“I will tread upon the aspic and basilisk,” said the pontiff as he placed his foot upon the emperor’s neck, “and the lion and the dragon will I trample beneath my feet.” “_Non tibi sed Petro_,” replied the prince. “_Et mihi et Petro_,”[8] haughtily returned the priest while he pressed more firmly on the humbled monarch.[b] So at least the story goes. But unfortunately it is a narrative that cannot be accepted without many grains of allowance. Contemporary accounts do not give these picturesque details, and we are forced to conclude that the story of Frederick’s humiliation was embellished in after times with incidents quite foreign to the reality. But, divested of all apocryphal incidents, Frederick’s concessions to the pope constituted a distinct abasement of the imperial authority. If Alexander did not literally tread upon the neck of the emperor, he was certainly entitled to feel that he was figuratively grinding the secular “aspic and basilisk,” the royal “lion and dragon,” beneath his spiritual heel.[a] Frederick had few subjects of dispute with the Grecian emperor, or the Norman king of the Sicilies; these parts of the treaty were not difficult to terminate. But that part which related to the league of Lombardy must be founded on a new order of ideas; it was the first pact that Europe had seen made between a monarch and his subjects; the first boundary line traced between authority and liberty. After long and vain attempts, the negotiators separated, contenting themselves only with obliging the emperor and the Lombards to conclude a truce of six years, bearing date from the 1st of August, 1177. During its existence, the rights on each side were to remain suspended; and the freedom of commerce was re-established between the cities which remained faithful to the emperor, and those which drew still closer their bonds of union by a renewal of the league of Lombardy.