416 Squatriti
and even woods that archaeologists can still detect, late antique people
had to work assiduously. Only tenacious expenditure of energy prevented
Ostrogothic-era towns and countrysides from being swallowed into less
humanized metabolisms: Cassiodorus himself knew that “the ruin of buildings
is easy once the care of inhabitants has been removed” and swift decomposi-
tion awaited “that which the presence of men does not protect”.103 Whatever
else happened in the 5th and 6th centuries, human productive and symbolic
systems continued to function well enough to justify an ongoing engagement
with the humanized landscapes inherited from classical times.
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103 Cassiodorus, Variae 4.30, ed. T. Mommsen (MGH, AA 12): “quia facilis est aedificiorum
ruina incolarum subtracta custodia et cito vetustatis decoctione resolvitur, quod homi-
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