This is Jornandes, who was born about A.D. 500 and
was first a notary at the Ostrogothic court and later became a monk
and finally bishop of Crotona. In his _De Getarum Origins et Rebus
Gestis_ he thus describes Ravenna:
"This city (says he) between the marshes, the sea, and the Po is only
accessible on one side. Situated beside the Ionian Sea it is
surrounded and almost submerged by lagoons. On the east is the sea, on
the west it is defended by marshes across which there remains a narrow
passage, a kind of gate. The city is encircled on the north by a
branch of the Po, called the Fossa Asconis, and on the south by the Po
itself, which is called the Eridanus, and which is there known as the
King of Rivers. Augustus deepened its bed and made it larger; it
flowed quite through the city, and its mouth formed an excellent port
where once, as Dion reports [this passage of Dion Cassius is lost], a
fleet of 250 ships could be stationed in all security.... The city has
three names with which she glorifies herself and she is divided into
three parts to which they correspond; the first is Ravenna, the last
Classis, that in the midst is Caesarea between Ravenna and the sea.
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