eror appeared in arms; and his presence seems to have
checked the ardor, and to have divided the strength, of the enemy.
Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli, accepted an honorable capitulation,
entered with a large body of his countrymen into the service of Rome,
and was invested with the ornaments of the consular dignity, which had
never before been profaned by the hands of a barbarian. Great numbers of
the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a tedious voyage,
broke into Maesia, with a design of forcing their way over the Danube
to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild attempt would have proved
inevitable destruction, if the discord of the Roman generals had not
opened to the barbarians the means of an escape. 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. 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.

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

In the general calamities of mankind, the death of a