The aristocracy had now completely got the upper hand, almost without a struggle, by skill, persuasion, and tact. Henceforth the history of Venice is that of the nobility, who had monopolised the power, and, with it, all responsibility. If Venice was great, healthy, and vigorous in the fourteenth century, she owed it to the nobles, who still treated the people generously and kindly. And later on, when the people allowed themselves to be intoxicated with the amusements provided them while their last rights were trodden under foot, the nobles were to blame. So they were, too, in the end, when the Lion of Saint Mark was torn down from its column in the Piazzetta and broken upon a soil no longer free. The people were not oppressed at any time, but they suffered what was morally worse, for they were systematically hypnotised into a state of utter indifference to real liberty. The assemblage of so many nobles in the hall of the Great Council must have presented a splendid spectacle. It was rigidly required that all should wear the cloak, or toga, of violet cloth, with its wide sleeves and hood lined with warm fur in winter and with ermine in the milder seasons. Here and there a few red mantles made points of colour, those of the High Chancellor and of the avogadori of the commonwealth, though the latter appear to have worn only a red stole over the cloak of violet. There were black cloaks, too, and they marked the ecclesiastics who belonged to the Council, for until 1498 priests who proved that they were nobles were eligible like the other members of their family. [Sidenote: _Rom. ii. 263._] When the Council was to meet, an official called the ‘comandatore,’ a sort of public crier, proclaimed the summons from a fragment of a porphyry column, which stood upside down on its capital at the corner of the Piazza of Saint Mark towards the ducal palace, and another issued the proclamation from the steps of the Rialto, these being the two most frequented points of the city; at the same time full notice was given of the offices which were to be distributed at the coming Council by the High Chancellor. At the appointed hour the cavaliers appeared in the neighbourhood of Saint Mark’s, spurring their comely mules; but it was forbidden to cross the Piazza itself, except on foot, because it was paved, so that the riders left their mules tied up to the elderbushes [Illustration: THE FLAGS FLYING IN THE PIAZZA] which formed a thick growth, exactly on the spot where now stands the Clock Tower at the entrance to the Merceria. About 1356 the public crier’s office was abolished, his place being supplied by the ringing of a bell in the tower of Saint Mark, in the evening after vespers, when the Council was to meet on the following morning, and [Sidenote: _Galliccioli, i. 245._]