Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/339

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 315 anchored in the port of Piraeus, five miles distant from CHAP. Athens^, which had attempted to make some prepa- ^' rations 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 Sylla. The efforts of his skill were inef- fectual; and the barbarians became masters of the na- tive seat of the muses and the arts. But while the conquerors abandoned themselves to the licence of plunder and intemperance, their fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the harbour of Piraeus, was unexpect- edly attacked by the brave Dexippus, who, flying with the engineer Cleodamus from the sack of Athens, col- lected 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 ravage the declining age of Athens, served rather to irritate threaten than to subdue the undaunted spirit of the northern ^^^b- 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 un- able 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 in- dolent Gallienus from his dream of pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms ; and his presence seems to Their divi- have checked the ardour, and to have divided the re°?eat° strength of the enemy. Naulobatus, a chief of the e Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 7. ^ Hist. August, p. 181 ; Victor, c. 33 ; Orosius, vii. 42 j Zosimus, 1. i. p. 35 ; Zonaras, 1. xii. 635 ; Syncellus, p. 382. It is not without some attention, that we can explain and conciliate their imperfect hints. We can still discover some traces of the partiality of Dexippus, in the relation of his own and his countrymen's exploits.