The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [2267]
[Footnote 62: Tibur nunc suburbanum, et aestivae Praeneste deliciae, nuncupatia in Capitolio votis petebantur. The whole passage of Florus (l. i. c. 11) may be read with pleasure, and has deserved the praise of a man of genius, (Oeuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 634, 635, quarto edition)]
[Footnote 63: Ne a feritate Romanorum, sicut fuerant Hostienses, Portuenses, Tusculanenses, Albanenses, Labicenses, et nuper Tiburtini destruerentur, (Matthew Paris, p. 757.) These events are marked in the Annals and Index (the xviiith volume) of Muratori.]
[Footnote 64: For the state or ruin of these suburban cities, the banks of the Tyber, &c., see the lively picture of the P. Labat, (Voyage en Espagne et en Italiae,) who had long resided in the neighborhood of Rome, and the more accurate description of which P. Eschinard (Roma, 1750, in octavo) has added to the topographical map of Cingolani.]
[Footnote 65: Labat (tom. iii. p. 233) mentions a recent decree of the Roman government, which has severely mortified the pride and poverty of Tivoli: in civitate Tiburtina non vivitur civiliter.]
[Footnote 66: I depart from my usual method, of quoting only by the date the Annals of Muratori, in consideration of the critical balance in which he has weighed nine contemporary writers who mention the battle of Tusculum, (tom. x. p. 42 - 44.)]
[Footnote 67: Matthew Paris, p. 345. This bishop of Winchester was Peter de Rupibus, who occupied the see thirty-two years, (A.D. 1206 - 1238.) and is described, by the English historian, as a soldier and a statesman. (p. 178, 399.)]
Ambition is a weed of quick and early vegetation in the vineyard of Christ. Under the first Christian princes, the chair of St. Peter was disputed by the votes, the venality, the violence, of a popular election: the sanctuaries of Rome were polluted with blood; and, from the third to the twelfth century, the church was distracted by the mischief of frequent schisms. As long as the final appeal was determined by the civil magistrate, these mischiefs were transient and local: the merits were tried by equity or favor; nor could the unsuccessful competitor long disturb the triumph of his rival. But after the emperors had been divested of their prerogatives, after a maxim had been established that the vicar of Christ is amenable to no earthly tribunal, each vacancy of the holy see might involve Christendom in controversy and war. The claims of the cardinals and inferior clergy, of the nobles and people, were vague and litigious: the freedom of choice was overruled by the tumults of a city that no longer owned or obeyed a superior. On the decease of a pope, two factions proceeded in different churches to a double election: the number and weight of votes, the priority of time, the merit of the candidates, might balance each other: the most respectable of the clergy were divided; and the distant princes, who bowed before the spiritual throne, could not distinguish the spurious, from the legitimate, idol. The emperors were often the authors of the schism, from the political motive of opposing a friendly to a hostile pontiff; and each of the competitors was reduced to suffer the insults of his enemies, who were not awed by conscience, and to purchase the support of his adherents, who were instigated by avarice or ambition a peaceful and perpetual succession was ascertained by Alexander the Third, ^68 who finally abolished the tumultuary votes of the clergy and people, and defined the right of election in the sole college of cardinals. ^69 The three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, were assimilated to each other by this important privilege; the parochial clergy of Rome obtained the first rank in the hierarchy: they were indifferently chosen among the nations of Christendom; and the possession of the richest benefices, of the most important bishoprics, was not incompatible with their