pery fellow. The Pope says he hears
that Virgil pretended licence from him to claim one of some new bishoprics:
this he declares is totally false. It is part of the argument that such a
man as this could not have been created a Bishop and a Saint: on this point
there will be opinions and opinions.[10]

Lactantius, four centuries before, had laughed at the antipodes in a manner
which seems to be ridicule thrown on the idea of the earth's roundness.
Ptolemy, without reference to the antipodes, describes the extent of the
inhabited part of the globe in a way which shows that he could have had no
objection to men turned opposite ways. Probably, in the eighth century, the
roundness of the earth was matter of thought only to astronomers. It should
always be remembered, especially by those who affirm persecution of a true
opinion, that but for our knowing from Lactantius that the antipodal notion
had been matter of assertion and denial among theologians, we could never
have had any great confidence in Virgil really having maintained the simple
theory of the existence of antipodes. And even now we are not entitled to
affirm it as having historical proof: the evidence {34} goes to Virgil
having been charged with very absurd notions, which it seems more likely
than not were the absurd constructions which ignorant contemporaries put
upon sensible opinions of his.

One curious part of this discussion is that neither side has allowed Pope
Zachary to produce evidence to character. He shall have been an Urban, say
the astronomers; an Urban he ought to have been, say the theologians. What
sort of man was Zachary? He was eminently sensible and conciliatory; he
contrived to make northern barbarians hear reason in a way which puts him
high among that section of the early popes who had the knack of managing
uneducated swordsmen. He kept the peace in Italy to an extent which
historians mention with admiration. Even Bale, that Maharajah of
pope-haters, allows himself to quote in favor of Zachary, that "multa
Papalem dignitatem decentia, eademque praeclara (scilicet) opera
confecit."[11] And this, though so willing to find fault that, speaking of
Zachary putting a little geographical description of the earth on the
portico of the Lateran Church, he insinuates that it was intended to affirm
that the Pope was lord of the whole. Nor can he say how long Zachary held
the see, except by announcing his death in 752, "cum decem annis
pestilentiae sed