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272 THE DECLINE AND FALL Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey ; the keys and the hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the French ambassador ; and, in his master's name, he presented them before the tomb of St. Peter. The ample measure of the Ex- archate * might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the emperor and his vicegerent ; but its strict and proper limits were included in the teiTitories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara ; its inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along the Adriatic from Rimini, to Ancona, and ad- vanced into the midland country as far as the ridges of the Apennine. In this transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes has been severely condemned. Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not easy for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his profession. Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous enemy, would have been less impatient to divide the spoils of the barbarian ; and, if the emperor had entrusted Stephen to solicit in his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not absolve the pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the rigid interpretation of the laws every one may accept, without injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice. The Greek emperor had abdicated or forfeited his right to the Exarchate ; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the Iconoclast that Pepin had ex- posed his person and army in a double expedition beyond the Alps ; he possessed, and might lawfully alienate, his conquests ; and to the importunities of the Greeks he piously replied that no human consideration should tempt him to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman pontilf for the remission of his sins and the salvation of his soul. The splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute dominion, and the world beheld, for the first time, a Christian bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince : the choice of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes, and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy of Spoleto "^^ sought a 63 Beiween the exorbitant claims, and narrow concessions, of interest and pre- judice, from which even Muratori (Antiquitat. torn. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided, in the Hmits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio Chorographica Italias Medii JEvl, torn. x. p. 160-180. •^ Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B. Petri reciperet et more Romano- rum tonsurari faceret (Anastasius, p. 185). Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own persons or their country.