252 Deliyannis
Who was living in the cities? In general, populations seem to have remained
what they had always been. In important coastal cities such as Ravenna, Rome,
and Naples there were populations of people from the eastern Mediterranean.113
There were settled communities of Jews in the larger cities of Italy, as we know
from accounts of urban unrest concerning synagogues in Ravenna, Rome,
Genoa, and Milan, and from Procopius’ mention of Jews in Naples.114 Jewish
inscriptions have been found at Ravenna, Naples, and Venosa. One striking
amphora fragment found in an excavation at Ravenna contained an inscrip-
tion in Hebrew, evidence perhaps of Jewish merchants in Ravenna, as may also
be attested on papyrus documents from 540 and 541.115
Cities for which there is evidence of a Gothic garrison, as found in sev-
eral letters of the Variae, would have had a resident population of Goths.
Bierbrauer has mapped finds of ‘Gothic’ women’s jewellery found in graves
and concluded that the majority of Goths were settled in northern Italy and
the Po Valley, which corresponds to Germanic place names and inscriptions
with ‘Ostrogothic’ names. Bierbrauer’s ideas and maps have been accepted by
many scholars.116 Many of these find spots are in or just outside Roman cit-
ies, including Aquileia, Ascoli Piceno, Firenze, Milan, Parma, Pavia, Ravenna,
Reggio Emilia, Rome, Trento, Udine, Brescia, Pistoia, Ravenna, and Spoleto.117
Textual sources provide additional information. People with Gothic names are
mentioned in the Variae in Ascoli Piceno, Dertona, Salona, Milan, Ravenna,
Cesena, Osimo, Narni, and Naples.118 In most cases they are there as govern-
ment representatives. Procopius in his Gothic Wars mentions Gothic garrisons
or populations in many cities also, as Bierbrauer has catalogued.119 Taken all
together, we can see that while some of the Gothic population might have
been settled in rural settlements or in fortresses along the borders, many cities
113 Brown, “Ebrei e orientali a Ravenna”; Arthur, Naples, pp. 23–4.
114 Rutgers, “The Jews of Italy”; Somekh, “Teoderico e gli Ebrei di Ravenna”, lists Anonymus
Valesianus 81–2 (Ravenna) and Variae 2.27, 3.45 (Samaritans), 4.33 and 45, and 5.37. For
Naples, Procopius, BG 5.8 and 10.
115 Somekh, “Teoderico e gli Ebrei di Ravenna”; for Naples and Venosa see Noy, Jewish
Inscriptions, pp. 47–57 and 61–149.
116 Bierbrauer, Die Ostgotischen Grab- und Schatzfund and “Die Ansiedlung der Ostgoten in
Italien”. However, Amory, People and Identity, pp. 332–7 has pointed out that jewellery
found in graves does not necessarily tell us about the ethnic background of the wearer,
and, moreover, that even before 489 many people in Italy might have worn similar objects.
117 This list derived from Bierbrauer, “Die Ansiedlung der Ostgoten in Italien”.
118 Lecce, “La vita economica dell’Italia”, p. 358.
119 Procopius, BG 6.11, mentions Chiusi, Orvieto, Todi, Ascoli Piceno, Osimo, Urbino, Cesena,
Monteferetra, and Rimini; he also mentions their wives and children at Petra.