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After a reign of sixty years, the throne of the Gothic kings was filled by the exarchs of Ravenna, the representatives in peace and war of the emperor of the Romans. Their jurisdiction was soon reduced to the limits of a narrow province: but Narses himself, the first and most powerful of the exarchs, administered above fifteen years the entire kingdom of Italy.
We know very little of this revolution, what directly was the cause of it, or how it was suppressed; but it is clear that the exarchate, if it did not actually perish, was from this time forth for all intents and purposes dead. Three more exarchs were to reign in Ravenna, but not to govern. In 713, Scholasticus was appointed and remained till 726.
Rome was oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek, perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her own dukes: the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of commerce; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally ennobled by an equal alliance with the Eastern empire.
The exarchs ruled till 752. During this period the bonds between Istria and Ravenna were close. It was a military district under a provincial magister militum, directly subordinate to the exarch of Ravenna, and appointed by him. He was also charged with the civil administration, and lived at Pola, which was the capital till the ninth century.
It was usual for patriarchs and exarchs to enter on their office immediately after election and consecration, before the recognition of the other patriarchs which they afterwards asked for by sending an embassy with their synodal letter. It seems Fravita would make no use of this right, but besought the Pope's confirmation in a very flattering letter.
"After the death of Constantine, the almost regal authority of the Popes in reality commenced. Gregory the Great, created Pope 440 A.D. was compelled for the safety of Italy to exercise this authority against the Lombards on one hand, and the rapacious Exarchs on the other.
The emperor adopted, with stronger effect, the measures of his predecessor: some formidable chiefs were persuaded to embrace the friendship of the Romans; and one of them, a mild and faithful Barbarian, lived and died in the service of the exarchs: the passes of the Alps were delivered to the Franks; and the pope encouraged them to violate, without scruple, their oaths and engagements to the misbelievers.
A moderate theory was framed to reconcile the rights of property with the safety of prescription, the claims of the state with the poverty of the people, and the pardon of offences with the interest of virtue and order of society. Under the exarchs of Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the second rank.
These founded the great Lombard kingdom in the north of Italy, and the smaller Lombard states of Spoleto and Beneventum. Ravenna, the residence of the Exarchs, Rome, Naples, and the island city of Venice, were centers of districts still remaining subject to the Greek emperor, as were also the southern points of the two peninsulas of Southern Italy, and, for the time, the three main islands.
His successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the emperor and the pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery, and this final conquest extinguished the series of the exarchs, who had reigned with a subordinate power since the time of Justinian and the ruin of the Gothic kingdom.
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