mpagna, are her
most impressive monument. At Rome also the officer who was specially
charged with the maintenance of these noble works, the "Count of the
Aqueducts", was exhorted to show his zeal by rooting up hurtful trees,
and by at once repairing any part of the masonry that seemed to be
falling into decay through age. He was warned against peculation and
against connivance at the frauds which often marked the distribution of
the water supply, and he was assured that the strengthening of the
Aqueducts would constitute his best claim on the favour of his
sovereign.[71]

[Footnote 69: There is a well known epigram of Martial, in which he
complains of an inn-keeper of Ravenna for diluting his water with wine,
when the poet had paid for pure water.]

[Footnote 70: Cass. Var., v., 38.]

[Footnote 71: Ibid., vii., 6.]

But while in most parts of Italy water is a boon eagerly craved for, in
some places it is a superabundance and a curse. At Terracina on the
Latian coast there still stands in the piazza a slab of marble with a
long inscription, setting forth that "The most illustrious lord and
renowed king, Theodoric, triumphant conqueror, ever Augustus, born for
the good of the Commonwealth, guardian of liberty and propagator of the
Roman name, subduer of the nations", ordered that nineteen miles of the
Appian Way, being the portion extending from Three-bridges
_(Tripontium)_ to Terracina should be cleared of the waters which had
flowed together upon it from the marshes on either side. A nobleman of
the very highest rank, Consul, Patrician, and Prefect of the City,
Caecina Maurus Basilius Decius, successfully accomplished this work under
the orders of his sovereign, and for the safety thus afforded to
travellers, was rewarded by a large grant of the newly-drained
lands.[72]

[Footnote 72: Cass., Var., ii., 32, 33.]

We have seen that Theodoric's anonymous panegyrist calls him "a lover of
manufactures and a great restorer of cities". Of the manufactures
encouraged by the Ostrogothic king, we should have been glad to receive
a fuller account. All that I have been able to discover in the published
state-papers of himself and his successors at all bearing on this
subject is some instructions with reference to the opening of gold mines
in Bruttii (the modern Calabria), and iron mines in Dalmatia, a
concession of potteries to three senators, who are promised the royal
protection if they will prosecute the work diligently,