Otto, he came to a worse end, though he was of a pious
house, and laboured for the peace of his soul against the temptations of
this evil world. For he was young, and the wife of Crescenzio was
wonderfully fair, and her name was Stefania. She came weeping before him
and mourning her lord, and was beautiful in her grief, and knew it, as
many women do. And the young Emperor saw her, and pitied her, and loved
her, and took her to his heart in sin, and though he repented daily, he
daily fell again, while the woman offered up her body and her soul to be
revenged for the fierce man she had loved. So it came to pass, at last,
that she found her opportunity against him, and poured poison into his
cup, and kissed him, and gave it to him with a very loving word. And he
drank it and died, and the prophecy of the holy man, Nilus, was
fulfilled upon him.

The story is told in many ways, but that is the main truth of it,
according to Muratori, whom Gibbon calls his guide and master in the
history of Italy, but whom he did not follow altogether in his brief
sketch of Crescenzio's life and death, and their consequences. The
Crescenzi lived on, in power and great state. They buried the terrible
tribune in Santa Sabina, on the Aventine, where his epitaph may be read
today, but whither he did not retire in life, as some guide-books say,
to end his days in prayer and meditation. And for some reason, perhaps
because they no longer held the great Castle, they seem to have left the
Region of Saint Eustace; for Nicholas, the tribune's son, built the
small palace by the Tiber, over against the Temple of Hercules, though
it has often been called the house of Rienzi, whose name was also
Nicholas, which caused the confusion. And later they built themselves
other fortresses, but the end of their history is not known.

In the troubles which succeeded the death of Crescentius, a curious
point arises in the chronicle, with regard to the titles of the bishops
depending from the Holy See. It is certainly not generally known that,
as late as the tenth century, the bishops of the great cities called
themselves Popes--the 'Pope of Milan,' the 'Pope of Naples,' and the
like--and that Gregory the Seventh, the famous Hildebrand, was the first
to decree that the title should be confined to the Roman Pontiffs, with
that of 'Servus Servorum Dei'--'servant of the servants of God.' And
indeed, in those changing times such a confusion of titles must have
caused tr