The term militia had social, military, and political significance and was linked to the organization of the different Byzantine duchies and the exarchate. |
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When in 739 the Lombards sacked the exarchate of Ravenna and threatened Rome, Gregory appealed to the Franks for aid. |
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He then gifted the lands of the former exarchate to the pope, thus initiating the Papal States. |
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He appointed military governors for Rome and Ravenna the exarchate of Ravenna when he realized that the civil authorities were unable to protect remaining Byzantine territory from the advancing Lombards. |
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At his succession in 772, Pope Adrian I demanded the return of certain cities in the former exarchate of Ravenna in accordance with a promise at the succession of Desiderius. |
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At first, they were unable to conquer the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Ducatus Romanus, and Calabria and Apulia. |
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In 752 AD the Lombards overthrew the Exarchate, ending the influence of the Byzantine Empire on the western shore of the Adriatic for a few centuries. |
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The following year Pepin fulfilled his promise to the pope and retrieved the Exarchate of Ravenna, recently fallen to the Lombards, and returned it to the Papacy. |
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In 751 the Lombard King Aistulf conquered most of the Exarchate of Ravenna, leaving Venice a lonely and increasingly autonomous Byzantine outpost. |
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