It was from Byzantium that the Venetian people received the first recognition of their existence as a separate community. Their maritime importance compelled Narses, the imperial com mander, to seek their aid in transporting his army from Grado; and when the Paduans appealed to the Eunuch to restore their rights over the Brenta, the Venetians replied by declaring that islands of the lagoon and the river mouths that fell into the estuary were the property of those who had rendered them habit able and serviceable. Narses declined to intervene, Padua was powerless to enforce its claims and Venice established a virtual independence of the mainland. Nor was it long before Venice made a similar assertion to the imperial representative, Longinus, who invited the Venetians to give him an escort to Constantiqople (which they did) and also to acknowledge themselves subjects of the empire. By dint of promising large concessions and trading privileges, he induced the Venetians to make an act of submission —though not upon oath. The terms of this pact resulted in the first diploma conferred on Venice as a separate community (584). But it was inevitable that, when the barbarians, Lombard or Frank, were once established on the mainland of Italy, Venice should be brought first into trading and then into political rela tions with its near neighbours, who as masters of Italy also put forward a claim to sovereignty in the lagoons. It is between the two claims of east and west that Venice struggled for and achieved recognized independence.
Internal Fusion and Consolidation.—In 466, 14 years after the fall of Aquileia, the population of the 12 lagoon townships met at Grado for the election of one tribune from each island for the better government of the separate communities, and above all to put an end to rivalries which had already begun to play a disintegrating part. But when the lagoon population was largely augmented in 568 as the result of Alboin's invasion, these jealous ies were accentuated, and in 584 it was found expedient to appoint 12 other tribunes, known as the Tribuni Maiores, who formed a kind of central committee to deal with all matters affecting the general weal of the lagoon communities. But the Tribuni Maiores were equally powerless to allay the jealousies of the growing town ships which formed the lagoon community. Rivalry in fishing and in trading, coupled with ancient antipathies inherited from the various mainland cities of origin, were no doubt the cause of these internecine feuds. A crisis was reached when Christopher, patri arch of Grado, convened the people of the lagoon at Heraclea, and urged them to suppress the 12 tribunes and to choose a single head of the State. To this they agreed, and in 697 Venice elected her first doge, Paulo Lucio Anafesto.
The growing importance of the lagoon townships, owing to their maritime skill, their expanding trade, created by their position between east and west, their monopoly of salt and salted fish, which gave them a strong position in the mainland markets, ren dered it inevitable that a clash must come over the question of independence, when either east or west should claim that Venice belonged to them ; and inside the lagoons of growing prosperity, coupled with the external threat to their liberties, concentrated the population into two well-defined parties—what may be called the aristocratic party, because it leaned towards imperial Byzantium and also displayed a tendency to make the dogeship hereditary, and the democratic party, connected with the original population of the lagoons, aspiring to free institutions, and consequently lean ing more towards the Church and the Frankish kingdom which protected the Church. The aristocratic party was captained by
the township of Heraclea, which had given the first doge, Anafesto, to the newly formed community. The democratic party was cham pioned first by Jesolo and then by Malamocco.
The Franks.—The advent of the Franks determined the final solution. The Emperor Leo, the Isaurian, came to open rupture with Pope Gregory II. over the question of images. The pope appealed to Liutprand, the powerful king of the Lombards, to at tack the imperial possessions in Ravenna. He did so, and expelled the exarch Paul, who took refuge in Venice and was restored to his post by the doge of the Heraclean or Byzantine party, Orso, who in return for this assistance received the imperial title of hypatos, and trading rights in Ravenna. The pope, however, soon had cause for alarm at the spread of the Lombard power which he had encouraged. Liutprand proceeded to occupy territory in the Ducato Romano. The pope, looking about for a saviour, cast his eyes on Charles Martel, whose victory at Tours had riveted the attention of the world. Charles's son, Pippin, was crowned king of Italy, entered the peninsula at the head of the Franks, defeated the Lombards, took Ravenna and presented it to the pope, while retaining, a feudal superiority. Desiderius, the last Lombard king, endeavoured 4,o recover Ravenna. Charlemagne, Pippin's son, de scended upon Italy, broke up the Lombard kingdom (774), con firmed his father's donation to the pope, and in reprisals for Vene tian assistance to the exarch, ordered the pope to expel the Vene tians from the Pentapolis. Venice was now brought face to face with the Franks under their powerful sovereign, who soon showed that he intended to claim the lagoons as part of his new king dom. In Venice the result of this menace was a decided reaction towards Byzantium. In opposition to the Frankish claim, Venice resolved to affirm her dependence on the Eastern empire. But the democratic party, the Frankish party in Venice, was powerful. Feeling ran high. A crisis was rapidly approaching. The Byzan tine Doge Giovanni Galbaio attacked Grado, the see of the Fran cophil Patriarch Giovanni, captured it, and flung the bishop from the tower of his palace. But the murdered patriarch was suc ceeded by his no less Francophil nephew Fortunatus, a strong partisan, a restless and indomitable man, who along with Obelerio of Malamocco now assumed the lead of the democratic party. He and his followers plotted the murder of the doge, were dis covered, and sought safety at the court of Charlemagne, where Fortunatus strongly urged the Franks to attack the lagoons.