240 Deliyannis
Rome of course had been sacked in 410 and 455 and lost its grain shipments
from North Africa in the 430s. Earthquakes struck Italy in the late 5th and early
6th centuries also, as recorded by an inscription dating to AD 484 or 508 that
records repairs to the Colosseum.35 Elsewhere in Italy, excavations at Brescia
have revealed a functioning Roman town with forum, capitolium, theatre, and
a few elite houses until the 4th century; in the 5th century the public buildings
went out of use and the houses were subdivided into smaller units.36 Thus,
many of Theoderic’s cities were already shells of their former selves, a process
that Theoderic recognized and attempted to reverse.
One reason for this ‘shell’ impression is that by the late 5th century,
Roman cities were defined by their walls.37 We can see this, for example, in
the Ostrogothic mosaics in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, in which Classe
is depicted as a set of walls with buildings inside it. According to the Variae,
Theoderic was very concerned about city walls. One letter addressed to “all
Goths and Romans” commands all his subjects to provide stones suitable for
rebuilding city walls to his government, stating that: “The construction of a
city is most worthy of royal attention, since the repair of old cities is praised
in which both an adornment in time of peace is acquired, and a necessity is
on guard in time of war.”38 Restorations are specifically mentioned for Arles,
Catana, and Rome.39 The Anonymus Valesianus says that Theoderic built new
walls at Verona and Pavia, which have been interpreted as interior walls demar-
cating citadels within the older city walls.40 Thus, walls built in earlier periods
now surrounded buildings that were falling into ruin, and it was these that
Theoderic’s propaganda targeted. The following sections will address certain
types of buildings, and what we know about them.
35 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (hereafter CIL) 6.32094; Rea, “Il Colosseo” and Christie,
Constantine to Charlemagne, pp. 198–9.
36 Brogiolo, “Dwellings and Settlements”, p. 117.
37 Gelichi, “La città in Emilia-Romagna”, pp. 572–3, Dey, Aurelian Wall, pp. 131–7, Christie,
Constantine to Charlemagne, pp. 284–99, 319–48, and 357–69, and Fauvinet-Ranson, Decor
civitatis, pp. 204–8.
38 Variae 1.28: “Digna est constructio civitatis, in qua se commendet cura regalis, quia laus
est temporum reparatio urbium vetustarum: in quibus et ornatus pacis adquiritur et bel-
lorum necessitas praecavetur... Quid est enim gratius quam videre crescere publicum
decus, ubi omnium utilitas in generalitate concluditur?”
39 Variae 3.44, 3.49, and 1.25, and Anonymus Valesianus 67. Bricks stamped with Theoderic’s
name were used to repair the Aurelian Walls of Rome, see Dey, Aurelian Wall, pp. 50–1
and 293.
40 Christie, Constantine to Charlemagne, p. 204.