Turning to Rome at this time we find a very rapid succession of Popes, for which we have no information enabling us to account. They are also frequently Greeks or Orientals; and here the suspicion arises that the exarch of the emperor had influenced the election in the hope that some national feeling might affect them in the administration of their office. St. Agatho, who died in January, 681, was a Sicilian of Palermo, St. Leo II., who succeeded in 682 and died 683, was likewise a Sicilian. The next, Benedict II., a Roman, sat only from June, 684, to May, 685; his successor, John V., a Syrian, of Antioch, only from July, 685, to August, 686, and Conon, a Thracian, from October, 686, to September, 687. The following election was remarkable. There were two parties among the electors(145)—one for the archpriest Theodore, the other for the archdeacon Paschalis. Both were in the Lateran palace. Here both sides agreed to elect the priest Sergius. One of the rival candidates, Theodore, did him homage at once; the other, Paschalis, very unwillingly, and he secretly called in the exarch from Ravenna to his aid. The exarch, John Platina, came suddenly to Rome. He convinced himself that the choice of Sergius was canonical and that of the large majority, but as Paschalis had promised him a donation of a hundred pounds’ weight of gold, he insisted upon being paid this sum from the Church’s treasury. Sergius was obliged to submit, and thereupon was consecrated in December, 687, and sat till 701. Pope Sergius was born at Palermo, of Syrian parentage, his father having settled there from Antioch. He had come to Rome in the time of Pope Adeodatus, had recommended himself by his ability, and had passed through the various ranks of the clergy. His eastern parentage did not prevent his offering as strenuous an opposition to the heretical suggestions of the Greek emperor as his predecessors had shewn.(146) One and the same spirit lived in all the Popes: the will and the genius of government. The natural quality of the old Romans had been transfigured by the supernatural gift belonging to the Church. The restless spirit of Byzantium, inexhaustible in the production of new theological doctrines, which at least maintained a continuous interest on the popular mind, tried in vain all the arms of Greek sophistry and dialectic skill against the rock of Peter. They recoiled from the sturdy Roman understanding and only helped the Popes in their work of massing the western fabric of concentrated discipline.