, arts, sciences, and the heroic practice of piety, flourished,
especially in the city of Rome. The state of Christendom was at that
time on every side miserably distracted, and stood in need of a pastor,
whose extraordinary sanctity, abilities, and courage should render him
equal to every great enterprise. And such a one was Gregory. The eastern
churches were wretchedly divided and shattered by the Nestorians, and
the numerous spawn of the Eutychians, all which he repressed. In the
west, England was buried in idolatry, and Spain, under the Visigoths,
was overrun with the Arian heresy. These two flourishing countries owe
their conversion, in a great measure, to his zeal, especially the
former. In Africa he extirpated the Donatists, converted many
schismatics in Istria and the neighboring provinces; and reformed many
grievous abuses in Gaul, whence he banished simony, which had almost
universally infected that church. A great part of Italy was become a
prey to the Lombards,[31] who were partly Arians, partly idolaters. St.
Gregory often stopped the fury of their arms, and checked their
oppressions of the people: by his zeal he also brought over many to the
Catholic faith, and had the comfort to see Agilulph, their king,
renounce the Arian heresy to embrace it. In 592, Romanus, exarch, or
governor of Italy for the emperor, with a view to his own private
interest, perfidiously broke the solemn treaty which he had made with
the Lombards,[32] and took Perugia and several other towns. But the
barbarians, who were much the stronger, revenged this insult with great
cruelty, and besieged Rome itself. St. Gregory neglected nothing to
protect the oppressed, and raised troops for the defence of several
places. At length, by entreaties and great presents, he engaged the
Lombards to retire into their own territories. He reproved the exarch
for his breach of faith, but to no other effect than to draw upon
himself the indignation of the governor and his master. Such were the
extortions and injustices of this and other imperial officers, that the
yoke of the barbarians was lighter than the specious shadow of liberty
under the tyranny of the empire: and with such rigor were the heaviest
taxes levied, that to pay them, many poor inhabitants of Corsica were
forced to sell their own children to the barbarians. These oppressions
cried to heaven for vengeance: and St. Gregory wrote boldly to the {576}
empress Constantina,[33] entreating that th