and terror of invasion and civil wars, she shines like a beacon beside the sea, proud, brave, and full of hope, almost the only city not altogether enslaved in a country in the grip of the barbarian, almost overwhelmed by the Lombards.  And indeed, she was one of the first cities of Italy to fling off the Lombard yoke.  Favoured by her position on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea, yet not so near the coast as to invite piracy, she waged incessant war on Greek and Saracen.  Lombardy, heavy with conquest, fearful for her prize, which was Italy, was compelled to encourage the growth of the naval cities.  It was on the sea that the future of Pisa lay, like the glory of the sun that in its splendour and pride passes away too soon.

Already in the ninth century we hear of her prowess at Salerno, while in the tenth, having possessed herself of her own government under consuls, she sent a fleet to help the Emperor Otho II in Sicily.  Fighting without respite or rest, continually victorious, never downhearted, she had opened the weary story of the civil strife of Italy with a war against Lucca, in the year 1004.[17] It was the first outburst of that hatred in her heart which in the end was to destroy her for she died of a poverty of love.

In 1005, still with her fleet engaged in Sicilian waters, the Arab pirates fell upon her, and, forcing the harbour, sacked a whole quarter of the city.  For the time Pisa could do little against the foes of Europe, but in 1016 she allied herself with that city which proved at last to be her deadliest foe, Genoa the Proud, and the united fleets swept down on Sardinia for vengeance.  It was this victorious expedition that aroused the hatred of the Pisans for Genoa, a jealousy that was only extinguished when at last Pisa was crushed at Meloria.

Many were the attempts of the Arabs to regain Sardinia, but Pisa was not to be deceived.  Coasting along the African shore, her fleet took Bona and threatened Carthage.  Yet in 1050 the Arabs of Morocco and Spain stole the island from her, only Cagliari holding out under the nobles for the mother city.  There was more than the loss of Sardinia at stake, for with the victory of the Arabs the highway of the sea was no longer secure, the existence of Pisa, and not of Pisa only, was threatened.  So we find Genoa once more standing beside Pisa in the fight of Europe.  The fleets again were combined, this time under the command of a Pisan, one Gualduccio, a plebeian.  He sailed for Cagliari, landed his men, and engaged the enemy on the beach.  The Arabs were led by the King Mogahid, Re Musetto, as the Italians called him.  He was over eighty years old at the time, and though still full of cunning valour, attacked by the fleets in front and the garrison in the rear, his army was defeated and put to flight.  He himself, fleeing on horseback, was wounded in two places, and falling was captured; and they took him in chains to Pisa, where he died.  Thus Sardinia once more fell into the hands of Europe, and the island, divided in fiefs under the rule of Pisa,[18] was held and governed by her.