The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ravenna, A Study, by Edward Hutton

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Title: Ravenna, A Study

Author: Edward Hutton

Release Date: June 6, 2004 [EBook #12542]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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RAVENNA
A STUDY

BY
EDWARD HUTTON

ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR AND LINE
BY
HARALD SUND

1913

TO MY FRIEND
ARTHUR SYMONS
IN AFFECTIONATE HOMAGE

PREFACE

My intention in writing this book has been to demonstrate the unique
importance of Ravenna in the history of Italy and of Europe, especially
during the Dark Age from the time of Alaric's first descent into the
Cisalpine plain to the coming of Charlemagne. That importance, as it seems
to me, has been wholly or almost wholly misunderstood, and certainly, as I
understand it, has never been explained. In this book, which is offered to
the public not without a keen sense of its inadequacy, I have tried to show
in as clear a manner as was at my command, what Ravenna really was in the
political geography of the empire, and to explain the part that position
allowed her to play in the great tragedy of the decline and fall of the
Roman administration. If I have succeeded in this I am amply repaid for all
the labour the book has cost me.

The principal sources, both ancient and modern, which I have consulted in
the preparation of this volume have been cited, but I must here acknowledge
the special debt I owe to the late Dr. Hodgkin, to Professor Diehl, to
Dr. Corrado Ricci, and to the many contributors to the various Italian
Bollettini which I have ransacked.

E.H.

_March_ 1913.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL POSITION OF RAVENNA

II. JULIUS CAESAR IN RAVENNA

III. RAVENNA IN THE TIME OF THE EMPIRE

IV. THE RETREAT UPON RAVENNA Honorius and Galla Placidia

V. THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE IN THE WEST

VI. THEODORIC

VII. THE RECONQUEST Vitiges, Belisarius, Totila, Narses

VIII. MODICA QUIES The Pragmatic Sanction and the Settlement of Italy

IX. THE CITADEL OF THE EMPIRE IN ITALY The Lombard Invasi