Ravenna, a Study

by Edward Hutton

The controversy slumbered. Before long, surely to the amazement of the West, the emperor landed in Italy at Tarentum with the object of finally dealing with the Lombards, for Rothari was dead. It is said he asked some hermit there in the south: "Shall I vanquish and hold down the nation of the Lombards which now dwelleth in Italy?" The answer was as follows, and, rightly understood, contained at least the fundamental part of the truth: "The nation of the Lombards," said the hermit after a night of prayer, "cannot be overcome because a pious queen coming from a foreign land has built a church in honour of S. John Baptist who therefore pleads without ceasing for that people. But a time will come when that sanctuary will be held in contempt, and then the nation shall perish."[1]

[Footnote 1: Diaconus. v. 6; cf. Hodgkin, op. cit. vi. 272. Paulus adds that the prophecy was fulfilled when adulterous and vile priests were ordained in the church at Monza and the Lombards fell before Pepin.]

That prophecy contained the fundamental truth that since the Lombards were Catholic it was not possible to turn them out of Italy. But Constans heeded it not. He marched on, besieged Beneventum, was not successful, and went on to Rome, and himself spoiled the City. From Rome he returned southward to Naples and Sicily, where in 668 he died.

All that time Gregory was exarch. He had succeeded Theodore Calliopas in 664, and he ruled till 677. We know little of him save that he appears to have attempted to confirm Maurus, archbishop of Ravenna, in his "independence" of the Papal See.[1] This Maurus was undoubtedly a schismatic and Agnellus tells us that he had many troubles with the Holy See and many altercations. Indeed the position of the archbishop of Ravenna can never have been a very enviable one and especially at this time when the breach between pope and emperor, papacy and empire, was continually widening. Always the archbishop of Ravenna, as the bishop of the imperial citadel in Italy, must have been tempted to follow the emperor rather than the pope, and more especially since, personally, he might expect to gain both in power and wealth that way.

[Footnote 1: That was the "Privilegium," whatever it was worth and whatever exactly it meant, conferred by Constans II. Constantine Pogonatus, the successor of Constans, is still to be seen in S. Apollinare in Classe the "Privilegium" in his hands in mosaic. See infra, p. 208.]

The exarch Gregory was succeeded apparently by a certain Theodore whose contemporary archbishop in Ravenna was also a Theodore. He ruled it seems for ten years, 677-687, and built near his palace an oratory, or a monastery, not far from the church of S. Martin (S. Apollinare Nuovo), and was, according to Agnellus, a pious man, presenting three golden chalices to the church in Ravenna and composing the differences of his namesake the archbishop and his clergy.

Theodore in his turn was succeeded by Joannes Platyn (687-701). Two years before his appointment in 685 Justinian II. (685-695) had succeeded to the imperial throne, and in that same year pope Benedict II. died. John V. succeeded him and reigned for a few months, when there followed two disputed elections, those of Conon and of Sergius. In the latter Joannes Platyn the exarch played a miserable and disastrous part. For he suddenly appeared in Rome as the partisan of Paschal, the rival of Sergius, who had obtained his support by a promise of one hundred pounds of gold if he would help him to the papal throne. On his advent in Rome, however, the exarch found that he must abandon Paschal and consent to the election of Sergius, in which all concurred. He refused, however, to abandon his bribe which he now demanded of the new pope. Sergius replied that he had never promised anything to the exarch and that he could not pay the sum demanded. And he brought forth in the sight of the people the holy vessels of S. Peter, saying these were all he had. As the pope doubtless intended, the Romans were enraged against the exarch, the money was scraped together, and the holy vessels rescued.

In all this we see the growing distrust and hatred of Constantinople, which the taxation had first aroused on the part of the Italian people and their champion the papacy. These feelings were to be crystallised by the extraordinary and tactless council that the emperor convened in 691, in which the empire attempted to avenge the defeat it had sustained at the hands of the papacy in regard to the Monothelete heresy. The council, which was mainly concerned with discipline, altogether disregarded Western custom and the See of Rome, and especially asserted that "the patriarchal throne of Constantinople should enjoy the same privileges as that of Old Rome, and in all ecclesiastical matters should be entitled to the same pre-eminence and should count as second after it." The pope promptly forbade the publication of the decrees of this council which he had refused to sign. Then the emperor sent a truculent soldier, one Zacharias, to Rome with orders to seize Sergius and bring him to Constantinople as Martin had been arrested and dragged away. It only needed this to make the whole situation clear once and for all.

For it was not only the people of Rome who rose to prevent this outrageous act. When Zacharias landed in Ravenna, the citadel of the empire in Italy, the "army of Ravenna," no longer perhaps Byzantine mercenaries, but Italians, mutinied and determined to march to Rome to defend the pope. As they marched down the Flaminian Way, the soldiers of the Pentapolis joined them, a Holy War, a revolution, declared itself, and for this end: "We will not suffer the Pontiff of the Apostolic See to be carried to Constantinople." This curious mob of soldiers, gathering force and recruits as it marched with songs and shouting down the Way, hurled itself against the walls of the Eternal City, battered down the gate of S. Peter which Zacharias, afraid and in tears, had ordered to be closed, and demanded to see the pope who was believed to have been spirited away in the night on board a Byzantine ship like his predecessor Martin. Zacharias took refuge under the pope's bed, and Sergius showed himself upon the balcony of the Lateran and was received with the wildest enthusiasm.

In that revolution was destroyed all hope of the Byzantine empire in Italy. A new vision had suddenly appeared to those whom we may call, and rightly now, the Italian people. The long resurrection of the West, the greatest miracle of the papacy, was upon that day secured for the future. And henceforth the mere appearance of the exarch in Rome was regarded as an insult and a declaration of war.