detachment pressed onward over the undefended passes of the Balkans
into Thrace, laid siege to Philippopolis, and even despatched a plundering
party into Macedonia. One division of the Gothic army, after vainly
assaulting Novae and Nicopolis, was defeated in the neighbourhood of
the latter town by the Emperor Decius in person, but this success
was immediately counterbalanced by a reverse. The Goths, while
retiring southwards by way of Beroe (Augusta Traiana), the present
Eski-Zaghra, on the southern slope of the Balkans, defeated the Roman
troops who were pursuing them. After this battle the victorious Goths
effected a junction with their countrymen who were investing Philippopolis, and that city fell into their hands. The Romans, however, were
now making extensive preparations, in view of which the barbarians
began their retreat. Decius, eager to wipe out the failure at Beroe,
sought to bar their path, and, in the hope of inflicting a crushing defeat
upon them, engaged them near Abrittus, about 80 miles south-east of
Durostorum (Silistria) in June 251. The day, which began well for the
Romans, ended in a fearful disaster, a great part of their army was
destroyed, and the Emperor himself and one of his sons were among the
slain. The country from which the barbarians had just retired now lay
once more defenceless before them. They were finally bought off by the
promise of a yearly subsidy.
The Gothic war of 250-251 had revealed in its full extent the danger which had lain hidden behind the mountains of Dacia. Later events did little to remove the terrible impression which the invasion of Kniwa had left behind. On the contrary, the history of the eastern half of the Empire in the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus is filled with incessant struggles against the Goths and their allies. For even Asia Minor was not exempt from their ravages ; besides the bands which swept down by the Balkans and back again there were now others which came by sea from the Crimea and Lake Maeotis to ravage a constantly widening area of the coasts of Asia Minor and which even penetrated to the inland districts. Especially prominent in these piratical raids were the Borani and Heruli, two peoples who here appear in history for the first time side by side with the Goths. The first of these expeditions, made by the Borani in 256 against the town of Pityus (on the eastern shore of the Black Sea), ended in failure, but by the following year these same Borani succeeded in capturing and sacking Pityus and Trapezus. Even more destructive was the expedition which (spring 258) was undertaken by the West Goths, starting by sea and land from the port of Tyras. The whole western coast of Bithynia with the cities of Chalcedon, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Apamea, and Prusa was ravaged. The years 263, 264, and 265 also witnessed the vasting of the coast lands of Asia Minor by similar expeditions of the Pontic Teutons. Ilium, Ephesus with its renowned temple of Artemis, and Chalcedon were this time the victims of the barbarians.
But all these exploits were far surpassed in importance by the great
