e. Theodoric
and his ministers may however be praised for that prevalence of order
and good government, which enabled the long prostrate agriculture of
Italy to spring up like grass after a summer shower. The conditions of
prosperity were there, and only needed the removal of adverse influences
and mistaken benevolence to bring forth their natural fruit. The
grain-largesses to the people of Rome were indeed still continued in a
modified form, but the stores thus dispensed seemed to have been brought
almost entirely from Italy.[67] When Gaul was visited with famine, the
ship-masters along the whole western coast of Italy were permitted and
encouraged to take the surplus of the Italian crops to the suffering
province. Even in a time of dearth and after war had begun, corn was
sold by the State to the impoverished inhabitants of Liguria at sixteen
shillings a quarter.[68] Altogether we seem justified in asserting that
the economic condition of Italy, both as to the producers and the
consumers of its food-supplies, was more prosperous under Theodoric than
it had been for centuries before, or than it was to be for centuries
afterwards.

[Footnote 67: Once they are mentioned as coming from Spain (Cassiodorus,
Var., v., 35), but this seems to be an exception.]

[Footnote 68: Cass. Var., x., 27. This is some years after the death of
Theodoric.]

I have already made some reference to Aqueducts, which were among the
noblest and most beneficial works that any ruler of Italy could
accomplish. Ravenna, situated in an unhealthy swamp where water fit for
drinking was proverbially dearer than wine[69] was pre-eminently
dependent on such supplies of the precious fluid as could be brought
fresh and sparkling from the distant Apennines. Theodoric issued an
order to all the farmers dwelling along the course of the Aqueduct to
eradicate the shrubs growing by its side, which would otherwise fix
their roots in the bed of the stream, loosen the masonry, and cause many
a dangerous leak. "This being done", said the Secretary of State, "we
shall again have baths that we may look upon with pleasure, water which
will cleanse, not stain, water after using which we shall not require
again to wash ourselves: drinking-water, the mere sight of which will
not take away our appetite".[70] Similar care was needed to preserve the
great Aqueducts which were the glory of Imperial Rome, as even now their
giant arches, striding for miles over the desolate Ca