Note (return) — Chapter XII

This shell of a building is called in the Ravenna Guide-books "the Palace of Theodoric". Experts are not yet agreed on the question whether its architectural features justify us in referring it to the sixth century, though all agree that it does not belong to a much later age. 123 It does not agree with the representation of the Palatium in the Church of S. Apollinare Dentro, and if it have anything whatever to do with it, it is probably not the main front, nor even any very important feature of the spacious palace, which, as we are told by the local historians, 124 and learn from inscriptions, was surrounded with porticoes, adorned with the most precious mosaics, divided into several triclinia, surmounted by a tower which was considered one of the most magnificent of the king's buildings, and surrounded with pleasant and fruitful gardens, planted on ground which had been reclaimed from the morass. 125 But practically almost all the monuments of the Ostrogothic hero except his tomb and the three churches already described, have vanished from Ravenna. Would that we could have seen the great mosaic which once adorned the pediment of his palace. There Theodoric stood, clad in mail, with spear and shield. On his left was a female figure representing the City of Rome, also with a spear in her hand and her head armed with a helmet, while towards his right Ravenna seemed speeding with one foot on the land and the other on the sea. How this great mosaic perished is not made clear to us. But there was also an equestrian statue of Theodoric raised on a pyramid six cubits high. Horse and rider were both of brass, "covered with yellow gold", and the king here too had his buckler on his left arm, while the right, extended, pointed a lance at an invisible foe.