which held Cisalpine Gaul and was the gate of the eastern sea.

When Honorius then retreated upon Ravenna, he did so, not merely
because Ravenna was impregnable, though that of course weighed too
with his advisers, for the base of any virile and active defence must,
or should, be itself secure; but also because it held the great pass
and the great road into Italy, and as the eastern gate of the West
would receive and thrust forward whatever help and reinforcement the
empire in the East might care or be able to give.

[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS OF THE EMPEROR HONORIUS]

That the defence which was made with Ravenna for its citadel was not
wholly victorious, that the attack which the eastern empire planned
and delivered from Ravenna, perhaps too late, was not completely
successful, were the results of many and various causes, but not of
any want of Judgment in the choice of Ravenna as their base. That base
was rightly and consummately chosen without hesitation and from the
first; and because it was chosen, the hope of the restoration never
quite passed away and seemed to have been realised at last when
Charlemagne, following Pepin into Italy, was crowned emperor in S.
Peter's Church on Christmas Day in the year 800.

It will readily be understood, then, that the most important and the
most interesting part of the history of Ravenna begins when Honorius
retreated upon her before the invasion of Alaric, and not only the
West, but Italy and Rome, the heart and soul of it, seemed about to be
in dispute.

But first amid all the loose thought and confusion of the last three