With this point established, that these two forms of Roman history are the same beast, we are now prepared to understand the statement that the beast "was and is not, and yet is." This is equivalent to saying that the beast existed, it ceased to exist, and then it came into existence again. This was exactly the history of Rome. Its downfall under the Pagan form was described under the fourth trumpet as an eclipse of the sun, moon and stars, so that they shone not for a third part of the day and night. For a time it seemed not to exist. A little later the eclipse is lifted; the beast exists again under the Papal form. In this is set forth clearly the wounding and the healing of the beast. The wound was inflicted on its sixth, or Imperial, head (for the first five had already fallen, according to the historical facts just related), being accomplished by the hordes of Northern barbarians overturning the empire of the West. It appeared for a time that the beast was indeed wounded unto death; but not so: to the surprise of all, he survived under the form of the seventh head. At this point the question is sure to be asked, How could the beast continue to live if its seventh head was to continue but "a short space"? This is accounted for by the fact that there was what might be appropriately called an eighth head, but which was in reality of the seven. "And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven." Verse 11. The identification of the seventh head will now make the matter complete. The facts all meet in the Carlovingian empire, or the empire of Charlemagne. In the year 774 Charlemagne completed the work begun by Pepin twenty years before and overthrew the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy, which was the last of the three horns plucked up before the little horn of Daniel. By this victory he became complete master of Italy, and he received the title Patrician of Rome. This was not merely an honorary title, such as had for ages been conferred upon certain individuals; but it was a distinct form of civil government and supreme, taking the same rank with that of the Consular, the Decemvirate, the Triumvirate, etc., in the earlier history of the nation. It lasted, however, only "a short space," or twenty-six years, when Charlemagne, having extended his conquests over all the western part of Europe, assumed the Imperial title and thus revived the empire of Rome in the West under its Gothic form. In his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon says: "In the twenty-six years that elapsed between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation, Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his own, to the scepter, of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance to his person and family; in his name, money was coined, and justice was administered, and the election of Popes was examined and confirmed by his authority--except an original and self-inherent claim of sovereignity, there was not any prerogative