56, 57. Trs Hodgkin]
This weakness would seem, however, to have been overcome by Trajan,
who built an aqueduct nearly twenty miles long, which Theodoric
restored, after the fall of the empire, in 524. This aqueduct, of
which some arches remain in the bed of the Bedesis (Ronco), seems to
have run, following the course of the river, from near Forli, where
there still remains a village called S. Maria in Acquedotto, to
Ravenna.
[Illustration: GREEK RELIEF FROM A TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE]
The great city-port thus became one of the most important and
considerable of the cities of Italy, at a time when the whole of the
West was rapidly increasing in wealth and population, and especially
the old province of Cisapline Gaul, which had indeed become, during
the _pax romana_, the richest part of the new Italy. Always an
important military port it was often occupied by the emperors as their
headquarters from which to watch and to oppose the advance of their
enemies into Italy, and the possessor of it, for the reasons I have
set forth, was always in a commanding position. Thus in A.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51