With the power of the people was associated as of old the predominance of papal influence in the city and the depression of the archiepiscopal See. St. Peter had now completely subjected St. Ambrose. The assumption of supremacy in temporal as well as spiritual matters on the part of the Popes, their constant interference by means of legates, the activity of their innumerable and ubiquitous agents, the friars, had indeed reduced the seat of Ariberto to comparative insignificance, while the decay of feudal power and the depression of the aristocracy had robbed it of its wealth. But even assisted by the Pope, and at the height of their strength and triumph, the popular forces were impotent to establish any enduring order in the city. The nobles were still too powerful to submit peaceably to political inferiority. Moreover, as the offices and honours once confined to them became open to all, the successful and wealthy plebeians tended to join the upper class, which began to lose distinction of race in that of wealth and ability. The aristocracy, thus continually replenished with new blood, received fresh vigour and life, and the old divisions gradually merged into two classes, the _milites_, who fought on horseback and in armour, and the _plebs_, or general mass of citizens, who, little trained and lightly armed, accompanied the horsemen into battle on foot. The struggle between these two radical orders transformed Milan’s short period of republican liberty into a scene of anarchy and civil warfare, leading to the inevitable end of faction and strife, the tyranny of an individual. Already by the end of the twelfth century the struggle of the factions over the annual election of the Consuls occasioned so much tumult and bloodshed, that the citizens in despair agreed with one accord to submit themselves to the government of a Podestà chosen from outside. But this device for peace ended by aggravating the strife. The faction uppermost for the time appointed a fierce partisan from another city, perhaps the leader of an exiled faction, who embroiled Milan with his own Commune, and exalted his sympathisers within her walls at the expense of the other party. The general discontent and disorder was reflected in constant changes in the Constitution. In the absence of any stable principle of government the power tended to fall into the hands of individuals. This was the opportunity of the nobles, from whose order the leaders of men naturally sprang. Taking advantage of the forces ready to their hands, these put themselves at the head of aristocrats or plebs, without much regard for principle, and in so doing resumed their ancient pre-eminence in the community, and initiated the new Epoch of Great Men, which was to succeed the failing Epoch of the People.