chap, xli] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 297 as they struggled to pass the straits of the Hellespont, an unfavourable wind detained them four days at Abydus, where the general exhibited a memorable lesson of firmness and sever- ity. Two of the Huns, who in a drunken quarrel had slain one of their fellow-soldiers, were instantly shewn to the army suspended on a lofty gibbet. The national indignity was re- sented by their countrymen, who disclaimed the servile laws of the empire, and asserted the free privilege of Scythia, where a small fine was allowed to expiate the hasty sallies of intemper- ance and anger. Their complaints were specious, their clamours were loud, and the Romans were not averse to the example of disorder and impunity. But the rising sedition was appeased by the authority and eloquence of the general ; and he repre- sented to the assembled troops the obligation of justice, the importance of discipline, the rewards of piety and virtue, and the unpardonable guilt of murder, which, in his apprehension, was aggravated rather than excused by the vice of intoxication. 17 In the navigation from the Hellespont to Peloponnesus, which the Greeks, after the siege of Troy, had performed in four days, 18 the fleet of Belisarius was guided in their course by his master-galley, conspicuous in the day by the redness of the sails, and in the night by the torches blazing from the mast- head. It was the duty of the pilots, as they steered between the islands, and turned the capes of Malea and Tsenarum, to preserve the just order and regular intervals of such a multitude of ships ; as the wind was fair and moderate, their labours were not unsuccessful, and the troops were safely disembarked at Methone on the Messenian coast, to repose themselves for a [Modon] while after the fatigues of the sea. In this place they ex- perienced how avarice, invested with authority, may sport with the lives of thousands which are bravely exposed for the public service. According to military practice, the bread or biscuit of the Romans was twice prepared in the oven, and a diminution 17 1 have read of a Greek legislator who inflicted a double penalty on the crimes committed in a state of intoxication ; but it seems agreed that this was rather a political than a moral law. 18 Or even in three days, since they anchored the first evening in the neighbour- ing isle of Tenedos ; the second day they sailed to Lesbos, the third to the pro- montory of Eubcea, and on the fourth they reached Argos (Homer, Odyss. r. 130- 183. Wood's Essay on Homer, p. 40-46). A pirate sailed from the" Hellespont to the seaport at Sparta in three days (Xenophon, Hellen. 1. ii. c. 1).
