scord of the Roman
generals had not opened to the barbarians the means of an escape. [125]
The small remainder of this destroying host returned on board their
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 Haemus; 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. [126] 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 revenge. In these
expeditions, the Gothic nation claimed a superior share of honor
and danger; but the tribes that fought under the Gothic banners are
sometimes distinguished 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. [127]

[Footnote 124: Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a long
time faithful and famous.]

[Footnote 125: Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought with
propriety and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous of his fame
Hist. August. p. 181.]

[Footnote 126: Jornandes, c. 20.]

[Footnote 127: 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.]

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Aemilianus, Valerian And Gallienus.--Part IV.

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