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, the key to Italy and the plain and the very gate of the West, that not to possess it was to lose everything.  Its surrender was necessary and Theodoric offered extraordinary terms to obtain it.  Odoacer was not only to keep his life but his power.  He was to rule as the equal of Theodoric.  This mighty concession shows us at once what Ravenna really was, what part she played in the government of Italy, and how unique was her position in the military scheme of that country.

Theodoric had certainly no intention of carrying out the terms of his treaty.  In the very month in which he signed it, he invited Odoacer to a feast at the Palace “in Lauro” to the south-east of Ravenna.  When the patrician arrived two petitioners knelt before him each clasping one of his hands, and two of Theodoric’s men stepped from hiding to kill him.  Perhaps they were not barbarians:  at any rate, they lacked the courage and the contempt alike of law and of honour necessary to commit so cold a murder.  It was Theodoric himself who lifted his sword and hewed his enemy in twain from the shoulder to the loins.  “Where is God?” Odoacer, expecting the stroke, had demanded.  And Theodoric answered, “Thus didst thou to my friends.”  And after he said, “I think the wretch had no bones in his body.”

The barbarian it might seem had certainly nothing to learn from the worst of the emperors in treachery and dishonour.