OP THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

30ti

try;' and a genuine Roman, could such have chap.been produced, might have renounced these LXIX -haughty strangers, who disdained the appella-tion of citizens, and proudly styled themselvesthe princes of Rome . 1 After a dark series ofrevolutions, all records of pedigree was lost;the distinction of surnames were abolished; theblood of the nations was mingled in a thousandchannels; and the Goths and Lombards , theGreeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans ,had obtained the fairest possessions by royalbounty or the prerogative of valour. Theseexamples might be readily presumed; but theelevation of an Hebrew race to the rank of sena-tors and consuls is an event without a parallelin the long captivity of these miserable exiles. bIn the time of Leo the ninth, a wealthy andlearned Jew was converted to Christianity , andhonoured at his baptism with the name of hisgodfather, the reigning pope. The zeal and Family ofcourage of Peter the son of Leo were signalised j e w.in the cause of Gregory the seventh, who en-trusted his faithful adherent with the govern-

1 As early as the year 824, the emperor Eothaire I. found it ex-pedient to interrogate the Roman people, to learn from each indivi-dual by what national law he chose to be governed (Muratori, Dis-»ert, xx ii).

* Petrarch attacks these foreigners, the tyrants of Rome , in a decla-mation or epistle, full of bold truths and absurd pedantry, in which heapplies the maxims, and even prejudices, of the old republic to thestate of the fourteenth century (Memaires, tom. iii, p. 157-169).

b The origin and adventures of this Jewish family are noticed hyPagi (Critica, tom. iv, p 435, A. r>. 1124, No. 3, 4), who draws hisinformation from the Chronograplms Maurigniacensis, and Arnul-plius Sagiensis de Schismate (in Muratori, Script Ital. tom. ii>, p. i,p. 423-432). The fact must in some degree be true; yet I couldwish that it had been coolly related, before it was turned into a re-proach against the autipope.