. Impatient of the limits of the Euxine, they
steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the Thracian
Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the Straits, they
were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them; till a favorable
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 AEgean 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 Piraeus, 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 Scylla. The efforts of his skill were
ineffectual, and the barbarians became masters of the native seat of the
muses and 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 harbor of Piraeus, was unexpectedly attacked by the
brave Daxippus, 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 already advanced within sight of Italy, when the approach of
such imminent danger awakened the indolent Gallienus from his dream of
pleasure. The emp