332 NAVAL EXPEDITIONS [CH. X power of two hundred galleys, and three arsenals, of arms. of military engines, and of corn.* It was still the seat of wealth and luxury; but of its ancient strength nothing remained except the situation, in a little island of the Propontis connected with the continent of Asia only by two bridges. From the recent sack of Prusa, the Goths advanced within eighteen milest of the city, which they had devoted to destruction, but the ruin of Cyzicus was delayed by a fortunate accident The season was rainy, and the lake Apolloniates, the reservoir of all the springs of Mount Olympus, rose to an uncommon height. The little river of Rhyndacus, which issues from the lake, swelled into a broad and rapid stream, and stopped the progress of the Goths. Their retreat to the maritime city of Heraclea, where the fleet had probably been stationed, was attended by a long train of waggons, laden with the spoils of Bithynia, and was marked by the flames of Nice and Nicomedia, which they wantonly burnt. Some obscure hints are mentioned of a doubtful combat that secured their retreat.§ But even a complete victory would have been of little moment, as the approach of the autumnal equinox summoned them to hasten their return. To navigate the Euxine before the month of May, or after that of September, is esteemed by the modern Turks the most unquestionable instance of rashness and folly.¶ When we are informed that the third fleet equipped by the Goths in the ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sail of ships,** our ready imagination instantly computes and multiplies the formidable armament; but, as we are assured by the judicious Strabo,++ that the piratical vessels used by the barbarians of Pontus and the Lesser Scythia, were not capable of containing more than twentyfive or thirty men, we may safely affirm, that fifteen thousand warriors, at the most, embarked in this great expedition. Impatient of the limits of the Euxine, they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the Thracian * Strab. lib. 12, p. 573. lib. 2, c. 23, 24. + Pocock's Description of the East, Zosimus, lib. 1, p. 33. § Syncellus tells an unintelligible story of prince Odenathus, who defeated the Goths, and who was killed by prince Odenathus. Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 45. He sailed with the Turks from Constantinople to Caffa ** Syncellus (p. 382) speaks of this expedition as undertaken by the Heruli ++ Strabo, lib. 11, p. 495. Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them; till a favourable wind springing up the next day, carried them in a few hours into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the Propontis. Their landing on the little island of Cyzicus was attended with the ruin of that ancient and noble city. From thence, issuing again through the narrow passage of the Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the numerous islands scattered over the Archipelago, or the Egean sea. The assistance of captives and deserters must have been very necessary to pilot their vessels, and to direct their various incursions, as well on the coast of Greece as on that of Asia. At length the Gothic fleet anchored in the port of Piræus, five miles distant from Athens, which had attempted to make some preparations for a vigorous defence. Cleodamus, one of the engineers employed by the emperor's orders to fortify the maritime cities against the Goths, had already begun to repair the ancient walls, fallen to decay since the time of Sylla. The efforts of his skill were ineffectual, and the barbarians became masters of the native seat of the muses and of the arts. But while the conquerors abandoned themselves to the license of plunder and intemperance, their fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the harbour of Piræus, was unexpectedly attacked by the brave Dexippus, who, flying with the engineer Cleodamus from the sack of Athens, collected a hasty band of volunteers, peasants as well as soldiers, and in some measure avenged the calamities of his country.† But this exploit, whatever lustre it might shed on the declining age of Athens, served rather to irritate than to subdue the undaunted spirit of the northern invaders. A general conflagration blazed out at the same time in every district of Greece. Thebes and Argos, Corinth and Sparta, which had formerly waged such memorable wars against each other, were now unable to bring an army into the field, or even to defend their ruined fortifications. The rage of war, both by land and by sea, spread from the eastern point of Sunium to the western coast of Epirus. The Goths had Plin. Hist. Nat. 3, 7. + Hist. August. p. 181. Victor, c. 33. Orosius, 7, 42. Zosimus, lib. 1, p. 35. Zonaras, lib. 12, p. 635. Syncellus, p. 382. It is not without some attention that we can explain and conciliate their imperfect hints. We can still discover some traces 334 THE GOTHS IN [CH. X already advanced within sight of Italy, when the approach of such imminent danger awakened the indolent Gallienus from his dream of pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms; and his presence seems to have checked the ardour, and to have divided the strength of the enemy. Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli, accepted an honourable capitulation, entered with a large body of his countrymen into the service of Rome, and was invested with the ornaments of the consular dignity, which had never before been profaned by the hands of a barbarian.* Great numbers of the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a tedious voyage, broke into Mosia, with a design of forcing their way over the Danube to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild attempt would have proved inevitable destruction, if the discord of the Roman generals had not opened to the barbarians the means of an escape.