Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/334

 310 THE DECLINE AND FALL C n A p. phorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous waste ' of fertile soil, the conquerors obtained the command of who acquire a naval force, sufficient to transport their armies to the force. coast of Asia''. The ships used in the navigation of the Euxine were of a very singular construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks, framed of timber only, without the least mixture of iron, and occasionally covered with a shelving roof, on the appearance of a tempest*. In these floating houses, the Goths care- lessly trusted themselves to the mercy of an unknown sea, under the conduct of sailors pressed into the ser- vice, and whose skill and fidelity were equally suspi- cious. But the hopes of plunder had banished every idea of danger; and a natural fearlessness of temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence, which is the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of such a daring spirit must have often mur- mured against the cowardice of their guides, who re- quired the strongest assurances of a settled calm before they would venture to embark; and would scarcely ever be tempted to lose sight of the land. Such, at least, is the practice of the modern Turks "" ; and they are probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to the ancient inhabitants of Bosphorus. First naval The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia of the' '^° on the left hand, first appeared before Pityus", the Goths. 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 dis- appointment seemed to diminish the terror of the Gothic name. As long as Successianus, an officer of '' Zosimus, 1. i. p. 28. "» See a very natural picture of the Euxine navigation, in the sixteenth 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.
 * Strabo, 1. xi. ; Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were called camam.