242 Deliyannis
statue at Faenza that had been toppled in an earthquake.47 Thus, at least in a
few cities, Theoderic was attempting to revive or continue Roman commemo-
rative traditions. Moreover, Procopius tells a story about a mosaic picture of
Theoderic in the forum at Naples.48 A letter in the Variae concerns the recent
theft of a bronze statue from some public place in Como.49 However, in other
cities we do not find similar inscriptions or images, except on epitaphs or
church dedications. Thus, by this time, even if fora still functioned as market-
places or central gathering spaces, they seem to have been replaced as local
commemorative spaces by churches, as Ward-Perkins has noted.50
Water
Cassiodorus notes that one of the glories of the Roman urban system was
the provision of running water, which allowed for large public bathing com-
plexes, a sewer system, and other amenities.51 Our textual sources imply that
at the start of Theoderic’s reign many of these had gone out of use and had
to be restored, and they also imply that this restoration was a crucial part of
Theoderic’s programme. We also know from Procopius’ Gothic Wars that part
of the siege of a city involved cutting its aqueducts, indicating that they were
functional. Finally, we have evidence of bathing complexes in several Italian
cities. We can see that water was part of the Ostrogothic image of what a city
should be, although whether the aquatic systems actually still worked was
sometimes in doubt.
We have the most evidence about water from Ravenna. An aqueduct had
been built in the Roman period, supposedly by the emperor Trajan (98–117), to
bring in water from the south-west.52 We must assume that it still functioned
when the imperial court moved to Ravenna around 402, but by 467 Sidonius
47 CIL 11.268 Ravenna; see Amory, People and Identity, p. 379.
48 Arthur, Naples, p. 44, cites Procopius’ story, BG 5.24.
49 Variae 2.35.
50 Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity; see also Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, pp. 101–50.
51 Variae 7.6. But see Scobie, “Slums, sanitation, and mortality”, who suggests that these fea-
tures did not really improve life for most urban residents.
52 We know this date only from Anonymus Valesianus, ca. 71; see Prati/Antoniazzi, Flumen
aquaeductus, pp. 32–4 and 44–6, and Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity, pp. 34 and
122–3.