ROME AND THE SARACENS
SIR,—Attempting to correct your contributor An- thony Hartley, Mr. Michael Swan writes : 'Most fifth-formers should be able to tell him that the Saracen sack of Rome and St. Peter's in the mid" ninth century was one of the most far-reaching events in Italian history.' Most fifth-formers Would be wrong. Certainly the Moors in 846 sacked St. Peter's, which was then outside the city, but neither then nor subsequently did they enter Rome itself. If the results of this near-miss were far-reaching, they were so only in a negative sense, in that theY determined Pope Leo to build the Leonine wall bringing the Vatican and St. Peter within the orbit of the secular city—employing, incidentally, Moorish slaves captured in 849 at the decisive victory of Ostia; which is no doubt what Mr. Hartley had in the
back of his mind.—Yours faithfully, HILARY CORKS Eversheds, Abinger Hammer, Surrey
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