a profitable manner all
that day, and now with his whole heart earnestly desiring to behold his
monastery again, he sailed swiftly to Africa, touching at Sardinia, and
presented himself to his monks, who, in the excess of their joy, could
scarcely believe that the blessed Fulgentius was indeed returned".

Besides his promises of good government according to the old laws of
Empire, Theodoric recognised the duty which, according to
long-established usage, devolved upon the supreme ruler to provide
"panem et circenses" [116] for the citizens of Rome. The elaborate
machinery, part of the crowned Socialism of the Empire, by which a
certain number of loaves of bread had been distributed to the poorer
householders of the City, had probably broken down in the death-agony of
the Caesars of the West, and had not been again set going by Odovacar. We
are told that Theodoric now distributed as rations "to the people of
Rome and to the poor" 120,000 _modii_ of corn yearly. As this represents
only 30,000 bushels, and as in the flourishing days of the Empire no
fewer than 200,000 citizens used to present themselves, probably once or
twice a week, to receive their rations, it is evident that (if the
chronicler's numbers are correct) we have here no attempt to revive the
wholesale distribution of corn to the citizens--an expenditure with
which the finances of Theodoric's kingdom were probably quite unable to
cope. What was now done was more strictly a measure of "out-door relief"
for the absolutely destitute classes, and was therefore a more
legitimate employment of the energies of the State than the socialistic
attempt to feed a whole people, which had preceded it.

[Footnote 116: Bread and circus-shows.]

At the same time that he granted these _annonae,_ Theodoric also set
aside, from the proceeds of a certain wine-tax, two hundred pounds of
gold (L8,000) yearly for the restoration of the Imperial dwellings on
the Palatine, and for the repair of the walls of Rome. Little did he
foresee that a time would come when those walls, battered and breached
as they were, would be all too strong for the fortunes of the Gothic
warriors who would dash themselves vainly against their ramparts.

It was now thirty years since Theodoric, returning from his exile at
Constantinople, had been hailed by his Gothic countrymen as a partner of
his father's throne. In memory of that event, from which he was
separated by so many years of toil and triumph, s