channel by means of large mounds thrown across it at the public
expense, and being thus drawn off into channels marked out for it, so
divides its waters, that they offer protection to the walls which they
encompass and bring commerce into the city which they penetrate. By
this route, which is most convenient for the purpose, all kinds of
mechandise arrive, and especially food. But against this must be set
the fact that the supply of drinking water is wretched. On the one
side you have the salt waves of the sea dashing against the gates, on
the other the canals, filled with sewage of the consistency of gruel,
are being constantly churned up by the passage of the barges; and the
river itself, here gliding along with a very slow current, is made
muddy by the poles of the bargemen which are being continually thrust
into its clayey bed. The consequence was that we were thirsty in the
midst of the waves, since no wholesome water was brought to us by the
aqueducts, no cistern was flowing, no well was without its mud."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sidonius Apoll. _Ep_. 1 5. Cf. Hodgkin, _op. cit_. vol.
1. p. 859.]

In another letter we have a rather more fantastic picture. "A pretty
place Cesena must be if Ravenna is better, for there your ears are
pierced by the mosquito of the Po and a talkative mob of frogs is
always croaking round you. Ravenna is a mere marsh where all the
conditions of life are reversed, where walls fall and waters stand,
towers flow down and ships squat, invalids walk about and their
doctors take to bed, baths freeze and houses burn, the living perish
with thirst and the dead swim about on the surface of the water,
thieves watch and magistrates sleep, priests lend at usury and Syrians
sing psalms, merchants shoulder arms and soldiers haggle like
hucksters, greybeards play at ball and striplings at dice, and eunuchs