[65] The royal edicts were framed to prevent the abuses, the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves; and a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the walls and public edifices.

A similar care was extended to the statues of metal or marble of men or animals.

The spirit of the horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal, was applauded by the Barbarians; [66] the brazen elephants of the Via sacra were diligently restored; [67] the famous heifer of Myron deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of peace; [68] and an officer was created to protect those works of rat, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of his kingdom.
[Footnote 58: See his regard for the senate in Cochlaeus, (Vit.

Theod.
viii.p.

72--80.)] [Footnote 59: No more than 120,000 modii, or four thousand quarters, (Anonym.Valesian.p.721, and Var.i.35, vi.