and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian assumed, with
the pontificate, the name of John XII.: like his predecessor, he was
provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the church
and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with the Imperial
dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans were impatient, the
festival of the coronation was disturbed by the secret conflict of
prerogative and freedom, and Otho commanded his sword-bearer not to stir
from his person, lest he should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of
the altar. [138] Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised
the revolt of the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was
degraded in a synod; the praefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through
the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty were
hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe process was
justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and Justinian. The voice
of fame has accused the second Otho of a perfidious and bloody act, the
massacre of the senators, whom he had invited to his table under the
fair semblance of hospitality and friendship. [139] In the minority of
his son Otho the Third, Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon
yoke, and the consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From
the condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command
of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and formed a
conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek emperors. [1391] In
the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained an obstinate siege, till the
unfortunate consul was betrayed by a promise of safety: his body was
suspended on a gibbet, and his head was exposed on the battlements of
the castle. By a reverse of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops,
was besieged three days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful
escape saved him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator
Ptolemy was the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius
enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her husband, by a poison
which she administered to her Imperial lover. It was the design of Otho
the Third to abandon the ruder countries of the North, to erect his
throne in Italy, and to revive the institutions of the Roman monarchy.
But his successors only once in their lives appeared on the banks of the
Tyber, to receive their crown in the Vatican. [140] Their absence was
contemptible, their