The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · ¶249

The royal prerogative of coining money, which had been exercised near three hundred years by the senate, was first resumed by Martin the Fifth, and his image and superscription introduce the series of the papal medals. Of his two immediate successors, Eugenius the Fourth was the last pope expelled by the tumults of the Roman people, and Nicholas the Fifth, the last who was importuned by the presence of a Roman emperor. I. The conflict of Eugenius with the fathers of Basil, and the weight or apprehension of a new excise, emboldened and provoked the Romans to usurp the temporal government of the city. They rose in arms, elected seven governors of the republic, and a constable of the Capitol; imprisoned the pope’s nephew; besieged his person in the palace; and shot volleys of arrows into his bark as he escaped down the Tyber in the habit of a monk. But he still possessed in the castle of…

Edward Gibbon · Project Gutenberg #736 (Milman edition) — public domain
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