24 THE DECLINE AND FALL sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek, perhaps an eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the Capitol. But Naples soon ac- quired the privilege of electing her own dukes ; *^ the indepen- dence of Amalphi was the fruit of commerce ; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally ennobled by an equal alliance with tlie Eastern empire. On the map of Italy, the measure of the exarchate occupies a very inadequate space, but it included an ample proportion of wealth, industry, and population. The most feithful and valuable subjects escaped from the barbarian yoke ; and the banners of Pavia and Verona, of Milan and Padua, were displayed in their respective quarters by the new The kingdom inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of Italy was possessed bards by the Lombards ; and from Pavia, the royal seat, their kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far as the confines of the Avars, the Bavarians, and the Franks of Austrasia and Burgundy. In the language of modern geography, it is now represented by the Terra Firma of the Venetian republic, Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont, the coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, the grand duchy of Tuscany, and a large portion of the ecclesiastical state from Perugia to the Adriatic. The dukes, and at length the princes, of Beneventum survived the monarchy, and propagated the name of the Lombards. From Capua to Tarentum, they reigned near five hundred years over the greatest part of the present kingdom of Naples.^" Langna«e and In Comparing the proportion of the victorious and the van- the Lombards quishcd people, the change of language will afford the most probable inference. According to this standard it will appear that the Lombards of Italy, and the Visigoths of Spain, were less numerous than the Franks or Burgundians ; and the conquerors
- 'Gregor. Magn. 1. iii. epist. 23, 25, 26, 27.
•*"! have described the state of Italy from the excellent Dissertation of Beretti. Giannone (Istoria Civile, torn. i. p. 374-387) has followed the learned Camillo Pelle- grini in the geography of the kingdom of Naples. After the loss of the true Calabria, the vanity of the Greeks substituted that name instead of the more ignoble appellation of Bruttium ; and the change appears to have taken place before the time of Charle- magne (Eginhard, p. 75 [V. Car., 15]). [The change was probably the result of an administrative innovation in the second half of the seventh century (due presumably to the Emperor Constans II.). Calabria, Apulia, and Bruttii seem to have been united as a single province, entitled Calabria. Thus Bruttii came to be part of (official) Calabria. When the duke of Beneventum, Romuald, conquered most of the heel (soon after a.d. 671) Bruttii came to be almost the whole of " Calabria". Thus an administrative change, prior to the conquest of Romuald, initiated the attachment of the name Calabria to the toe ; the conquest of Romuald brought about the detachment of the name from the heel. These are the conclusions arrived at in the investigation of M. Schipa on Z.a migraziove del name Calabria, in the Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 1895, p. 23 sqq.'
