514 DECLINE & FALL OF ROMAN EMPIRE almost a right of dominion/'" The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of the republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power. A long contest of one hundred and thirty years was determined by the triumph of Venice ; and the factions of the Genoese compelled them to seek for domestic peace under the protection of a foreign lord, the duke of Milan, or the French king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of conquest ; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital, and navigated the Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude of Constantinople itself. 6" [Text (the Latin copy) in Sauli, Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata, ii. 216 ; and in Z;)charia, Jus Graeco-Romanum, iii. 706.]
