to have a right of possession in the place.

Originally a city of the Rhetians, Verona became a Roman colony about
the time of Julius Caeser, who caused its inhabitants to be enrolled
among the number of Roman citizens. Its most flourishing periods under
the empire were the reigns of Vaspasian and of Hadrian, when various
temples, and other public buildings, of which some fragments still
remain, were erected, and the magnificent ampitheatre, which is still
used for scenic representations, was built. It was under the reign of
Trajan, that Verona received its first Christian Bishop, Euprepius; and
in that of Dioclesian, that its martyrs, Fermus and Rusticus, suffered.
The conquest of the city by Constantine, and the fearful battle fought
in its immediate neighbourhood between Stilicho and Attila, produced
little change in the condition of Verona, which continued to partake of
the general fortunes of the empire, until the reign of Theodoric the
Great.

After the invasion of Italy by the Ostrogoths, under Theodoric, and his
victory over Odoacer, which ensured him the sovereignty of the country,
from the Alps to Calabria, about the year 493, he fixed his capital at
Verona, or, as it was called by the Goths, Bern:[1] there he built a
magnificent palace, which communicated, by a continued portico,
with principal gate of the city. He renewed the Roman walls and
fortifications, repaired the aqueducts, and constructed commodious
baths and other public buildings.[2]

[1] See Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," chap. 39, for the general
conduct of Theodoric in Italy.

[2] Tiraboschi, book i.