prisoners, among whom was the son of Count Ugolino. These losses with those in anterior battles, amounted to about eleven thousand, and all of the most considerable persons. This event destroyed the maritime power of Pisa, which could never again recover itself and assume the rank of her rivals. Many illustrious republics, as ancient and modern history demonstrate, have risen after the most heavy losses. Pisa, however, was no longer in this condition, and various causes combined to prevent her regaining it; the first of which was the loss of her bravest and wisest citizens taken prisoners, and whom the Genoese, actuated by a cruel and useless policy, refused to set at liberty; and being kept in prison for nearly fifteen years, or so long as the war lasted, the greater part of them finished their life in wretchedness.[d] _Perfidy and Fall of Ugolino_ [Sidenote: [1288-1293 A.D.]] While the republic was thus exhausted by this great reverse of fortune, it was attacked by the league of the Tuscan Guelfs; and a powerful citizen, to whom it had entrusted itself, betrayed his country to enslave it. Ugolino was count of the Gherardesca, a mountainous country situated along the coast, between Leghorn and Piombino; he was of Ghibelline origin, but had married his sister to Giovan di Gallura, chief of the Guelfs of Pisa and of Sardinia. From that time he artfully opposed the Guelfs to the Ghibellines; and though several accused him of having decided the issue of the battle of Meloria, others regarded him as the person most able, most powerful by his alliance, and most proper, to reconcile Pisa with the Guelf league. The Pisans, amidst the dangers of the republic, felt the necessity of a dictator. They named Ugolino captain-general for ten years; and the new commander did, indeed, obtain peace with the Guelf league; but not till he had caused all the fortresses of the Pisan territory to be opened by his creatures to the Lucchese and Florentines--a condition of his treaty with them which he dared not publicly avow. From that time he sought only to strengthen his own despotism, by depriving all the magistrates of power, and by intimidating the archbishop Roger degli Ubaldini, who held jointly with him the highest rank in the city. The nephew of Ubaldini, having opposed him with some haughtiness, was killed by him on the spot with his own hand. His violence, and the number of executions which he ordered, soon rendered him equally odious to the two parties; but he had the art, in his frequent changes from one to the other, to make the opposite party believe him powerfully supported by that with which he at the moment sided. In the summer of 1282 the Guelfs were exiled; but finding in the Ghibelline chiefs, the Gualandi Sismondi and Lanfranchi, a haughtiness which he thought he had subdued, he charged his son to introduce anew the Guelfs into the city. His project was discovered and prevented; the