† The small remainder of this destroying host returned on board tuer vessels; and measuring back their way through the Hellespont and the Bosphorus, ravaged in their passage the shores of Troy, whose fame, immortalized by Homer, will probably survive the memory of the Gothic conquests. As soon as they found themselves in safety within the basin of the Euxine, they landed at Anchialus in Thrace, near the foot of Mount Hæmus; and, after all their toils, indulged themselves in the use of those pleasant and salutary hot baths. What remained of the voyage was a short and easy navigation.‡ Such was the various fate of this third and greatest of their naval enterprises. It may seem difficult to conceive how the original body of fifteen thousand warriors could sustain the losses and divisions of so bold an adventure. But as their numbers were gradually wasted by the sword, by shipwrecks, and by the influence of a warm climate, they were perpetually renewed by troops of banditti and deserters, who flocked to the standard of plunder, and by a crowd of fugitive slaves, often of German or Sarmatian extraction, who eagerly seized the glorious opportunity of freedom and of the partiality of Dexippus, in the relation of his own and his countrymen's exploits. Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a long time faithful and famous. [For the Heruli, see c. 39, note.--ED.] Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought with propriety, and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous of his fatae. Hist. August. p. 181. Jornandes, c. 20. revenge. In these expeditions, the Gothic nation claimed a superior share of honour and danger; but the tribes that fought under the Gothic banners are sometimes distin. guished and sometimes confounded in the imperfect histories of that age; and as the barbarian fleets seemed to issue from the mouth of the Tanais, the vague but familiar appellation of Scythians was frequently bestowed on the mixed multitude.* In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual, however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are passed over with careless inattention. Yet we cannot forget that the temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with increasing splendour from seven repeated misfortunes,t was finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion. The arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect that sacred and magnificent structure. It was supported by a hundred and twenty-seven marble columns of the Ionic order. They were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet high. The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles, who had, perhaps, selected from the favourite legends of the place, the birth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons. Yet the length of the temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty-five feet, about two-thirds of the measure of the church of St. Peter's at Rome.§ In the other dimensions, it was still more inferior to that sublime production of modern architecture. The spreading arms of a Christian cross require a much greater breadth than the oblong temples of the Pagans; and the boldest artists of antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising in the air a dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. Zosimus, and the Greeks (as the author of the Philopatris) give the name of Scythians to those whom Jornandes, and the Latin writers, constantly represent as Goths. [These were the same name under two forms. But the terms, Thracians and Scythians, often so indefinitely used by the ancients, appear to have been most generally applied by them, the first to Celts and the last to Goths. (Schlözer's Nordische Geschichte, p. 284).-ED.] + Hist. August. Strabo, lib. 14, p. 640. VitruTacit. Annal. 3, 61. Plin. Hist p. 178. Jornandes, c. 20. Nat. 36, 14. § The length of St. Peter's is eight hundred and forty 336 THE PERSIANS. [CH. X. The temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of the world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman, had revered its sanctity, and enriched its splendour.* But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a foreign superstition.† Another circumstance is related of these invasions, which might deserve our notice, were it not justly to be suspected as the fanciful conceit of a recent sophist. We are told, that, in the sack of Athens, the Goths had collected all the libraries, and were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design, by the profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the exercise of arms. The sagacious counsellor (should the truth of the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In the most polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has displayed itself about the same period; and the age of science has generally been the age of military virtue and success. IV. The new sovereigns of Persia, Artaxerxes and his son Sapor, had triumphed (as we have already seen) over the house of Arsaces. Of the many princes of that ancient race, Chosroes, king of Armenia, had alone preserved both his life and his independence. He defended himself by the natural strength of his country; by the perpetual resort of fugitives and malcontents; by the alliance of the Romans; and, above all, by his own courage. Invincible in arms during a thirty years' war, he was at length assassinated by the emissaries of Sapor, king of Persia. The patriotic satraps of Armenia, who asserted the freedom and dignity of the crown, implored the protection of Rome in favour of Tiridates, the lawful heir. But the son of Chosroes was an Roman palms; each palm is very little short of nine English inches. See Greaves' Miscellanies, vol. 1, p. 233, on the Roman foot. * The policy, however, of the Romans, induced them to abridge the extent of the sanctuary or asylum, which, by successive privileges, had spread itself two stadia round the temple. Strabo, lib. 14, p. 641. Tacit. Annal. 3, 60, &c. They offered no sacrifices to the Grecian gods. See Epistol. Gregor. Thaumat Zonaras, 1. 12, p. 635. Such an anecdote was perfectly suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in his agreeable Essay on Pedantry, lib. 1, c. 24. |