ate tribunitial ministry has transmitted to us as its monument
little beyond the disclosure of a chronic disposition to tyranny and
periodical fluctuations of preponderance. The so-called chair of Attila
at Torcello is supposed to have been the seat where the officer
presiding over that district long held his court _sub dio_.

The doge Anafesto appears to have pacified, by his energy and tact, the
intestine discord by which his country had suffered so much and so long,
and the Equilese, especially--who had risen in open revolt, and had
refused to pay their proportion of tithes--were persuaded, after some
fierce struggles in the _pineto_ or pine woods, which still covered
much of the soil, to return to obedience. The civil war which had lately
broken out between Equilo and Heraclia was terminated by the influential
mediation of one of the tribunes, and the Lombards now condescended to
ratify a treaty assigning to the Venetians the whole of the territory
lying between the greater and lesser Piave, empowering the republic to
erect boundary lines, and prohibiting either of the contracting parties
from building a stronghold within ten miles of those lines. A settlement
of confines between two such close neighbors was of the highest
importance and utility. But a still more momentous principle was here
involved.

The republic had exercised a clear act of sovereign independence. It had
made its first Italian treaty. This was a proud step and a quotable
precedent.

FOOTNOTE:

[68] Some modern writers question the etymology which in the name of the
Langobardi finds a reference to the length of their beards. Sheppard
thinks that "long-spears," rather than "long-beards" was the original
signification. Since, on the banks of the Elbe, _Boerde_ or _Bord_ still
means "a fertile plain beside a river," others derive their name from
the district they inhabited. Langobardi would thus signify "people of
the long bord of the river."

SARACENS IN SPAIN: BATTLE OF THE GUADALETE

A.D. 711

AHMED IBN MAHOMET AL-MAKKARI

When assailed by the Saracen power, the Gothic kingdom in Spain,
which had endured for three centuries, had long been suffering a
decline. Political disorders and social demoralization had made its
condition such as might well invite the Moslem armies, flushed with
victories on the African side, to cross the narrow Strait of
Gibraltar for new conquests.

The final subjection