The end of the Pontificate of Innocent II. was marked by the beginning of a fierce fight between the Pope and the city of Rome. The old Roman spirit of opposition to the Pope had been revived by the long struggle of the typically Roman Anacletus, and what had been accomplished in Milan and Brescia seemed no impossible ideal for the Romans. [Sidenote: The last years of Innocent II.] In 1143 the Romans, enraged at the refusal of Innocent to destroy the rival city of Tivoli, set up a Commune, at the head of which was a popular Senate, to exercise the power hitherto in the hands of the noble consuls or the Pope himself. [Sidenote: The Roman revolution.] Before long they chose as ‘Patrician’ Giordano Pierleone, a kinsman of Anacletus. Innocent II. died at the very beginning of the struggle. [Sidenote: Celestine II., 1143–4, Lucius II., 1144–5, and Eugenius III., 1145–1154.] His successor, Celestine II., reigned only from September 1143 to March 1144, and was powerless to withstand the Commune. The next Pope, Lucius II., put himself at the head of the nobles, went to war against it, but was slain while attempting to storm the Capitol (February 1145). This time the timid cardinals went outside their own number, and chose Eugenius III., the abbot of the Cistercian convent of Tre Fontane in the Campagna, a man whose chief recommendation was the ostentatious patronage of St. Bernard, and who was a simple and timid monk quite unversed in statecraft. Immediately after his election Eugenius fled from Rome, and after some temporising he crossed the Alps in 1147, leaving the Roman republic triumphant. He remained absent till 1148, mainly engaged in furthering the work of Bernard. [Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia and Rome.] Arnold of Brescia now abandoned his spiritual exercises and put himself at the head of the Roman revolution. All Rome listened spellbound to his eloquence while he preached against the pride and greed of the cardinals, and denounced the Pope as no shepherd of souls, but a man of blood and the torturer of the Church. His hope was now to free Rome permanently from all priestly rule, to reduce the clergy to apostolic poverty, and to limit them to their purely spiritual functions. Rome was to be a free municipality subject only to the Emperor, who was to make the city the centre and source of his power, like the great Emperors of old. ‘We wish,’ wrote the Romans to Conrad III., ‘to exalt and glorify the Roman Empire, of which God has given you the rule. We would restore it as it was in the days of Constantine and Justinian. We have restored the Senate. We strive with all our might that Cæsar may enjoy his own. Come over and help us, for you will find in Rome all that you wish. Settle yourself firmly in the City that is the head of the world, and, freed from the fetters of the clergy, rule better than your predecessors over Germany and Italy.’ But Conrad, intent on his crusading projects, paid no heed to the Roman summons.