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
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAVENNA, A STUDY ***
Produced by Ted Garvin, Leonard Johnson and the Online Distributed
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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
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