as far as Thessalonica, were decisively checked by the Emperor Claudius II., who earned the surname of Gothicus by well-nigh destroying the whole invading host at Nissa on the borders of Servia and Bulgaria, the birthplace probably of the Emperor Constantine. Within, however, three years of this great triumph, which was won in 269 B.C., and achieved, it seems, with Byzantine aid, we find that Claudius's successor, Aurelian, was glad to give up Dacia to the Goths altogether, and to curtail the empire in this direction within the boundary of the Danube. They appear to have been unusually quiet for some years, till they saw their advantage in the troublous period between Diocletian's death and Constantine's final establishment in 324 A.D. as the sole ruler of the world. They crossed the Danube, their lately assigned limit, into Illyricum; but Constantine, who had himself the charge of the province, drove them back beyond the river, and made them sue humbly for peace. One condition, it is said, was that they should furnish the Roman armies with troops to the number of 40,000. Dacia, too, and much more territory, according to Eusebius, was wrested from them, but Eusebius, we must remember, is a persistent panegyrist of Constantine. Not much, probably, that could be called effectual re-conquest, was really accomplished by his arms.
The miserable period of civil strife may be said to have lasted sixteen years, from 308 B.C. to 324 B.C. Constantine's ultimate success may be fairly described as providential, and it was perhaps deserved. One of his rivals, Maxentius, his victory over whom in 312 is
