latter being now the most enterprising commercial port on the shores of the Black Sea.
The trading vessels on. The rude vessels the Goths used in crossing the Black Sea were probably fair specimens of the ordinary craft in which the early maritime commerce along its shores was conducted. The largest of the corn ships employed within the Euxine and Azov seldom exceeded in capacity from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty quarters of wheat, or from fifty to seventy tons. Some of those which passed on to the Mediterranean may have been larger, for then, as now, there was considerable difference (though not nearly so great as in our own day) in the size of merchant vessels. It was not, however, until Constantinople was founded, and revived the trade with Egypt, that ships of great dimensions were constructed there, specially for the purposes of commerce. Gibbon[1] has described as "canoes," consisting of a single tree hollowed out, the vessels used on the Black Sea by the Goths in their descent on Trebizond; but no one will believe that, with all their rash bravery, they actually trusted themselves to boats so small as this view suggests; nor, indeed, does the passage in Strabo to which Gibbon has referred, imply all that he has deduced from it. Many vessels, vastly superior in build to the simple monoxyle, must have existed; though their construction may easily have been so inartistic that they were scarcely safer than canoes.
To increase as rapidly as possible the size and magnificence of the new capital, the opulent senators
- ↑ Gibbon, ch. xxvi.
