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372 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xlii Antes wanted power and inclination to stem the fury of the torrent ; and the light-armed Sclavonians, from an hundred tribes, pursued, with almost equal speed, the footsteps of the Bulgarian horse. The payment of one piece of gold for each soldier procured a safe and easy retreat through the country of the Gepidae, who commanded the passage of the upper Danube. 19 The hopes or fears of the Barbarians ; their intestine union or discord ; the accident of a frozen or shallow stream ; the pros- pect of harvest or vintage ; the prosperity or distress of the Komans ; were the causes which produced the uniform repeti- tion of annual visits, 20 tedious in the narrative and destructive in the event. The same year, and possibly the same month, in which Kavenna surrendered, was marked by an invasion of the Huns or Bulgarians, so dreadful that it almost effaced the memory of their past inroads. They spread from the suburbs of Constantinople to the Ionian gulf, destroyed thirty-two cities or castles, erazed Potidasa, which Athens had built and Philip had besieged, and repassed the Danube, dragging at their horses' heels one hundred and twenty thousand of the subjects of Justinian. In a subsequent inroad they pierced the wall of the Thracian Chersonesus, extirpated the habitations and the inhabitants, boldly traversed the Hellespont, and returned to their companions, laden with the spoils of Asia. Another party, which seemed a multitude in the eyes of the Komans, penetrated, without opposition, from the straits of Thermopylae to the isthmus of Corinth ; and the last ruin of Greece has appeared an object too minute for the attention of history. The works which the emperor raised for the protection, but at the expense, of his subjects, served only to disclose the weakness of some neglected part ; and the walls, which by flattery had been deemed impregnable, were either deserted by the garrison or scaled by the Barbarians. Three thousand Sclavonians, who insolently divided themselves into two bands, discovered the weakness and misery of a triumphant reign. They passed the Danube and the Hebrus, vanquished the Koman generals who dared to oppose their progress, and plun- 19 Procopiue, Goth. 1. iv. c. 25. 20 An inroad of the Huns is connected by Procopius with a comet ; perhaps that of 531 (Persic. 1. ii. c. 4). Agathias (1. v. p. 154, 155 [c. 11]) borrows from his predecessor some early facts.