and perform public services in the municipia, they became, in fact, rulers of the towns situated on or near their great estates.  Theodoric, striving to uphold the ancient civility, made strenuous efforts to combat this aristocratic predominance; yet on some points he was obliged to yield to the tendency of the times, as when he forbade the freedmen, serfs, and slaves on any estate to plead against their lord, and so delivered the mass of the rural inhabitants of Italy to private jurisdiction.  The Gothic war of course hastened the downfall of political and social order.  The manners of the nobles grew violent in lawlessness; men calling themselves senators, but having in fact renounced that rank by permanent absence from Rome, and others who merely belonged to senatorial houses, turned to fortifying their villas, and to building castles on heights, whilst they gathered about them a body of retainers, armed for defence or for aggression.

Such a personage was Venantius, son of a senator of the same name, who, under Theodoric, had attained the dignity of Patrician and what other titular glories the time afforded.  Venantius, the younger, coming into possession of an estate between Neapolis and Salernum, here took up his abode after the siege of Rome, and lived as seemed good to him, lord over the little town of Nuceria, and of a considerable tract of country, with a villa converted into a stronghold up on the mountain side.  Having suffered wrongs at the hands of the Imperial conquerors—­property of his in Rome had been seized—­he heard with satisfaction of the rise of Totila, and, as soon as the king’s progress southward justified such a step, entered into friendly communication with the Goth, whom he invited to come with all speed into Campania, where Salernum, Neapolis, Cumae, would readily fall into his hands.  Marcian, on his double mission of spy in the Greek service and friend of the Goths, had naturally sought out Venantius; and the description he gave to Basil of the fortress above Nuceria filled the listener with enthusiasm.

‘I would I could live in the same way,’ Basil exclaimed.  ’And why not?  My own villa in Picenum might be strengthened with walls and towers.  We have stone enough, and no lack of men to build.’

Yet as he spoke a misgiving betrayed itself on his countenance.  Consciously or not, he had always had before him a life at Rome, the life which became a Roman, as distinguished from a barbarian.  But the need to seek security for Veranilda again became vivid to his mind.  At Rome, clearly, he could not live with his wife until the Goths had reconquered the city, which was not likely to happen soon.  His means were represented chiefly by the Arpinum estate, which he had inherited from his father; in Rome he had nothing but his mansion on the Caelian.  The treasure at his command, a considerable sum, he had brought away in a strong box, and it was now more than doubled in value by what fell to him under the will