Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/336

 S12 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, had been deposited in Trebizond, as in a secure place of refuge. The number of captives was incredible, as the victorious barbarians ranged without opposition through the extensive province of Pontus *. The rich spoils of Trebizond filled a great fleet of ships that had been found in the port. The robust youth of the sea coast were chained to the oar; and the Goths, satisfied with the success of their first naval expedition, returned in triumph to their new estabhshments in the kingdom of Bosphorus *. The second The sccond expedition of the Goths was undertaken offhe'^ °" with greater powers of men and ships ; but they steered Goths. a different course, and, disdaining the exhausted pro- vinces of Pontus, followed the western coast of the Euxine, passed before the wide mouths of the Borys- thenes, the Niester, and the Danube, and increasing their fleet by the capture of a great number of fishing barks, they approached the narrow outlet through which the Euxine sea pours its waters into the Mediterranean, and divides the continents of Europe and Asia. The garrison of Chalcedon was encamped near the temple of Jupiter Urius, on a promontory that commanded the entrance of the strait ; and so inconsiderable were the dreaded invasions of the barbarians, that this body of They plun- troops surpassed in number the Gothic army. But it ciUesof w^s ^^ numbers alone that they surpassed it. They Biihynia. deserted with precipitation their advantageous post, and abandoned the town of Chalcedon, most plenti- fully stored with arms and money, to the discretion of the conquerors. Whilst they hesitated whether they should prefer the sea or land, Europe or Asia, for the scene of their hostilities, a perfidious fugitive pointed out Nicomedia, once the capital of the kings of Bithy- nia, as a rich and easy conquest. He guided the march, which was only sixty miles from the camp of Chalcedon", directed the resistless attack, and partook ^ See an epistle of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, quoted by Mascou, v. 37. ' Zosimus, 1. i. p. 32, 33. " Itiner. Hierosolym. p. 572; Wesseling.