an increasing and more vigorous scale until they ended in the total annihilation of the feudal lords. This was both the starting point and the aim of all Florentine history. [Illustration: IMPLUVIUM OF ROMAN HOUSE, FLORENCE.] [Illustration: ROMAN CALIDARIUM, FLORENCE. [_To face page 96._] From the very beginning, it is true, we find that even Florence possessed some families that may be called noble. Such were the Donati, Caponsacchi, Uberti, Lamberti, and others whose names were included on the lists of the judges and soon to be found on those of the Consuls. These were the ruling, governing families at the head of the city. But they were neither counts, marquises, nor dukes; they were not as the Counts Cadolingi, Guidi, and Alberti, who dwelt in the outlying territory or _contado_; nor did they belong to those _Cattani Lombardi_ so-called at the time, in remembrance of their Germanic descent. Rather than veritable nobles, they were "worthies" (_boni homines_), "great ones" (_grandi_),[97] owning no feudal titles; natives of the city risen to high fortune, or scions of petty feudal lines, who, unable to hold their own against greater neighbours of the country side, had sought safety within the town. They quickly amalgamated with the people, sharing and taking the lead in all the latter's expeditions against the strongholds outside the city. Nor, as will be shown, was it a rare case, later on, to find some of these nobles engaged in trade, or heads of trade guilds, as soon as the latter became more firmly established. And it is by no means an insignificant fact that during disturbances at Pisa, Sienna, and elsewhere, we often see the names of real citizen-nobles, counts, viscounts, and so on, never to be met with in Florence. In documents concerning the Florentines the word _nobiles_ seldom occurs, whereas it is often used in speaking of the Pisans, Siennese, &c. The term _milites_, it is true, frequently occurs in Florentine records; but although the _milites_ could not be _popolani_, since the lower classes were not then admitted to knighthood, neither could they be feudal nobles in Florence: they were the leading citizens who exercised no trade, the _grandi_, in fact, to whom we have previously alluded. They were members of Matilda's courts, were employed by her in various ways; they commanded the _municipale praesidium_, probably filled the office of _praeses_, and they were leaders of the army. Richer, more cultivated and better fitted than other citizens for politics and warfare by their freedom from daily toil, they were the _boni viri_, the _sapientes_, the _milites_ found more or less in all cities, but of a separate stamp in Florence.