Urban Life And Culture 255
overcharge grieving family members for his products.132 Excavations in Classe
have uncovered a ceramics kiln and a glass furnace dating to this period.133
It was clearly in the royal interest to support commerce and trade in Ravenna,
both for the purposes of catering to the members of the community and for
the provisioning of troops stationed there.134 Classe continued to function as
an important commercial port throughout the Ostrogothic period, actively
encouraged by Theoderic. Excavations at the site of Podere Chiavichetta have
revealed a section of the port city that flanked the canal leading to the har-
bour. The island in the centre of the canal contained paved roads, shops, and
food vendors, and was linked by a bridge to the city to the south. On the south
bank a major street was repaved at the time of Theoderic, and buildings in
this area were modified, rebuilt, and systematized with continuous porticos.
A row of large warehouses and public buildings faced the canal through one
such portico.135 From the many thousands of ceramic fragments found on
these sites, we can identify imports, especially from North Africa, but also from
Palestine and Syria, the Aegean and Asia Minor, Egypt, Lusitania, and Sicily
(mainly wine, but also oil and honey).136 The imported ceramics are significant
because in much of inland Italy they had almost entirely disappeared by this
time, demonstrating the anomalous status of Ravenna.137 The harbour itself
housed Theoderic’s fleet of war—and grainships, and thus must have included
sailors, shipbuilders, and their families among its population.138
Rome’s administration occupied a central place in the Variae, and we thus
know about many occupations and productive sectors in the city. In large cit-
ies food was bought and sold in a variety of contexts. Theodahad’s letter to the
praetorian prefect confirming monopolies for various officials lists stewards
and merchants of wheat, wine, cheese, meat, wine, grain, and hay, as well as
general provision dealers and those who derived revenue from taverns, not just
in Rome but also at Ravenna, Pavia, and Piacenza.139 The praefectus annonae
was in charge of having the grain from the annona baked into bread by the
132 Variae 3.19.
133 See Bermond Montanari/Maioli, Ravenna e il porto di Classe, Maioli, “Rapporti commer-
ciali”, Augenti, “Nuove indagini”, and id., “Ravenna e Classe: archeologia”.
134 See Cosentino, “L’approvvigionamento annonario di Ravenna”, pp. 415–19 for a detailed
study of this issue.
135 See especially Augenti, “Nuove indagini”, and id., “Ravenna e Classe: archeologia”.
136 Especially Augenti, “Ravenna e Classe: archeologia”, pp. 201–6.
137 Marazzi, “Destinies”, pp. 136–41.
138 Variae 5.16, also 5.17–20. See Mauro, I porti antichi di Ravenna, for more on the fleet of
Ravenna.
139 Variae 10.28.