In the year 846, black sails came gliding up the River Tiber.

For months these ferocious sea pirates had raided up and down the Italian coastline,

looting and plundering everything they found.

And now, after sacking the Italian seaport of Ostia, they had come in search of a far

greater prize. Their next destination lay much further inland.

Music Their next destination lay much further inland. Professional soldiers blooded from a lifetime on the high seas.

The raiders had been working on knowledge gleaned over the course of several decades.

Information that suggested the existence of undefended riches there for the taking,

further inland along the Tiber.

There was a great city. Once long ago ago, it had been the center of the world, the beating

heart of an empire that had stretched from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. But that was in

ages past. Now, meager communities inhabited the mighty ruins, eking out in existence within the colossal edifices of centuries gone by,

acting as custodians and guardians over the vast multitudes of riches and ruins to be found there.

Music of riches and ruins to be found there. All in all, the population of the great city of Rome

likely stood at around 30,000.

Still populous for Western Europe, yet a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of

citizens and slaves who had once populated the city in ages gone by.

The situation in the rest of the peninsula wasn't much better. To the south, a scattering of Eastern Roman holdouts,

leftovers from the days of Justinian,

along with a few independent city-states, still clung on.

Though, for the most part, Lombard noblemen held sway,

Latin-speaking descendants of Germanic invaders.

...