Scarce, however, had Amru quelled every insurrection and secured the Moslem domination in Egypt, when he was again displaced from the government, and Abdallah Ibn Saad appointed a second time in his stead.
Abdallah had been deeply mortified by the loss of Alexandria, which had been ascribed to his incapacity; he was emulous, too, of the renown of Amru, and felt the necessity of vindicating his claims to command by some brilliant achievement. The north of Africa presented a new field for Moslem enterprise. We allude to that vast tract extending west from the desert of Libya or Barca to Cape Non, embracing more than two thousand miles of sea-coast; comprehending the ancient divisions of Mamarica, Cyrenaica, Carthage, Numidia, and Mauritania; or, according to modern geographical designations, Barca, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco.
Toward this rich land of promise, yet virgin of Islamitish seed, Abdallah, at the head of the victorious Saracens, now hopefully bent his ambitious steps.
EVOLUTION OF THE DOGESHIP IN VENICE
A.D. 697
WILLIAM CAREW HAZLITT
The early authentic history of Venice is intimately connected with that of the Lombards, of whom the first mention is made by Paterculus, the Roman historian, who wrote during the first quarter of the first century of our era. He speaks of the Langobardi[68] (Lombards) as dwelling on the west bank of the Elbe. Tacitus also mentions them in his Germany. From the Elbe they wandered to the Danube, and there encountered the Gepidæ, a branch of the Goths. The Lombards subdued this tribe, after a contest of thirty years.
By this victory Alboin, the young Lombard King, rose to great power and fame. His beauty and renown were sung by German peasants even in the days of Charlemagne. His name "crossed the Alps and fell, with a foreboding sound, upon the startled ears of the Italians," and toward Italy he turned for conquest. From Scythia and Germany adventurous youth flocked to his standard. Many clans and various religions were represented in his ranks, but these diversities were overshadowed by a common devotion to the hero-leader.
In 568 the Lombards marched from Pannonia into Italy, conquered the northern part, still called Lombardy, and founded the kingdom of that name, which was afterward greatly extended, and existed until overthrown by Charlemagne in 774.
Before the invading hosts of Alboin, wealthy inhabitants of the larger cities of the province of Venetia fled to the islands of Venice, where earlier fugitives had sought shelter from King Attila and his Huns. A thriving maritime community had been established, which about this time had developed into a semi-independent protectorate of the Byzantine or Eastern Empire, attached to the exarchate of Ravenna.
Afterward Venice underwent many political changes, among which one of the most interesting to students of history is that of the institution of the dogeship, as hereafter related. This step was taken for more than one reason of internal organization and policy, and it was also made urgent by the encroachments of the Lombards, which had become a menace to Venetian territory and commerce.
The republic (Venetian) on her part contemplated with inquietude the rise of one monarchy after another on the skirts of the Lagoon, for the Venetians not unnaturally feared that as soon as these fresh usurpers had established themselves, they might form the design of adding the islands of the Adriatic to their dominion, and of acquiring possession of the commercial advantages which belonged to the situation held by the settlers. For the Lombards, though not ranking among maritime communities, were not absolutely strangers to the laws of navigation, or to the use of ships, 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.