Indeed already in 306 it is rather as a refuge than as a great and
active naval base that Ravenna appears to us, when Severus, destitute
of force, "retired or rather fled" thither from the pursuit of
Maximian. He flung himself into Ravenna because it was impregnable and
because he expected reinforcements from Illyricum and the East, but
though he held the sea with a powerful fleet he made no use of it, and
the emissaries of Maximian easily persuaded him to surrender. Already
perhaps, a century later, when Honorius retired from Milan on the
approach of Alaric and the first of those barbarian invasions which
broke up the decaying western empire had penetrated into Cisalpine
Gaul, the great works of Augustus and Trajan at Ravenna, the canals,
the mighty Fossa, and the port itself had fallen into a sort of decay
which the fifth century was to complete, till that marvellous city,
once the base of the eastern fleet and one of the great naval ports of
the world, became just a decaying citadel engulfed in the marshes,
impregnable it is true, but for barbarian reasons, lost in the fogs
and the miasma of her shallow and undredged lagoons.




IV

THE RETREAT UPON RAVENNA

HONORIUS AND GALLA PLACIDIA


When Honorius left Milan on the approach of Alaric he went to Ravenna.
Why?