It is unthinkable that the Italy of the sixth century was for a moment in danger of losing its Faith, of being dechristianised.  That, all things considered, in the third fourth and fifth centuries there had more than once been a real danger of the victory of some heresy, and especially of that subtle Arianism, the forerunner of Mahometanism, which all the invaders professed, and most of them so bitterly, we know; as we know that with the hard won victory of the Catholic Faith the whole of the future was safe; but that in the Italy of the sixth century the Faith was in danger from a horde of semi-pagan barbarians is not to be thought of.  To this extent, and it is three parts at least of the whole, the Lombard invasion was less perilous than those which had come and passed away before it.  Once more, the Catholic church was to be victorious, but in a different fashion.  It cast out the Visigoths, the Huns, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths from Italy, for it could not convert them; the Lombards it converted and they remained.  It converted them because they were rather heathen than Arian, and the victory was won by that great Gregory who, seeing our forefathers in the Forum of Rome, and loving them for their bright hair and open faces—­non Angli sed Angeli si Christiani—­sent S. Austin to turn them too from their pagan rites and gather them into the fold of Christ.

But there was something else beside the fact that the Lombards were pagan, and therefore to be converted, which was a part of the salvation of Italy.

It is possible that the Lombards might have been as Catholic as the Franks and yet, barbarians as they were, have destroyed civilisation in Italy, have broken the continuity of Europe, have obliterated all our traditions, and altogether undone the great work of Justinian.  It is possible, but it is highly improbable; that it was impossible we owe to Ravenna.

Ravenna was impregnable and her seaward gate was always open.  During all the years of the Lombard domination she was the citadel of the empire in Italy, the seat of the prefect and the exarch, the imperial representatives.

It must be grasped that even after the fall of Ticinum in 572, as the Byzantine historian tells us, perhaps no one, and certainly no one in Ravenna, regarded the invasion as anything but a passing evil like all the other barbarian incursions.  No one believed Italy to be irrevocably lost; on the contrary, everyone was assured that the lost provinces could soon be delivered again.

This may explain, though perhaps it cannot excuse, the passive attitude of Longinus, the successor of Narses, who in Ravenna represented the emperor in Italy, perhaps till the year 584.  We know nothing of any attempts he may have made to stem the barbarian flood, and indeed the only incident in his career with which we are acquainted is romantic rather than military or political.  For when Rosamond, the queen of the Lombards, murdered her husband Alboin