Ravenna, A Study | Page 5

set out to possess himself of all that great
government.
Because she was impregnable, and held both the plain where the enemy
must be met and the peninsula with Rome within it, Honorius retreated
to her from Milan when Alaric crossed the Alps.
Because she was set upon the sea, and that sea was the fault between
East and West, and because she held the key as it were of all Italy and

through Italy of the West, Justinian there established his government
when the great attempt was made by Byzantium to reconquer us from
the barbarian.
"_Ravenna Felix_" we read on many an old coin of that time, and
whatever we may think of that title or prophecy, which indeed might
seem never to have come true for her, this at least we must
acknowledge, that she was happy in her situation which offered such
opportunities for greatness and so certain an immortality.

II
JULIUS CAESAR IN RAVENNA
When we first come upon Ravenna in the pages of Strabo, its origin is
already obscured; but this at least seems certain, that it was never a
Gaulish city. Strabo tells us that "Ravenna is reputed to have been
founded by Thessalians, who, not being able to sustain the violence of
the Tyrrheni, welcomed into their city some of the Umbri who still
possess it, while they themselves returned home."[1] The Thessalians
were probably Pelasgi, but apart from that Strabo's statement would
seem to be reasonably accurate. At any rate he continually repeats it,
for he goes on to tell us that "Ariminum (Rimini), like Ravenna, is an
ancient colony of the Umbri, but both of them received also Roman
colonies." Again, in the same book of his Geography, he tells us: "The
Umbri lie between the country of the Sabini and the Tyrrheni, but
extend beyond the mountains as far as Ariminum and Ravenna." And
again he says: "Umbria lies along the eastern boundary of Tyrrhenia
and beginning from the Apennines, or rather beyond these mountains
(extends) as far as the Adriatic. For commencing from Ravenna the
Umbri inhabit the neighbouring country ... all allow that Umbria
extends as far as Ravenna, as the inhabitants are Umbri."
[Footnote 1: Strabo ut supra.]
We may take it, then, that when Rome annexed Ravenna it was a city
of the Umbri, and we may dismiss Pliny's statement[1] that it was a
Sabine city altogether for it is both improbable and inexplicable.
[Footnote 1: Pliny, III. 15; v. 20.]
When Ravenna received a Roman colony we do not know, for though
Strabo states this fact, he does not tell us when it occurred and we have
no other means of knowing. All we can be reasonably sure of is that

this Umbrian city on the verge of Cisalpine Gaul, hemmed in on the
west by the Lingonian Gauls, received a Roman colony certainly not
before 268 B.C. when Ariminum was occupied. The name of Ravenna,
however, does not occur in history till a late period of the Roman
republic, and the first incident in which we hear of Ravenna having any
part occurs in 82 B.C., when, as I have already related, Metellus, the
lieutenant of Sulla, landed there or thereabouts from his ships and
seems to have made the city, already a place of some importance, the
centre of his operations.
Ravenna really entered history--and surely gloriously enough--when
Julius Caesar chose it, the last great town of his command towards Italy,
as his headquarters while he treated with the senate before he crossed
the Rubicon.
"Caesar," says Appian, "had lately recrossed the straits from Britain,
and, after traversing the Gallic country along the Rhine, had passed the
Alps with 5000 foot and 300 horse, and arrived at Ravenna which was
contiguous to Italy and the last town in his government." This was in 50
B.C. The state of affairs which that act was meant to elucidate may be
briefly stated as follows.
The Roman republic, still in the midst of the political, social, and
economic revolution whose first phase was the awful civil wars of
Marius and Sulla, had long been at the mercy of Pompey the
opportunist, Crassus the plutocrat, and Julius Caesar--the first
Triumvirate. Crassus had always leaned towards Caesar and the entente
between Caesar and Pompey had been strengthened by the marriage of
the latter with Caesar's daughter Julia, who was to die in the midst of
the crisis 54 B.C. In 58 B.C., the year following this marriage, Caesar
went to take up his great command in the Gauls, but Pompey remained
in Rome, where every day his influence and popularity were failing
while the astonishing successes of Caesar made him the idol of the
populace. In 55 B.C. Pompey was consul for the second time with
Crassus. He