practice of the modern Turks; [1] and they are probably not inferior in the art of navigation to the ancient inhabitants of Bosphorus.
First naval expedition of the Goths The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the the Gotta left hand, first appeared before Pityus,[2] the utmost limits of the Roman provinces; a city provided with a convenient port, and fortified with a strong wall. Here they met with a resistance more obstinate than they had reason to expect from the feeble garrison of a distant fortress. They were repulsed; and their disappointment seemed to diminish the terror of the Gothic name. As long as Successianus, an officer of superior rank and merit, defended that frontier, all their efforts were ineffectual; but, as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more honourable but less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus; and, by the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their former disgrace.[3]
The Goths besiege and take TrebizondCircling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, the navigation from Pityus to Trebizond is about three hundred miles.[4] The course of the Goths carried them in sight of the country of Colchis, so famous by the expedition of the Argonauts; and they even attempted, though without success, to pillage a rich temple at the mouth of the river Phasis. Trebizond, celebrated in the retreat of the Ten Thousand as an ancient colony of Greeks,[5] derived its wealth and splendour from the munificence of the emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an artificial port on a coast left destitute by nature of secure harbours.[6] The city was large and populous; a double enclosure of walls seemed to defy the fury of the Goths, and the usual garrison had been strengthened by a reinforcement of ten thousand men. But there are not any advantages capable of supplying the absence of discipline and vigilance. The numerous garrison of Trebizond, dissolved in riot and luxury, disdained to guard their impregnable fortifications. The Goths soon discovered the supine negligence of the besieged, erected
- ↑ See a very natural picture of the Euxine navigation, in the xvith letter of Tournefort.
- ↑ Arrian places the frontier garrison at Dioscurias, or Sebastopolis, forty-four miles to the east of Pityus. The garrison of Phasis consisted in his time of only four hundred foot. See the Periplus of the Euxine. [For the Gothic invasions see Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, i. ch. i.]
- ↑ Zosimus, l. i. p. 30. [256 A.D.]
- ↑ Arrian (in Periplo Maris Euxin. p. 130 [27]) calls the distance 2610 stadia.
- ↑ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iv. p. 348. Edit. Hutchinson [c. 8],
- ↑ Arrian, p. 129 [26]. The general observation is Tournefort's.
