256 Deliyannis
bakers (and was also in charge of the pork-butchers).140 There are also ref-
erences in other letters to Rome’s enormous grain mills run by water.141 The
government also oversaw industries that manufactured crucial materials such
as lime (for building) and weapons.142 There was even an official known as
the comes archiatrorum who oversaw doctors.143 All of these casual refer-
ences in the Variae testify to the existence of a diverse set of artisans and mer-
chants in the larger cities of the Ostrogothic kingdom.
Conclusion
Thus, in most of the cities of the Ostrogothic kingdom life seems to have gone
on much as it had in the previous century. Walls surrounded most cities, and
contained within them a set of older buildings that were perhaps crumbling,
alongside newer churches and houses that testified to new evergetistic inter-
ests, new elites, and more space because of reduced populations. In the larger
cities, trade and manufacturing continued as did the construction and/or res-
toration of Roman-style buildings in a consciously antiquarian style. Theoderic
and his partners in government attempted to foster enthusiasm for Roman
urban life and culture by funding both infrastructure and activities that would
demonstrate its appeal.
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Agnellus, LPR, ed. D.M. Deliyannis, Agnelli Ravennatis Liber pontificalis ecclesiae
Ravennatis (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 199), Turnhout 2006;
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D.C. 2004.
Anonymus Valesianus, ed. and trans. J.C. Rolfe, in Ammianus Marcellinus, vol. 3, London
1939, pp. 506–69.
Boethius, Consolatio Philosophiae, ed. L. Bieler (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina
94), 2nd ed., Turnhout 1984.
140 Variae 6.18.
141 Variae 3.31, 11.39.
142 Variae 7.17–19.
143 Variae 6.19.