avenna, and set out with an army along the Flaminian Way for Rome to
get himself crowned by the pope Boniface V. But the eunuch was before
his time; moreover, he was a defeated and not a victorious general. At
Luceoli upon the Flaminian Way, not far from Gualdo Tadino where
Narses had broken Totila, in that glorious place his own soldiers slew
him and sent his head to Heraclius.

Of his immediate successor we know nothing--not even his name,[1] but
in or about 625 Isaac the Armenian was appointed and he ruled, as his
epitaph tells us, for eighteen years (625-644). Isaac's rule was not
fortunate for the imperialists. He is probably to be acquitted of the
murder of Taso, Lombard duke of Tuscia, but it is certain that
Rothari, the Lombard king in his time, "took all the cities of the
Romans which are situated on the sea-coast from Luna in Tuscany to the
boundary of the Franks; also he took and destroyed Opitergium, a city
between Treviso and Friuli, and with the Romans of Ravenna he fought
at the river of Aemilia which is called Scultenna (Panaro). In this
fight 8000 fell on the Roman side, the rest fleeing away."[2]

[Footnote 1: Mr. Hodgkin (_op. cit_. vi. 157) suggests that the
predecessor of Isaac was that Euselnus who, as ambassador for
Constantinople, persuaded, or is said to have persuaded, Adalwald,
King of the Lombards since the death of his father, Agilulf (615), to
slay all his chief men and nobles, and to hand over the Lombard
kingdom to the empire; but was poisoned, it is suggested, by Isaac in
Ravenna, whither he had fled when he had killed twelve among them.
Ariwald succeeded him (625).]

[Footnote 2: Paulus Diaconus, cf. Hodgkin, vi. 168.]

[Illustration: THE SARCOPHAGUS OF EXARCH ISAAC]

Nor was this all. It is in Isaac's time that the growing jealousy of
the empire in regard to the papacy for the first time breaks into
flame. Isaac, who as exarch had the right to "approve" the election of
the pope, on the accession of Severinus (638) sent Maurice his
_chartularius_ to Rome as his ambassador. This Maurice it seems was
eager against the papal power, and finding an opportunity in Rome
suddenly seized the Lateran and its wealth at the head of "the Roman
army," and wrote to Isaac that he might come and enjoy the spoil. The
exarch presently arrived in Rome, resided in the Lateran during eight
days, banished the cardinals, and proceeded to steal everything he
could lay his hands on in the name of the empero