PETER THE HERMIT. 



97 



with the sea. Neither Pompey, nor Sylla, nor Augustus, nor 

 Nero, nor Titus, nor Constantine, nor Theodosius, nor Attila, 

 can claim part or lot in the dominion of man over the ocean. 

 And so we glide rapidly over five centuries. 



Upon the invasion of Italy by the barbarians, A.D. 476, the 

 Veneti, a tribe dwelling upon the northeastern shores of the 

 Adriatic, escaped from their ravages by fleeing to the marshes 

 and sandy inlets formed by the deposits of the rivers which 

 there fall into the gulf. Here they were secure; for the water 

 around them was too deep to allow of an attack from the land, 

 and too shallow to admit the approach of ships from the sea. 

 Their only resource was the water and the employments it 

 afforded. At first they caught fish; then they made salt, and 

 finally engaged in maritime traffic. Early in the seventh cen- 

 tury their traders were known at Constantinople, in the Levant, 

 and at Alexandria. Their city soon covered ninety islands, 

 connected together by bridges. They established mercantile 

 factories at Rome, and extended their authority into Istria and 

 Dalmatia. In the eighth century they chased the pirates, and 

 in the ninth they fought the Saracens. At this period Genoa, 

 too, rose into notice, and the Genoese and the Venetians at once 

 became commercial rivals and the monopolists of the Mediter- 

 ranean. 



And now Peter the Hermit, barefooted and penniless, in- 

 veighing against the atrocities of the Turks towards Christians 

 at Jerusalem, exhorted the warriors of the Cross to take up 

 arms against the infidels. He inspired all Europe with an 

 enthusiasm like his own, and enlisted a million followers in the 

 cause. The passion of the age was for war, peril, and adven- 

 ture; and fighting for the Sepulchre was a more agreeable 

 method of doing penance than wearing sackcloth or mortifying 

 the flesh. The First Crusade, a motley array of knights, 

 spendthrifts, barons, beggars, women, and children, set out upon 



their wild career. Then came the Second, the Third, and the 

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