A History of Siena

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE BIUTH OF THE COMMUNE It was in the year 408, that Alaric, king of the Ostrogoths, descended upon corrupt Italy. The inhabitants of the peninsula, enervated by luxury, were unable to offer him any effectual resistance. Rome herself, the beautiful Queen of the world, was ravished by the barbarian; the metropolis of culture, the central seat of law and order, was outraged and destroyed. It seemed to many that the civilisation of the West was doomed; and that the ruin of the world as foretold by the prophets and sibyls had begun.1 When so great and venerable a city was, for a time at least, shattered and submerged by the rising tide of barbarism, little wonder was it that many of the smaller towns of Italy were wellnigh swept away. Under the stress of that irresistible flood, Siena seems to have sunk into insignificance. At any rate, of her history from the fourth to the seventh century, no contemporary record has come down to us; but we know that before this period she had received her first bishop, and had become the centre of an independent see.2 1 Gregorovius, The History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. Translated from the German by Annie Hamilton, London, George Bell and Sons, 1894, vol i., p. 163. 2 Pecci relates that Siena received her first bishop in the year 306 A.D., three years after the death of S. Ansano. Malavolti tells us that the see was founded in the time of Theodoric, by Pope John I. But neither writer pro- Chap, ii.] THE CONTEST WITH AREZZO 15 Probably her municipal constitution remained intact until the coming of the Lombards, the most destructive of Italy's invaders. Then, not only her ancient civic government, but her newly-won spiritual jurisdiction disappeared in the wreck of the old order. Siena became a part ...