At the full tides it is washed by a considerable quantity
of sea water, as well as by the river, and thus the sewage is carried
off and the air purified; in fact, the district is considered so
salubrious that the (Roman) governors have selected it as a spot in
which to bring up and exercise the gladiators. It is a remarkable
peculiarity of this place that, though situated in the midst of a
marsh, the air is perfectly innocuous."[1]
[Footnote 1: Strabo, v. i. 7, tells us Altinum was similarly
situated.]
[Illustration: Sketch Map or Ravenna region in more detail]
Ravenna must always have been impregnable to any save a modern army,
so long as it was able to hold the road in and out and was not taken
from the sea. The one account we have of an attack upon it before the
fall of the empire is given us by Appian and recounts a raid from the
sea. It is but an incident in the civil wars of Marius and Sulla when
Ravenna, we learn, was occupied for the latter by Metellus his
lieutenant. In the year 82 B.C., says Appian, "Sulla overcame a
detachment of his enemies near Saturnia, and Metellus sailed round
toward Ravenna and took possession of the level wheat-growing country
of Uritanus.
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