They were not afflicted by that strange fatality under which the Roman Cæsars almost always died without male issue, and which led the Emperors to adopt their successors and to make them coadjutors in their government, generally with tribunitian powers; and four centuries were to elapse before the race of Hapsburg was to fasten itself at last upon the Holy Roman Empire, never to be shaken off so long as it could beget sons, or even daughters. The great Venetian races were vital and fortunate, and reared generation after generation for ages, with hardly any diminution of strength or wit. But the principle on which they attempted to secure to themselves the succession to a power which was hereditary was the same which the Romans followed before them and which the Hapsburgs were to adopt long afterwards. They chose their own successors amongst those nearest to them, educated them to government, made them helpers in their rule, and designated them in their wills to succeed in their places. There was always discontent after each election, and there were often serious riots; several doges of this period were forced to abdicate, or were even exiled, and one of them, at least, was assassinated; but the thirst of the great families for hereditary power was not diminished, and each revolutionary rising was directed by an aristocratic faction which had everything to gain by overthrowing the one in office. Yet, strange to say, this disturbed condition of things neither hindered nor retarded the growth of national prosperity. The three factions quarrelled about the ducal throne for two hundred years, but their commercial activity was not in the least diminished by their [Illustration: ST. MARK’S] differences. They and the less powerful nobles possessed the financial instinct in the highest degree; the citizen class vied with them as traders and usurers, and though they could not outdo them, having started behind them in the race for wealth, they often rivalled them; and as for the people, they were the ready and willing instruments of their masters, they were intrepid sailors, they were patriotic soldiers, they were hard-working labourers, and they seem to have cared very little who was Doge, so long as every effort they made contributed directly to their own well-being. And this was always the case, as in every young and successful state.