As the power of Rome declined, the Adriatic, by a strange fatality,
began to desert the fortress whose defence it had hitherto secured.
Coeval with the gradual degeneracy of the people was the gradual
withdrawal of the ocean from the city walls; until, at the beginning of
the sixth century, a grove of pines already appeared where the port of
Augustus once existed.
At the period of our story--though the sea had even then receded
perceptibly--the ditches round the walls were yet filled, and the canals
still ran through the city in much the same manner as they intersect
Venice at the present time.
On the morning that we are about to describe, the autumn had advanced
some days since the events mentioned in the preceding chapter. Although
the sun was now high in the eastern horizon, the restlessness produced
by the heat emboldened a few idlers of Ravenna to brave the sultriness
of the atmosphere, in the vain hope of being greeted by a breeze from
the Adriatic as they mounted the seaward ramparts of the town.
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