BOOK IV.

HITHERTO the conduct of the tribune had been unblameable, notwithstanding the despotic power with which he governed Rome, without any fear of opposition. No avarice, pride, or violence had sullied his reputation; it is true he was severe, but that severity fell only on the heads of those who were known offenders. Although the fortified estates of those who flew from his justice on the one hand, and the sole disposition of the public treasure on the other, enabled him to live in all the splendour of a sovereign prince, yet his furniture and table showed no token of a change of condition. Avoiding ceremony, he was desirous of appearing after the manner of the ancient tribunes, who in their carriage were neither haughty nor proud. He was easy of access; the meanest of the people were as well received and as favourably heard as the most powerful and considerable. By a conduct so prudent he had the art to silence the envy of the grandees he had humbled, to gain the blessings of the people he had drawn into bondage, to attract the admiration of all Europe, and to cause even the pope himself to authorise in a manner his usurpation.

It is difficult for a person of mean birth, elevated at once by the caprice of fortune to the most exalted station, to move rightly in a sphere wherein he must breathe an air he has been unaccustomed to. Rienzi ascended by degrees the summit of his fortune. Riches softened, power daz

zled, the pomp of his cavalcades animated, and formed in his mind ideas adequate to those of princes born to empire.

He began to keep an elegant table, served with the choicest dainties and most exquisite wines, which was afterwards extended almost to profusion. Before this change he wanted no other rampart than the people's affection; but since, he took those precautions which he judged most necessary for his security. Resolving to fortify himself in the capitol, he pallisaded and barricaded it at the expense of the Roman nobility; he obliged them to pull down all the rails and gates at the avenues of their houses and give them to him, having thereby the double advantage of weakening their palaces, and fortifying his own at their costs. Not content

with mortifying thus the nobility, he attacked them more closely in their interest. Under pretence of repairing the palace of the capitol, which was running to ruin, he raised a tax of one hundred florins on every nobleman who had been a senator. About the same time he caused Peter Agapit Colonna to be sent on foot at noonday to prison. A short time before he had seized at Stephen Colonna's several who had made their escape, whom he ordered to be hanged immediately.

Having, without any molestation, repaired the capitol, which he made his fortress, he resolved to strengthen himself with a number of fine troops, as well for his own defence, as for the enterprise he had in view. He raised a body of 1660 men, 1300 foot and 360 horse, all young, well disciplined, well armed, and well paid. He made them take the oath of fidelity, and ordered them to be always ready to attend his person under arms at the sound of the capitol bell. He quartered them in twelve districts of Rome, thirty horse and one hundred and ten foot in a company, with particular ensigns in each.

As soon as he had completed these troops, which, in regard to the forces of Italy in those times, were very considerable, he published an edict, whereby he cited all governors of the towns within the jurisdiction of Rome, to come and pay homage to the people of Rome in his person; and at the same time he made an ordinance, whereby he laid a tax of one carline and four-pence for firing, upon all the

towns, hamlets, and villages. The terror of his name was so great, that they submitted to the tax without murmuring; indeed it was no novelty, they had paid it time immemorial; but the troubles in Italy had occasioned it a long while to be gathered in a confused manner, not with that punctuality which such a man as Rienzi alone could undertake. His orders were so strictly put in force, that his receivers could scarcely count the vast sums which they brought from all parts. The villages of the lower Tuscany, the seaports, and other little places, who had any pretence to get themselves off this tax, endeavoured now to pay it. This tax was looked upon as a sort of tribute and acknowledgment due from all the Italian cities to Rome, as their sovereign and their mother.

As to the governors of those towns the tribunes had cited, they all submitted to his citation and tax, except two, who, imagining themselves strong enough to withstand him, regarded not his summons.

