7-11. How the Emperor Claudius Earned the Title "Gothics"
The Gothic war of 250-251 had revealed in its full extent the danger which had lain hidden behind the mountains of Dacia. Later events did little to remove the terrible impression which the invasion of Kmwa had left behind. On the contrary, the history of the eastern half of the Empire in the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus is filled with incessant struggles against the Goths and their allies. For even Asia Minor was not exempt from their ravages; besides the bands which swept down by the Balkans and back again there were now others which came by sea from the Crimea and Lake Macotis to ravage a constantly widening area of the coasts of Asia Minor and which even penetrated to the inland districts. Especially prominent in these piratical raids were the Borani and Heruli, two peoples who here appear in history for the first time side by side with the Goths. The first of these expeditions, made by the Borani in 256 against the town of Pityus (on the eastern shore of the Black Sea), ended in failure, but by the following year these same Borani succeeded in capturing and sacking Pityus and Trapezus. Even more destructive was the expedition which (spring 258) was undertaken by the West Goths, starting by sea and land from the port of Tyras The whole western coast of Bithynia with the cities of Chalcedon, Nicomedia, Nicaca, Apamea, and Prusa was ravaged. The years 263, 264, and 265 also witnessed the wasting of the coast lands of Asia Minor by similar expeditions of the Pontic Teutons. Ilium, Ephesus with its renowned temple of Artemis, and Chalcedon were this time the victims of the barbarians.
But all these exploits were far surpassed in importance by the great plundering expedition of the Heruli in the year 267. From Lake Maeotis a fleet, said to have been five hundred strong, sailed along the western shore of the Euxine, then through the Bosphorus, where they made a successful coup-de-main against Byzantium, through the Propontis, where Cyzicus was captured, and the Hellespont, and onward past Lemnos and Scyros across the Aegean to Greece Here on the classic soil of Attica, Argolis, and Laconia the wild hosts of these barbarians made fearful havoc, and it was long enough before the bewildered provincial government ventured to oppose them. The defenders, in whose ranks the historian Dexippus of Athens played a leading part, gradually gained confidence, and when they had succeeded in destroying the ships, the invaders were obliged to retreat by the land route. Beaten by the Roman troops their hosts rolled northwards through Boeotia, Epirus, Macedonia, towards their home, which they succeeded in reaching although hard pressed by their pursuers and at the very last compelled by the Emperor Gallienus to fight a battle, in which they incurred heavy losses, at the river Nestus, on the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace.
We have seen above how the Danube had been constantly threatened since the appearance of the Goths on the Black Sea, how invasion after invasion had descended on Dacia and Moesia. Soon after the accession of Gallienus (probably 256-7), Dacia with the exception of the narrow strip between the Temes and the Danube, which continued to be held down to the time of Aurelian, together with the portion of Lower Moesia which lay to the north of the Danube (the present Great Wallachia), became the prey of the barbarians. Some of the West Goths settled in Great Wallachia and the Taifali in the Banat; the northern districts, especially Transylvania, were occupied by the Victovali and Gepidae, who at this time make their appearance among the enemies of Rome. The consequence of the loss of Dacia and Trans-Danubian Moesia was that the Teutons now became on the lower Danube as well as elsewhere the immediate neighbours of the Empire, their territory being divided from it only by the river.
Only once in this whole period of inward decay did the imperial power succeed in winning a decisive victory. That was the achievement of the Emperor Claudius, whom his grateful contemporaries and successors have rightly adorned with the honourable title of "Gothicus." In the spring of 269 the Teutons made yet another attack upon the Empire, surpassing all former ones in violence East Goths and West Goths, whom tradition here first distinguishes, Bastarnae (Peucini), Gepidae, and Heruli united their forces and advanced with a mighty army,and fleet — estimated in the sources at 300,000 fighting-men and 2,000 ships — against the Danubian frontier. Once more the province of Lower Moesia bore the brunt of their attack. The land army of the Teutons, in which lay their main strength, first made an unsuccessful attempt to take Tomi and Marcianople, then swept like a flood over the interior of the country, wasting and plundering as they went. Meanwhile the fleet, which was manned chiefly by Heruli, sailed past Byzantium and Cyzicus into the Aegean, and appeared before Thessalonica. Part of it remained there and blockaded the city; the remainder made a great plundering expedition which bears eloquent testimony to the seamanship and daring of these Teutons, along the coasts of Macedonia, Greece, and Asia Minor, extending even as far as Crete and Cyprus.
This was the situation when the Emperor Claudius reached the scene of war. At his approach the besiegers of the hard-pressed Thessalonica had hastily drawn off northwards and effected a junction with their kinsmen in Upper Moesia. The hostile forces met near Naissus. In the desperate struggle which ensued the Teutons suffered a crushing defeat. What remained of their army was in part cut to pieces in the pursuit, in part driven into the inhospitable recesses of the Balkans, where the survivors surrendered. They were partly enrolled in the Roman army, partly, in pursuance of a policy initiated by the Emperor Marcus, settled as coloni in the devastated frontier districts.
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