Yet though both
were working for the same end they did not always propose to march by
the same road. In 592, for instance, the pope, seeing Naples the
capital of the little isolated duchy upon his southern flank very hard
pressed, proposed at all costs to relieve it; but the exarch Romanus,
perhaps seeing further, was not to be moved to the assistance of the
peasants of Campania from the all-important business of the defence of
central Italy and the Flaminian Way, the line of communication between
Ravenna and Rome. He proposed to let Naples look after itself and at
all costs to hold Perugia. Gregory, however, who claimed in an
indignant letter of this date (592) to be "far superior in place and
dignity" to the exarch, proceeded to save Naples by making a sort of
peace with the Lombard duchy of Spoleto. It is possible that this
peace saw the Lombard established in Perugia, which was the Roman key,
till now always in Roman hands, of the great line of communication
between Rome and Ravenna. However that may be, Gregory's peace not
only aroused great anger in Constantinople, but brought Romanus
quickly south with an army to re-occupy Perugia, Orte, Todi, Ameria,
and various other cities of Umbria.
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