Yet more submissive is the tone of the letter to the exarch. After the election has been fully described, it continues: “This being so, most exalted God-protected master, we yet more earnestly entreat that by God’s quick operation inspiring your heart you would give command to adorn the Apostolic See with the perfect consecration of our father and pastor, as by the grace of Christ happily and faithfully discharging your execution of the imperial supremacy, so that we, your humble servants, seeing our desire more rapidly fulfilled, may be enabled to return unceasing thanks to God, to the imperial clemency, and to your admirable government willed by God. Thus, by the appointment of the Pontiff of the Apostolic See, our spiritual pastor, we may pour forth continual prayers for the life and safety and complete victory of our most Christian masters. For we know that the prayer of him whom by God’s will we elect to the supreme pontifical dignity, will propitiate the divine power, and obtain for the Roman empire all the success which it can desire. It will also preserve your own power, under God’s protection, for the ruling of this captive Italian province, for the protection of us, all your servants, and for the continuation of long deeds of arms.”(205) The three Papal officers also informed the archbishop of Ravenna, the magistracy, and the Roman nuntio there, of what had taken place, beseeching their assistance that the confirmation of the election might speedily be given. When this arrived from Constantinople and Ravenna, the Pope elect received consecration. The seven regions of Rome were represented in a procession which conducted him from the sacristy of St. Peter’s to the Confession of the Prince of the Apostles, where he recited his profession of faith. Thereupon Mass began to the Gloria, the bishops of Albano and Porto led him to the bishop of Ostia, who was seated in an elevated chair. They held the gospels over his head, and said the first and second prayer. Then the bishop of Ostia completed the proper consecration, while the archdeacon laid the pallium upon him. After this, the new Pope ascended the papal throne, gave his blessing to all the priests, and proceeded with the sacrifice of the Mass. A papal vacancy was reckoned from the burial of the deceased Pope to the consecration of the Pope elect. This power of confirming the election of a Pope, in complete derogation from the original liberty, which had only once been broken by the tyranny of the first Constantius, in the year 355, down to the Arian occupation of Rome by Odoacer, appears to have been exercised from the last days of Theodorich in 526 down to Pope Gregory III. in 731. The emperor Constantine the Bearded, had, after the Sixth Council, suffered Pope Benedict II., in 684, to be freely elected: but his son, Justinian II., reimposed the yoke.