DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0059
Ch. IL
THROUGH ITALY.
49
seems to have attracted much notice, as we find
no allusion to it among1 the ancients, and little
attention paid to it by the moderns. But, in the
ages of barbarian invasion, and particularly
under the Longobardic kings, it was occasionally
resorted to as an asylum safe from sudden attack,
and sometimes capable of sustaining a siege.
There is, indeed, an account of one of the
Longobardic monarchs having discovered and
conveyed to Pavia a treasure which the Romans
had here deposited; a circumstance which, with
a few additional embellishments, might be worked
into a tolerable romance, especially as the age,
in which the event is supposed to have taken place,
is fertile in legends, and of course fully open to
fiction. We are told, indeed, that it afforded a
retreat to the Christians during the persecutions
of the three first centuries, and that from their
numbers it derived the rank of a town, under the
appellation of Christopolis; that it next sheltered
the Greek exarchs, and enabled them to make a
successful stand against the Longobardic invaders;
and, in fine, that it became an independent re-
public, extended its conquests over the neigh-
boring banks, and carried on along and eventful
war with Como. But, these and its other bril-
liant achievements, not having a Thucydides to
transmit them emblazoned to posterity, are gra-
dually sinking into darkness, and will probably
VOL. IV. u
THROUGH ITALY.
49
seems to have attracted much notice, as we find
no allusion to it among1 the ancients, and little
attention paid to it by the moderns. But, in the
ages of barbarian invasion, and particularly
under the Longobardic kings, it was occasionally
resorted to as an asylum safe from sudden attack,
and sometimes capable of sustaining a siege.
There is, indeed, an account of one of the
Longobardic monarchs having discovered and
conveyed to Pavia a treasure which the Romans
had here deposited; a circumstance which, with
a few additional embellishments, might be worked
into a tolerable romance, especially as the age,
in which the event is supposed to have taken place,
is fertile in legends, and of course fully open to
fiction. We are told, indeed, that it afforded a
retreat to the Christians during the persecutions
of the three first centuries, and that from their
numbers it derived the rank of a town, under the
appellation of Christopolis; that it next sheltered
the Greek exarchs, and enabled them to make a
successful stand against the Longobardic invaders;
and, in fine, that it became an independent re-
public, extended its conquests over the neigh-
boring banks, and carried on along and eventful
war with Como. But, these and its other bril-
liant achievements, not having a Thucydides to
transmit them emblazoned to posterity, are gra-
dually sinking into darkness, and will probably
VOL. IV. u