the Lombard that it excuses the
seizure of possessions. Luitprand accordingly ventured on the capture of
Ravenna. An immense booty, the accumulation of the emperors, the Gothic
kings, and the exarchs, which was taken at the storming of the town, at
once rewarded his piety, stimulated him to new enterprises of a like
nature, and drew upon him the attention of his enemy the emperor, whom
he had plundered, and of his confederate the pope, whom he had
overreached.

[Sidenote: Position of affairs at this time.]

[Sidenote: The Saracens dominate in the Mediterranean.]

[Sidenote: Causes of the alliance of the popes and the Franks.]

This was the position of affairs. If the Lombards, who were Arians, and
therefore heretics, should succeed in extending their sway all over
Italy, the influence and prosperity of the papacy must come to an end;
their action on the question of the images was altogether of an
ephemeral and delusive kind, for all the northern nations preferred a
simple worship like that of primitive times, and had never shown any
attachment to the adoration of graven forms. If, on the other hand, the
pope should continue his allegiance to Constantinople, he must be liable
to the atrocious persecutions so often and so recently inflicted on the
patriarchs of that city by their tyrannical master; and the breaking of
that connexion in reality involved no surrender of any solid advantages,
for the emperor was too weak to give protection from the Lombards.
Already had been experienced a portentous difficulty in sending relief
from Constantinople, on account of the naval superiority of the Saracens
in the Mediterranean. For the taxes paid to the sovereign no real
equivalent was received; but Rome, in ignominy, was obliged to submit,
like an obscure provincial town, to the mandates of the Eastern court.
Moreover, in her eyes, the emperor, by reason of his iconoclasm, was a
heretic. But if alliance with the Lombards and allegiance to the Greeks
were equally inexpedient, a third course was possible. A mayor of the
palace of the Frankish kings had successfully led his armies against the
Arabs from Spain, and had gained the great victory of Tours. If the
Franks, under the influence of their climate or the genius of their
race, had thus far shown no encouragement to images, in all other
respects they were orthodox, for they had been converted by Catholic
missionaries; their kings, it was true, were mere phantoms, but Charles