and scandalized the Church.

The depredations of the Lombards, which grew in the course of time
bolder and more systematic in their character, certainly indicated great
weakness on the part of the government. Yet it was equally certain that
the weakness proceeded less from the want than from the division of
strength.

The sacrilegious inroads were not without their beneficial result; for
they afforded those who might be disposed to institute reforms an
admirable ground not only for bringing the matter more closely and
immediately under the public observation, but they enlisted in the cause
the foremost ecclesiastics, who might recognize in this internal
disunion a danger of interminable attacks and depredations from without,
if not an eventual loss of political independence; and, accordingly, in
the course of the spring of 697-698, the patriarch of Grado himself
submitted to the arrengo at Heraclia a scheme, which had been devised by
him and his friends, for changing the government. The proposal of the
metropolitan was to divest the tribunes of the sovereignty, and to have
once more a magistrate (_capo dei tribuni_), in whom all power might be
concentrated. His title was to be duke. His office was to be for life.
With him was to rest the whole executive machinery. He was to preside
over the synod as well as the arrengo, either of which it was competent
for him to convoke or dissolve at pleasure; merely spiritual matters of
a minor nature were alone, in future, to be intrusted to the clergy; and
all acts of convocations, the ordination of a priest or deacon, the
election of a patriarch or bishop, were to be subject to the final
sanction of the ducal throne. In fact, the latter became virtually, and
in all material respects, autocrat of Venice, not merely the tribunes,
but even the hierarchy, which was so directly instrumental in creating
the dignity, having now no higher function than that of advisers and
administrators under his direction; and it was in matters of general or
momentous concern only that the republic expected her First Magistrate
to seek the concurrence or advice of the national convention.

In a newly formed society, placed in the difficult situation in which
the republic found herself at the close of the seventh century, and
where also a superstitious reverence for the pontiff might at present
exist, apart from considerations of interest, it ought to create no
surprise that the patriarch and his suppo