the Tyber from
Ameria and Narni to the port of Ostia. The numerous islands from
Grado to Chiozza composed the infant dominion of Venice: but the more
accessible towns on the Continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who
beheld with impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power
of the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the adjacent
isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by the Roman colony of
Amalphi, whose industrious citizens, by the invention of the mariner's
compass, have unveiled the face of the globe. The three islands of
Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, still adhered to the empire; and the
acquisition of the farther Calabria removed the landmark of Autharis
from the shore of Rhegium to the Isthmus of Consentia. In Sardinia,
the savage mountaineers preserved the liberty and religion of their
ancestors; and the husbandmen of Sicily were chained to their rich and
cultivated soil. Rome was oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs,
and a Greek, perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the
Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her own
dukes: the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of commerce; and the
voluntary attachment of Venice was finally ennobled by an equal alliance
with the Eastern empire. On the map of Italy, the measure of the
exarchate occupies a very inadequate space, but it included an ample
proportion of wealth, industry, and population. The most faithful and
valuable subjects escaped from the Barbarian yoke; and the banners of
Pavia and Verona, of Milan and Padua, were displayed in their respective
quarters by the new inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of Italy was
possessed by the Lombards; and from Pavia, the royal seat, their
kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far as the
confines of the Avars, the Bavarians, and the Franks of Austrasia and
Burgundy. In the language of modern geography, it is now represented by
the Terra Firma of the Venetian republic, Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont,
the coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, the grand duchy of
Tuscany, and a large portion of the ecclesiastical state from Perugia
to the Adriatic. The dukes, and at length the princes, of Beneventum,
survived the monarchy, and propagated the name of the Lombards. From
Capua to Tarentum, they reigned near five hundred years over the
greatest part of the present kingdom of Naples.

In comparing the proportion of the