In hasty retreat, the dying man was borne by his
routed soldiers to the monastery of Saint Gregory on the Coelian,
under the safe protection of the trusty Frangipani, who held the
Palatine, the Circus Maximus, and the Colosseum. Of all the many Popes
who died untimely deaths he was the only one, I believe, who fell in
battle. And he got his deathblow on the slope of that same Capitol where
Gracchus and Manlius had died before him, each in good cause.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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