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Updated: May 14, 2025
The ducal power "principes" of Tacitus preceding among the Lombards that of the king, we see the dukes exercising much greater control in the earlier stages of the monarchy: even, on the death of Clefis 576 actually establishing a sort of aristocratic republic, under the leadership of thirty dukes, which lasted for ten years; after which time, on the event of a dangerous war with the Greeks and the Franks, Authari, the son of Clefis, gained the throne by election; the dukes giving up to him, says Paulus Diaconus, the half of their estates for the support of his dignity, retaining, however, the rest, not as servants of the king, but as "principes" of the people, an important distinction.
He had apparently become insane and had been guilty of extraordinary violence towards the patriarch of Aquileia and three other bishops whom he dragged to Ravenna. His successor was Romanus who held office till 597. In the same year, 589, Authari was married at Pavia to Theodelinda, who was to be so potent an instrument in the conversion of the Lombards and therefore in the salvation of Italy.
In the year 579 Faroald, duke of Spoleto, fell upon Classis, and took it and spoiled it. This, however, was but an isolated effort, and though the Lombards held Classis, they achieved little else in Italy till after Authari was chosen king in 584.
Agilulf, King of the Lombards, who like his predecessors made the city of Pavia in Lombardy the seat of his government, took to wife Theodelinde, the widow of Authari, likewise King of the Lombards, a lady very fair, wise and virtuous, but who was unfortunate in her lover.
But the pause in the advance, though, through it all, Rome was blockaded, was due to the fact that Authari, the heir to the Lombard throne, was but a boy.
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