to the best of his predecessors, and his popularity increased greatly both with the Goths and the Italians, and this was contrary to the ordinary course of human affairs.  For generally as different classes in the state want different things, the government which pleases one party incurs the hatred of the other.  After a reign of thirty-seven years he died having been a terror to all his enemies, but leaving a deep regret for his loss in the hearts of his subjects.”

In these panegyrics, which we cannot but accept as sincere, mention is made of one of the greatest virtues of Theodoric, his reparation of and care for the great monuments of the empire.  In Ravenna we read he repaired the Aqueduct which Trajan had built and which had long been out of repair, so that Ravenna always deficient in water had for many years suffered on this account.  In the Variae of Cassiodorus, his minister and a Roman, we read as follows:—­

“King Theodoric to all Cultivators.

“The Aqueducts are an object of our special care.  We desire you at once to root up the shrubs growing in the Signine channel, which will before long become big trees scarcely to be hewn down with an axe and which interfere with the purity of the water in the Aqueduct of Ravenna.  Vegetation is the peaceable overturner of buildings, the battering-ram which brings them to the ground, though the trumpets never sound for siege.  Now we shall have Baths again that we may look upon with pleasure; water which will cleanse not stain[1]; water after using which we shall not require to wash ourselves again; drinking water too, such as the mere sight of it will not take away all appetite for food[2].”

[Footnote 1:  Cf.  Sidonius Apollinaris above.]

[Footnote 2:  Cassiodorus, Variae, v. 38.  Trs.  Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus (Oxford, 1886).]

The general restoration of the great material works of the empire was characteristic of the reign of Theodoric and could only have been carried out by Roman officials and workmen.  It is especially frequent in Ravenna and in Rome.  Theodoric will, if he can help it, have nothing more destroyed.  He is afraid of destruction, and that is a mark of the barbarian.  He wishes, Cassiodorus tells us, “to build new edifices without despoiling the old.  But we are informed that in your municipality (of Aestunae) there are blocks of masonry and columns, formerly belonging to some building, now lying absolutely useless and unhonoured.  If this be so, send these slabs of marble and columns by all means to Ravenna that they may again be made beautiful and take their place in a building there."[1] And again:  “We rely upon your zeal and prudence to see that the required blocks of marble are forwarded from Faenza to Ravenna without any extortion from private persons; so that, on the one hand, our desire for the adornment of that city may be gratified, and, on the other, there may be no cause for complaint on the part of our subjects.[2]