n Saxonia certe scio.... decentius ensibus pugnare quam
calanis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare, (Liutprand, p
482.)]

[Footnote 93: Leonis Tactica, c. 18, p. 805. The emperor Leo died A.D.
911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears to have been
composed in 910, by a native of Venetia, discriminates in these verses
the manners of Italy and France:

--Quid inertia bello

Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris praetenditis armis,

O Itali? Potius vobis sacra pocula cordi;

Saepius et stomachum nitidis laxare saginis

Elatasque domos rutilo fulcire metallo.

Non eadem Gallos similis vel cura remordet:

Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras,

Depressumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis

Sustentare--

(Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, l. n. in
Muratori Script. Rerum Italic. tom. ii. pars i. p. 393.)]

By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain to
Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges of Romans, and their
national sovereign might fix his occasional or permanent residence in
any province of their common country. In the division of the East and
West, an ideal unity was scrupulously observed, and in their titles,
laws, and statutes, the successors of Arcadius and Honorius announced
themselves as the inseparable colleagues of the same office, as the
joint sovereigns of the Roman world and city, which were bounded by the
same limits. After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty of the
purple resided solely in the princes of Constantinople; and of these,
Justinian was the first who, after a divorce of sixty years, regained
the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted, by the right of conquest,
the august title of Emperor of the Romans. [94] A motive of vanity or
discontent solicited one of his successors, Constans the Second, to
abandon the Thracian Bosphorus, and to restore the pristine honors of
the Tyber: an extravagant project, (exclaims the malicious Byzantine,)
as if he had despoiled a beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or
rather to expose, the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit matron.
[95] But the sword of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy: he
entered Rome not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive, and, after a visit
of twelve days, he pillaged, and forever deserted, the ancient capital
of the world. [96] The final revolt and separation of Italy was
accomplished