Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/333

 X. OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 309 of Chersonesus Taurica **. On that inhospitable shore, CHAP. Euripides, embelHshing with exquisite art the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most affect- ing tragedies*. The bloody sacrifices of Diana, the arrival of Orestes and Pylades, and the triumph of virtue and religion over savage fierceness, serve to re- present an historical truth, that the Tauri, the original inhabitants of the peninsula, were in some degree re- claimed from their brutal manners, by a gradual inter- course with the Grecian colonies, which settled along the maritime coast. The little khigdom of Bosphorus, whose capital was situated on the straits through which the Maeotis communicates itself to the Euxine, was composed of degenerate Greeks, and half civilized bar- barians. It subsisted, as an independent state, from the time of the Peloponnesian war ^, was at last swal- lowed up by the ambition of Mithridates ^, and, with the rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman arms. From the reign of Augustus •", the kings of Bosphorus were the humble, but not useless, allies of the empire. By presents, by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across the isthmus, they effectually guarded against the roving plunderers of Sarmatia, the access of a country which, from its peculiar situation and convenient harbours, commanded the Euxine sea and Asia Minor'. As long as the sceptre was pos- sessed by a lineal succession of kings, they acquitted themselves of their important charge with vigilance and success. Domestic factions, and the fears, or private interest, of obscure usurpers, who seized on the vacant throne, admitted the Goths into the heart of Bos- ^ M. de Peyssonel, who had been French consul at CafFa, in his Obser- vations sur les Peuples Barbares, qui ont habit6 les bords du Danube. f Strabo, 1. vii. p, 309. The first kings of Bosphorus were the allies of Athens. b Appian in Mithridat. vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three days' march of the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17. the Scythian, who relates a great war of his nation against the kings of
 * ^ Euripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.
 * > It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius, vi. 21 ; Eutropius,
 * See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the sincerity and the virtues of