Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/335

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 311 superior rank and merit, defended that frontier, all CHAP, their efforts were ineffectual; but as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more honourable but less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus ; and, by the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their former disgrace °. Circling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine The Goths sea, the navigation from Pityus to Trebizond is about taTrXrebU three hundred miles p. The course of the Goths car- zond. ried them in sight of the country of Colchis, so famous by the expedition of the Argonauts; and they even attempted, though without success, to pillage a rich temple at the mouth of the river Phasis. Trebizond, celebrated in the retreat of the ten thousand as an ancient colony of Greeks '^, derived its wealth and splen- dour from the munificence of the emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an artificial port on a coast left destitute by nature of secure harbours '. The city was large and populous ; a double enclosure of walls seemed to defy the fury of the Goths, and the usual garrison had been strengthened by a reinforcement of ten thou- sand men. But there are not any advantages capable of supplying the absence of discipline and vigilance. The numerous garrison of Trebizond, dissolved in riot and luxury, disdained to guard their impregnable for- tifications. The Goths soon discovered the supine negligence of the besieged, erected a lofty pile of fas- cines, ascended the walls in the silence of the night, and entered the defenceless city, sword in hand. A general massacre of the people ensued, whilst the affrighted soldiers escaped through the opposite gates of the town. The most holy temples, and the most splendid edifices, were involved in a common destruc- tion. The booty that fell into the hands of the Goths was immense: the wealth of the adjacent countries Zosimus, 1. i. p. 30. P Arrian (in Peiiplo Maris Euxin. p. 130.) calls the distance two thou- sand six hundred and ten stadia. 1 Xenophon. Anabasis, 1. iv. p. 348. edit. Hutchinson. ' Arrian, p. 129. The general observation is Tournefort's.