428 APPENDIX

that of the Tribunes, the second that of the Dukes of Malamocco, the third that of the Dukes of Rialto.

3. [First Minor Epoch.] Now in the first of these epochs you are mainly to note that you have the gathering together of a pacifically-minded Christian people out of the way of the desolating wars which were ending the Roman Empire. Whatever of orderly and religious human character had been formed in North Italy since the Gospel was first preached there, gathers itself on the islands out of the rage and horror of the mainland invasions-Hun, Visigoth, Lombard. Not at all a wreck of terrified peasantry, but whatever was most sagacious, temperate, hopeful, acceptant of Christian duty draws aside here, not fugitive, but steadily resistant from its sandrampart; here at least we plant the Cross, and it shall abide, whether we live or die.

How came it, then, that they had the Cross to plant; that this unanimity of faith was in them; this force of purpose? You are accustomed to think of all the traditions concerning St. Mark as after the pride of Venice had been founded in his name. Your well-informed modern historian, scornful of monkish legend, explains to you how the wings of the lion meant this and his claws that. he never so much as heard of an evangelist lion;¹ never so much as asks how Venice was got into that humour of inventing legends about St. Mark. “The legend, of course, is a lie.” Be it so; but how came Venice to lie in that particular manner, and to be concerned that her people should believe her inventions?² Here is, at all events, a whole nation consistently alleging by the mouths of its teachers, consistently accepting in the hearts of its taught, a faith of extreme mystery, purity, practical serviceableness, motive of all mercantile honesty, all soldierly courage. Who invented this faith first for them; who taught?

The only clearly indisputable fact concerning it is that before any migrations to the islands, a great Christian power had been settled in the city of Aquileia,³ finding there a race capable of comprehending Christianity, and of obeying it.⁴

4. Entirely subject to the influence of this great patriarchate, the populations of the islands first established themselves in the simplicity of Christian communities, each with its own chief, or tribune, chosen annually-already thus a little King or Doge of every island village, but with old Latin idea of swift responsibility, and animating succession of power-too short to tempt the ambitious, but long enough for the full energy to show itself of the wise and brave. Forty years after the first colonization there was appointed a yearly General Assembly of the people of the Lagoons, to which the Tribunes rendered account of their work, and answered for it.*

* Their formal title: “Noi Tribuni delle Isole delle Lagune Marittime, preposti dalla università di quelle” (Romanin, i. 79).

¹ [See above, § 22 n., p. 225.]

² [Compare Vol. XX. p. 382.]

³ [For Aquileia as “the true mother of Venice,” see Vol. X. p. 20 n. For particulars of the patriarchate of Aquileia, the English reader may consult Mr. H.F. Brown’s Venice, 1895, ch. i.]

⁴ [Here the MS. has “Insert, the bald Venus. Pagan, yet, therefore, in outward ceremony,-pagan solemnly yet.” For the story of an altar erected at Aquileia to Bald Venus, see below, p. 452.]

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