ead of
the Via Flaminia. Theodoric himself began the siege of Ravenna.

This siege, the first that Ravenna had ever experienced, endured for
near three years, from the autumn of 490 to the spring of 493. "_Et
mox_" says a chronicle of the time, "_subsecutus est eum patricius
Theodoricus veniens in Pineta, et fixit fossatum, obsidiens Odoacrem
clausum per trienum in Ravenna et factus est usque ad sex solidos
modicus tritici_...."[1] Theodoric established himself in a fortified
camp in the Pineta with a view to preventing food or reinforcements
arriving to his enemy from the sea. Ravenna was closed upon all sides
and before the end of the siege corn rose in the beleaguered city to
famine price, some seventy-two shillings of our money per peck, and
the inhabitants were forced to eat the skins of animals and all sorts
of offal, and many died of hunger.

[Footnote 1: Anon. Valesii.]

In 491, according to the same chronicler,[1] a sortie was made by
Odoacer and his barbarians, but after a desperate fight in the Pineta
this was repelled by Theodoric. In 492, another chronicle tells us,[2]
Theodoric took Rimini and from thence brought a fleet of ships to the
Porto Leone, some six miles from Ravenna, thus cutting off the city
from the sea. Till at last in the beginning of 493 Odoacer was
compelled to open negotiations for surrender. He gave his son Thelane
as a hostage, and on the 26th February Theodoric entered Classis, and
on the following day the treaty of peace was signed. Upon the 5th
March 493, according to Agnellus, "that most blessed man, the
archbishop John, opened the gates of the city which Odoacer had
closed, and went forth with crosses and thuribles and the Holy Gospels
seeking peace, with the priests and clergy singing psalms, and
prostrating himself upon the ground obtained what he sought. He
welcomed the new king coming from the East and peace was granted to
him, not only with the citizens of Ravenna, but with the other Romans
for whom the blessed John asked it."

[Footnote 1: Anon. Valesii.]

[Footnote 2: Agnellus, _Liber Pontificalis Rav_.]

The terms of that treaty are extraordinarily significant of the
importance of Ravenna in the defence of Italy. It would seem that
Theodoric had possessed himself of everything but Ravenna easily
enough, yet without Ravenna everything else was nothing. The city was,
in spite of blockade and famine, impregnable, and it commanded so
much, was still indeed, as always, t