Venice is said to have been founded about the year A.D. 450, by the inhabitants of Aquileia, Padua, Altinum, &c., who were driven out of their cities, and their homes utterly destroyed by the cruel Attila, who was at this time overrunning Italy. The persecuted inhabitants flying before the barbarians, as a last resource crossed the lagune and built a town on the islets which had formed in the Adriatic. Goethe says, “It was no idle fancy their colonists fled to these islands; it was no mere whim which impelled those who followed to combine with them; necessity taught them to look for security in a highly disadvantageous situation, which afterwards became most advantageous, enduing them with talent, when the whole of the Northern world was immersed in gloom. Their increase and their wealth were the necessary consequence. New dwellings arose close against dwellings, rocks took the place of sand and marsh, houses sought the sky, being forced, like trees enclosed in a narrow compass, to seek in height what was denied to them in breadth. Being niggard of every inch of ground, as having been from the outset compressed into a narrow compass, they allowed no more room for the streets than was absolutely necessary for separating one row of houses from another, and affording a narrow way for passengers. Moreover, water was at once street, square, and promenade. The Venetian was forced to become a new creature, and Venice can only be compared with itself.” The colonists, under the protection of the Byzantine Empire, must have grown in importance and prosperity, though their early history is very obscure, and it was not until the commencement of the ninth century that Venice became a really important city. The exact date of the election of the first Dux or Doge (Paulucius Anafestus) is not known, but it must have been either at the end of the sixth or the commencement of the seventh century. The year A.D. 809 was important for Venice, as the colonists in that year defended themselves against Pepin, the son of Charlemagne, and throwing over all foreign influence, they commenced their career of independence. The next important event was the bringing of the body of St. Mark to Venice in A.D. 828. The evangelist was thenceforth made the patron saint of the city, and his emblem, the lion, became the arms of the republic. The Venetians had not as yet made foreign conquests, but the great Doge, Enrico Dandolo, who went to the Fourth Crusade, conquered Constantinople in 1204, and commenced the grand era of Venice. The breaking up of the Byzantine Empire was a great opportunity for Venice, the republic gaining possession of several islands in the Greek Archipelago, together with numerous cities on the Adriatic.