His successor, Gregory the Third, conceived himself dispensed from so rigorous a circumspection: at the head of a council, he excommuuicatcd the Emperor, not, indeed, by name but by not excepting him from the general sect of the Iconoclasts; and while Leo applied to himself this anathema, evidenced by the burst of anger with which he resented it; while he confiscated in Sicily the lands of the Roman church; while a fleet, dispatched by him against Italy, was perishing by shipwreck; the Pope laboured to create in the bosom of Rome an independent state, or, at least, one destined to become so. Some authors think they perceive, from the year 736, in the pontificate of Gregory the Second, a semblance of a Roman republic; and we may assure ourselves, at least, that in 730, a short.time previous to the death of this pope, and apparently without his concurrence, the Romans formally erected themselves into a republic. But it was especially subsequent to the year 731, and down to 741,³⁴ that is to say, under the pontificate of Gregory III. that the expressions ‘republic of the Romans—republican association—³⁵ body of the Roman army,’ were accredited phrases which did not disappear till the year 800, and which, during the seventy preceding years, are very often employed, both in the acts of interior administrations, and in the negociations with the Kings of the Lombards, or Mayors of the palace of Ferara. ³⁴ Anast. Bibl. in vitâ Gregorii III. ³⁵ Reipublica Romanorum, com pages S. Reipublicæ corpus Christo delectum exercitûs Romani. Apud Anast. They always avoided the positive declarations which would have irritated the Court of Constantinople; in case of necessity they even acknowledged the supremacy of the Emperor, solicited his assistance, and received his officers: and the homage paid to the imperial authority, is the ground of the opinion of those authors who deny the existence of this republic.— Without doubt, it was but a shadow of a republic; but they loved to present themselves under this title to the sovereigns of the west of Europe:³⁶ it was a mode of ranking themselves secretly in the number of independent states, and of weakening still more the ties which held them to the Byzantine empire. Generally, the pope did not fill in person the office of first magistrate of this republic; he left the insignia of its power to a prefect, a duke, or a patrician; and prepared to substitute, in a short time, for these unstable forms, a definite and pontifical government. ³⁶ Gregory III. sent two ambassadors to the Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel, to invite him to declare himself in favour of the Roman Republic against the Emperor of the East. Baronius ascribes the embassy of one of these to Gregory II.an important mistake, which Bossuet has removed.—Def. Cler. Gall, p. 2. b. 6. ch. 18.