operations closed by the surrender of Vitiges to Belisarius at the
capture of Ravenna.

But, as soon as the military compression was withdrawn, revolt broke
out. Rome was retaken by the Goths; its walls were razed; for forty days
it was deserted by its inhabitants, an emigration that in the end proved
its ruin. Belisarius, who had been sent back by the emperor, re-entered
it, but was too weak to retain it. During four years Italy was ravaged
by the Franks and the Goths. At last Justinian sent the eunuch Narses
with a well-appointed army. The Ostrogothic monarchy was overthrown, and
the emperor governed Italy by his exarchs at Ravenna.

[Sidenote: Debased ideas of the incoming Age of Faith.]

But what was the cost of all this? We may reject the statement
previously made, that Italy lost fifteen millions of inhabitants, on the
ground that such computations were beyond the ability of the survivors,
but, from the asserted number we may infer that there had been a
horrible catastrophe. In other directions the relics of civilization
were fast disappearing; the valley of the Danube had relapsed into a
barbarous state; the African shore had become a wilderness; Italy a
hideous desert; and the necessary consequence of the extermination of
the native Italians by war, and their replacement by barbarous
adventurers, was the falling of the sparse population of that peninsula
into a lower psychical state. It was ready for the materialized
religion that soon ensued. An indelible aspect was stamped on the
incoming Age of Faith. The East and the West had equally displayed the
imbecility of ecclesiastical rule. Of both, the Holy City had fallen;
Jerusalem had been captured by the Persian and the Arab, Rome had been
sacked by the Vandal and the Goth.

[Sidenote: Steady progress of the papacy to supremacy.]

But, for the proper description of the course of affairs, I must retrace
my steps a little. In the important political events coinciding with the
death of Leo the Great, and the constitution of the kingdom of Italy by
the barbarian Odoacer, A.D. 476-490, the bishops of Rome seem to have
taken but little interest. Doubtless, on one side, they perceived the
transitory nature of such incidents, and, on the other, clearly saw for
themselves the road to lasting spiritual domination. The Christians
everywhere had long expressed a total carelessness for the fate of old
Rome; and in the midst of her ruins the popes were incessantly occupi