"[1]
[Footnote 1: Sidonius Apoll. _Ep_. 1 5. Cf. Hodgkin, _op. cit_. vol.
1. p. 859.]
In another letter we have a rather more fantastic picture. "A pretty
place Cesena must be if Ravenna is better, for there your ears are
pierced by the mosquito of the Po and a talkative mob of frogs is
always croaking round you. Ravenna is a mere marsh where all the
conditions of life are reversed, where walls fall and waters stand,
towers flow down and ships squat, invalids walk about and their
doctors take to bed, baths freeze and houses burn, the living perish
with thirst and the dead swim about on the surface of the water,
thieves watch and magistrates sleep, priests lend at usury and Syrians
sing psalms, merchants shoulder arms and soldiers haggle like
hucksters, greybeards play at ball and striplings at dice, and eunuchs
study the art of war and the barbarian mercenaries study
literature."[2]
[Footnote 2: _Idem. Ep_. 1. 8. Cf. Hodgkin, _op cit_ vol. 1. p. 860.]
Such was the Ravenna of the barbarian who called himself king of
Italy.
We have seen Ravenna since her incorporation into the Roman
administrative system fulfilling the various reasons of her existence;
as the fortress which held the gate into Italy from Cisalpine Gaul, as
the second naval port of the West, and as the great impregnable
fortress of Italy in the barbarian invasions.
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