The first was John de Vic, who, under the name of governor, was in reality petty tyrant of Viterbo. He was generally called Prefect de Vic, having executed the office of prefect of Rome; he was desirous of retaining the title, which was to descend to his son Francis de Vic. The second was Gaetan de Ceccano count de Fondi. If we were to form a judgment of these two lords from the character the tribune gives them in his letter to the pope, dated July 7, 1347, it must be a bad one indeed. He accuses them with fratricide, and says, that as they resembled each other in the first crime, they were not less unlike in that of rebellion. The accusation against the prefect was declared in general terms, but that against the count in particular, being charged with other murders. However high these accusations may appear, it is certain if we look into the characters of most of these petty tyrants, who during the absence of the popes appropriated to themselves the church lands, we find them no ways scrupulous in committing the blackest crimes to aggrandise themselves and maintain their usurpation. As enraged as the tribune was against them, they could not imagine he had said so much upon their account. The war which Francis de Vic afterwards waged

against the Romans, sufficiently demonstrated the seditious spirit of his father, which he inherited.

Rienzi, highly incensed against these rebels, who were the only two that had dared to oppose him, resolved to push them in a manner that should convince them their resistance was not to be passed over with impunity; but as he thought himself not strong enough to attack both at one time, he chose to begin with the commandant of Viterbo, whose opposition stung him more sensibly than that of the count, which was not so openly avowed. Besides the town of Viterbo, which John de Vic ruled with despotic sway, he possessed some small garrisons and fortifications, especially one esteemed impregnable, which was called the Rock de Respampano. The tribune designed (agreeable to his eighth regulation) to sieze upon these places under the pretence of the public safety, and to take from those who commanded them the power of making them the receptacles of robbers, who divided the spoil with them, as was openly practised before the elevation of Rienzi. Fort Respampano was a most convenient place for robbers; the tribune, who knew it would be commodious also for him, summoned the prefect to restore it to the people of Rome, to whom he said of right it belonged. The prefect, however unwilling to draw so formidable an enemy upon him, could not consent to yield up the palace he most valued. He evaded as long as possibly he could the demand, until Rienzi, seeing these ways of negociation were of no effect, determined to reduce him by force to his obedience. But before he sent his army into the field, to add a greater weight to his arms, he proceeded in a legal manner against the prefect of Viterbo. After sending him a new citation to appear before him and account for his conduct and his unjust possession of Respampano, he pronounced, in the presence of all the people assembled, sentence of condemnation against him ; wherein, styling him no more than plain John de Vic, he declared him an enemy of God and the holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, a fratricide, a traitor, and a rebel to the Roman republic, and as such degraded and deprived him of all office and dignity.

He informed all the cities, towns, and villages under his

jurisdiction, or in his alliance, with this sentence, and invited them to join with him against the common enemy. The universal desire shown to second his zeal answered the high idea conceived of a man, whom they esteemed no less than the restorer of public liberty. Far from diminishing his reputation and credit, he daily increased both. The towns of Perusa, Todi, Nardo and others, who were in a condition of furnishing troops, sent with the utmost despatch their all. Manfred, lord of Corneto, brought his soldiers, and headed them in person; a number of Roman lords listed themselves under the tribune's banner. In a few days his army was seven thousand strong; six thousand foot and one thousand horse, a most considerable army at that time, as the demesnes of the church, which was before divided into lordships and republics, could not, even the most powerful of them, keep five hundred men in pay.

The tribune, after humbling the nobility, sought to bring them over to him by marks of esteem and confidence. Το put them at the head of his troops he judged the most effi cacious method. To keep an equal balance between the Colonnas and Ursinis, whose houses, as the most powerful, divided the rest of the nobility, he thought proper to give the command of the army which he was sending against the prefect de Vic to one of the Ursinis; and to appoint one of the Colonnas to command the troops which he should hereafter send against the count de Fondi. It was not looked upon as prudential in the tribune to trust his troops to those chiefs he had so ill used, whom, if occasion offered, they might turn against him; it is true the ancient antipathy between those two great families took away in some measure the apprehension of their ever joining against a man who had the entire affection both of his troops and officers. The person he made choice of to command the army against John de Vic was Nicholas Ursini, with whom he nevertheless joined Jordan Ursini as council.

The army marched at first against Vetralla, a small town in sight of Viterbo. They besieged it in form. During the siege, which lasted two whole months, there was no kind of hostility omitted over all the neighbouring country. They made incursions even to the very gates of Viterbo,