the strong illusion under which he laboured: "Are you my Romans? For your sake I have left my country and my kindred. For love of you have I abandoned my Saxons and all the Germans, my own blood. I have led you to the most distant parts of the Empire, where your fathers, lords of the world, never set foot, so as to spread your name and fame to the ends of the earth[1]." And the crowd half believed in the dream. They dragged their leaders out and threw them before the Emperor. His nobles were cooler, and under their persuasions he left the Eternal City, where his escort still remained. It could not be concealed that he had really been driven out by the rebels.
His case was nearly desperate. The German magnates were ready to revolt against the dreamer. St Romuald counselled him to take the cowl. Yet Otto, though a visionary, was resourceful and resolute. He summoned fresh forces from Germany, where Henry of Bavaria kept the princes loyal. He asked once more, and with success, for a Byzantine bride. He vexed Rome whence his men were extracted, and prepared for a siege. But his strength was exhausted. On 23 January 1002 he died at Paterno on the Tiber just as his reinforcements reached him.
All Italy was in confusion. The Germans were obliged to fight their way northwards with the corpse. King Ardoin seized the Italian crown. John Crescentius, son of Crescentius II, ruled Rome as patrician, and Pope Sylvester, who had loyally followed his pupil, was content to return thither despoiled of secular power and soon to die. Hugh of Tuscany was already dead, to the joy of the ungrateful Otto. But the basis of the Holy Roman Empire was still firm. Bishops and Marquesses as a rule were faithful to the Saxon house. If Otto's dreams were over, German supremacy, the fact, remained.
It was not only in the Lombard troubles under Otto III that signs were apparent of the medieval evolution of Italy. His contemporary and friend, Doge Pietro Orseolo II of Venice, was making a city-state a first-rate power at sea. Within a few years Orseolo curbed and appeased the feuds of the nobles, he effected a reconciliation with Germany, he reinstated Venice in her favourable position in the Eastern Empire, and contrived to keep on fair terms with the Muslim world. In 1000 Venice made her first effort to dominate the upper Adriatic and it was successful for the time. The Doge led a fleet to Dalmatia, checking the Slav tribes and giving Venice a temporary protectorate over the Roman towns of the coast. Byzantium was busied in war nearer home and glad to rely on a powerful friend. She soon had occasion for Venice's active help, for the Saracen raids grew once again to dangerous dimensions. In 1002 the caid Ṣafī came from Sicily and besieged Bari by land and sea. The catapan Gregory Trachaniotis was
- ↑ Thangmar, Vita S. Bernwardi, c. 25. But these German accounts glose events. Was the haling of the Roman leaders before Otto a mere piece of ceremonial, suitable to a treaty with the Emperor?
