, which might place them in a position to reduce to
their control a small, feeble, and thinly peopled area, separated from
their own territories only by a narrow and terraqueous strait. Moreover,
the predatory visits of Leupus, duke of Friuli, whose followers
traversed the canals at low tide on horseback, and despoiled the
churches of Heraclia, Equilo, and Grado, soon afforded sufficient proof
that the equestrian skill of the strangers was capable of supplying to
some extent any deficiency in nautical knowledge.

Venice at present formed a federative state, united by the memory of a
common origin and the sense of a common interest; the _arrengo_, which
met at Heraclia, the parent capital, at irregular intervals to
deliberate on matters of public concern, was too numerous and too
schismatical to exercise immediate control over the nation; and each
island was consequently governed, after the abolition of the primeval
consulate, in the name of the people, by a _gastaldo_ or tribune, whose
power, nominally limited, was virtually absolute. This administration
had lasted nearly two centuries and a half, during which period the
republic passed through a cruel ordeal of anarchy, oppression, and
bloodshed. The tribunes conspired against each other; the people
rebelled against the tribunes. Family rose against family, clan against
clan. Sanguinary affrays were of constant occurrence on the thinly
peopled _lidi_, and amid the pine-woods, with which much of the surface
was covered; and it is related that in one instance at least the bodies
of the dead were left to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey, which
then haunted the more thickly afforested parts.

Jealousy and intolerance of the pretensions of Heraclia to a paramount
voice in the policy of the community may be securely assigned as the
principal and permanent source of friction and disagreement; but the
predominance of that township seems to have resisted every effort of the
others to supplant its central authority and wide sphere of influence;
and during centuries it preserved its power, through its ostensible
choice as the residence of the most capable and influential citizens.

The scandalous and destructive outrages attendant on the rule of the
tribunes had become a vast constitutional evil. They sapped the general
prosperity; they obstructed trade and industries; they made havoc on
public and private property; they banished safety and repose, and they
impoverished