126 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE to look at than a Merovingian monument, which usually takes the form of a shapeless stone with some obliter- ated sculpture of the rudest sort. We hear of some building, but almost none of it was of sufficient beauty or durability to be preserved to us through the ages. In Spain, for instance, where the Visigoths ruled for more than two hundred years, there is not a single building left to illustrate their architecture, just as scarcely a word in the Spanish language can be traced back to their tongue. Theodoric probably did the most building in Italy, and his tomb and a few bits of his palace and some Arian ecclesiastical edifices of his reign may still be seen at Ravenna. These last, however, may be more appropri- ately considered in the next chapter along with Byzantine art. Most of his structures were composed of fragments from ruined buildings, and a bishop in an oration in his I praise declared, in the usual stilted language of panegyric, "He rejuvenated Rome and Italy in their hideous old age by amputating their mutilated members." New public baths were built in Africa by the Vandal kings. Indeed, the destruction of Roman civilization in Africa is not to be laid to the charge of the Vandals, but rather to the wild Moorish tribes of the desert. The old Roman amusements and popular customs, even when expensive, perhaps outlived the loftier elements in . classical culture. The Vandal warriors by the Amusements . 7 . sixth century had surrendered to the attractions of Roman luxury in food, clothing, and love-making. They lived in palaces and often attended the theater. The mob of Rome still had to have its "bread and circuses" even under the Ostrogoths. Theodoric continued the distribu- tion of grain to the city populace, maintained the chariot races and the pantomime, and is praised by the aforesaid bishop and by Cassiodorus, both pious Christians, for hav- ing revived gladiatorial combats. We also hear of the Franks holding games in the arena at Aries as late as the sixth century.
