In Order To Transport
Their Armies Across The Euxine, They Employed "Slight Flat-Bottomed Barks,
Framed Of Timber Only, Without
The least mixture of iron, and occasionally
covered with a shelving roof on the appearance of a tempest." Their first
Object of importance was the reduction of Pityus, which was provided with a
commodious harbour, and was situated at the utmost limits of the Roman
provinces. After the reduction of this place, they sailed round the eastern
extremity of the Euxine, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, to the
important commercial city of Trebizond. This they also reduced; and in it
they found an immense booty, with which they filled a great fleet of ships,
that were lying in the port at the time of the capture. Their success
encouraged and stimulated them to further enterprises against such of the
commercial cities or rich coasts of the Roman empire, as lay within their
grasp. In their second expedition, having increased their fleet by the
capture of a number of fishing vessels, near the mouths of the Borysthenes,
the Niester, and the Danube, they plundered the cities of Bithynia. And in
a third expedition, in which their force consisted of five hundred sail of
ships, each of which might contain from twenty-five to thirty men, they
passed the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, and ravaged Greece, and threatened
Italy itself.
The extent to which some branches of trade were carried by the Romans about
this time, may be deduced from what is related of Firmus, whose ruin was
occasioned by endeavouring to exchange the security of a prosperous
merchant for the imminent dangers of a Roman emperor.
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