the Church owned in Africa and Sicily
were administered by deputies, whose special duty it was to ship the
produce of the harvest to Rome. During the first siege of Totila, in
546, Pope Vigilius, then on his way to Constantinople, despatched from
the coast of Sicily a fleet of grain-laden vessels, under the care of
Valentine, bishop of Silva Candida. The attempt to relieve the city of
the famine proved useless, and the vessels were seized by the
besiegers on their landing at Porto. In 589 an inundation of the
Tiber, described by Gregoire de Tours, carried away several thousand
bushels of grain, which had been stored in the _horrea ecclesiae_, and
the granaries themselves were totally destroyed.

The "Liber Pontificalis," vol. i. p. 315, describes the calamities
which befell the city of Rome in the year 605; King Agilulf trying to
enter the city by violence; heavy frosts killing the vines; rats
destroying the harvest, etc. However, as soon as the barbarians were
induced to retire by an offer of twelve thousand _solidi_, Pope
Sabinianus, who was then the head of the Church, _iussit aperiri
horrea ecclesiae_ (threw open the granaries), and offered their
contents at auction, at a valuation of one _solidus_ for thirty
_modii_.

[Illustration: A Granary of Ostia.]

The grain was not intended to be sold, but to be distributed among the
needy; the act of Sabinianus was, therefore, strongly censured, as
being in strong contrast to the generosity of Gregory the Great. A
legend on this subject is related by Paulus Diaconus in chapter xxix.
of the Life of Gregory. He says that Gregory appeared thrice to
Sabinianus, in a vision, entreating him to be more generous; and
having failed to move him by friendly advice, he struck him dead. The
price of one _solidus_ for thirty _modii_ is almost exorbitant; grain
cost exactly one half this at the time of Theodoric.

The institution has outlived all the vicissitudes of the Middle Ages.
Gregory XIII., in 1566, Paul V., in 1609, Clement XI., in 1705,
re-opened the _horrea ecclesiae_ in the ruined halls of the Baths of
Diocletian; and Clement XIII. added a wing to them, for the storage of
oil. These buildings are still in existence around the Piazza di
Termini, although devoted to other purposes.

It would be impossible to follow in all its manifestations the
material and moral transformation of Rome from the third to the sixth
centuries, without going beyond the limits of a single chapte