The Sorceress of Rome

The Sorceress of Rome by Nathan Gallizier. The darkness of the tenth century is dissipated by no contemporary historian. Monkish chronicles alone shed a faint light over the discordant chaos of the Italian world. Rome was no longer the capital of the earth. The seat of empire had shifted from the banks of the Tiber to the shores of the Bosporus and the seven hilled city of Constantine had assumed the imperial purple of the ancient capital of the Cæsars.Centuries of struggles with the hosts of foreign invaders had in time lowered the state of civilization to such a degree that in point of literature and art the Rome of the tenth century could not boast of a single name worthy of being transmitted to posterity. Even the memory of the men whose achievements in the days of its glory constituted the pride and boast of the Roman world had become almost extinct. A great lethargy benumbed the Italian mind engendered by the reaction from the incessant feuds and broils among the petty tyrants and oppressors of the country.Together with the rest of the disintegrated states of Italy united by no common bond Rome had become the prey of the most terrible disorders. Papacy had fallen into all manner of corruption. Its former halo and prestige had departed. The chair of St. Peter was sought for by bribery and controlling influence often by violence and assassination and the city was oppressed by factions and awed into submission by foreign adventurers in command of bands collected from the outcasts of all nations.From the day of Christmas in the year 800 when at the hands of Pope Leo III Charlemagne received the imperial crown of the West the German Kings dated their right as rulers of Rome and the Roman world a right feebly and ineffectually contested by the emperors of the East. It was the dream of every German King immediately upon his election to cross the Alps to receive at the hand of the Pope the crown of a country which resisted and resented and never formally recognized a superiority forced upon it. Thus from time to time we find Rome alternately in revolt against German rule punished subdued and again imploring the aid of the detested foreigners against the misrule of her own princes to settle the disputes arising from pontifical elections or as protection against foreign invaders and the violence of contending factions.