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IV

IV: Friends, Romans, Countrymen

By 780, Leo IV had seen numerous victories over the Abbasid Caliphate in Anatolia and Syria. His military prowess had been tried and tested against the greatest enemy of Christendom, but not Christendom itself. In early 780 the Pope declared war against Desiderius, as a traitor to the Holy See of Rome. Pope Hadrian expected the retribution to be quick, and that Desiderius would submit to the authority of Rome once again, however he was wrong. The war was swift with the Lombard army holding the armies of Rome in the north as the Byzantine army attacked from the south of Italy. Byzantium took Benevento in early 780 and laid siege to Rome by the middle of year. During the siege, Leo was faced with Tuberculosis. The siege was successful thanks to the much larger Byzantine army and the battles occupying the Pope's soldiers in in the north. Leo died from his tuberculosis in September of 780, being succeeded by his son Constantine VI, only age 9. Before his death however, he marched his army through Rome to depose the Pope, now seen as the heretic. Leo's soldiers recount how he sat on the Papal throne as the Pope was arrested and dragged away. When Desiderius arrived to Rome, shortly before Leo's death, he was welcomed openly by the Byzantine occupiers but much less so by the Roman citizens. In a public decree on the Palatine Hill, Leo made Desiderius and his heirs the de facto rulers of the Popes lands. He awarded Desiderius with the title Exarch of Italy, in return for recognizing de jure Byzantine rule of the peninsula

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