[gothic-l] Goths and Eruls on the Black and Aegean Seas

Sat Apr 14 06:53:15 UTC 2001

Dear listmembers,

Gibbon describes quite vividly the third naval wave of
attacks by the Goths and the Eruli in 267-268 AD.
Research might have proceeded further since the
British historian wrote his work _The Rise and Fall
of the Roman Empire_ but his account gives some
literary flair to the terrible ordeal of ancient Greece
and the Roman empire during these years. Gibbon
used the number 500 ships during these raids and in
light of Andreas information about the ships and soldiers
number given by Zosimus: 6000 ships and 320, 000
attackers, maybe those numbers can be divided by
10: 600 ships and 32,000 attackers.

It is interesting that Gibbon at one time is giving the
origin of the attackers as the Baltic Sea. Another amusing
fact is the giving of consular dignity to the Erulic warlord
Naulobatus, who joined Roman military service.

The text underneath is from the web. As the scanning
procedure makes the exactness of the
text questionable I have chosen not to quote the text.

Gothically

Bertil

When we are informed that the third fleet, equipped by the
Goths in the ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sails
of ships,  our ready imagination instantly computes and
multiplies the formidable armament; but, as we are assured by the
judicious Strabo, that the piratical vessels used by the
barbarians of Pontus and the Lesser Scythia, were not capable of
containing more than twenty-five or thirty men we may safely
affirm, that fifteen thousand warriors, at the most, embarked in
this great expedition. Impatient of the limits of the Euxine,
they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the
Thracian Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of
the Straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of
them; till a favorable wind, springing up the next day, carried
them in a few hours into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the
Propontis. Their landing on the little island of Cyzicus was
attended with the ruin of that ancient and noble city. From
thence issuing again through the narrow passage of the
Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the
numerous islands scattered over the Archipelago, or the Aegean
Sea. The assistance of captives and deserters must have been
very necessary to pilot their vessels, and to direct their
various incursions, as well on the coast of Greece as on that of
Asia. At length the Gothic fleet anchored in the port of
Piraeus, five miles distant from Athens, which had attempted
to make some preparations 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  Scylla. The
efforts of his skill were ineffectual, and the barbarians became
masters of the native seat of the muses and the arts. But while
the conquerors abandoned themselves to the license of plunder and
intemperance, their fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the
harbor of Piraeus, was unexpectedly attacked by the brave
Dexippus, who, flying with the engineer Cleodamus from the sack
of Athens, collected 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 the
declining age of Athens, served rather to irritate than to subdue
the undaunted spirit of the northern 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 unable 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 indolent Gallienus
from his dream of pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms; and
his presence seems to have checked the ardor, and to have divided
the strength, of the enemy. Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli,
accepted an honorable capitulation, entered with a large body of
his countrymen into the service of Rome, and was invested with
the ornaments of the consular dignity, which had never before
been profaned by the hands of a barbarian. Great numbers of
the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a tedious
voyage, broke into Maesia, with a design of forcing their way
over the Danube to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild
attempt would have proved inevitable destruction, if the discord
of the Roman generals had not opened to the barbarians the means
of an escape.  The small remainder of this destroying host
returned on board their vessels; and measuring back their way
through the Hellespont and the Bosphorus, ravaged in their
passage the shores of Troy, whose fame, immortalized by Homer,
will probably survive the memory of the Gothic conquests. As
soon as they found themselves in safety within the basin of the
Euxine, they landed at Anchialus in Thrace, near the foot of
Mount Haemus; and, after all their toils, indulged themselves in
the use of those pleasant and salutary hot baths. What remained
of the voyage was a short and easy navigation.  Such was the
various fate of this third and greatest of their naval
enterprises. It may seem difficult to conceive how the original
body of fifteen thousand warriors could sustain the losses and
divisions of so bold an adventure. But as their numbers were
gradually wasted by the sword, by shipwrecks, and by the
influence of a warm climate, they were perpetually renewed by
troops of banditti and deserters, who flocked to the standard of
plunder, and by a crowd of fugitive slaves, often of German or
Sarmatian extraction, who eagerly seized the glorious opportunity
of freedom and revenge. In these expeditions, the Gothic nation
claimed a superior share of honor and danger; but the tribes that
fought under the Gothic banners are sometimes distinguished and
sometimes confounded in the imperfect histories of that age; and
as the barbarian fleets seemed to issue from the mouth of the
Tanais, the vague but familiar appellation of Scythians was
frequently bestowed on the mixed multitude.

In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an
individual, however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however
famous, are passed over with careless inattention. Yet we cannot
forget that the temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen
with increasing splendor from seven repeated misfortunes,
was finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion.
The arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to
erect that sacred and magnificent structure. It was supported by
a hundred and twenty-seven marble columns of the Ionic order.
They were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet
high. The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of
Praxiteles, who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends
of the place the birth of the divine children of Latona, the
concealment of Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the
clemency of Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons. Yet the
length of the temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and
twenty-five feet, about two thirds of the measure of the church
of St. Peter's at Rome. In the other dimensions, it was
still more inferior to that sublime production of modern
architecture. The spreading arms of a Christian cross require a
much greater breadth than the oblong temples of the Pagans; and
the boldest artists of antiquity would have been startled at the
proposal of raising in the air a dome of the size and proportions
of the Pantheon. The temple of Diana was, however, admired as
one of the wonders of the world. Successive empires, the
Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman, had revered its sanctity
and enriched its splendor. But the rude savages of the
Baltic were destitute of a taste for the elegant arts, and they
despised the ideal terrors of a foreign superstition.

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