HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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year 323, the Roman empire enjoyed an uninterrupted state of quietudeduring the greatest part of the reign of Constantine. In the year 332, how-ever, the Goths, nothing intimidated by the fame the emperor had acquiredby an almost totally uninterrupted course of victory throughout the whole ofhis reign, boldly threw defiance against him, and invaded the province ofMassia, in consequence of his having declared himself determined to supportthe cause of the Sarmatians, with whom the Goths were at war. No navalforce, however, was employed during the short-lived, though spirited contest,nor would there have existed any necessity for making mention of it, exceptfor the purpose of remarking, that in consequence of one of the articles oftreaty concluded on the occasion, the inhabitants of Chersonesus, though notpossessed of any fleet calculated for war, were rising into some considerabledegree of consequence as a commercial people. In return for their havingassisted Constantine with a considerable force, consisting principally of armedchariots, and soldiers armed with cross-bows, which were at that time ofrecent invention, and regarded among the most formidable weapons of destruc-tion then existing, it was agreed, that they should enjoy a perpetual exemptionfrom all duties on their numerous vessels, which traded to different ports inthe Euxine, or Black Sea.

Immediately subsequent to the death of the emperor, an event which hap-pened in less than four years after the conclusion of the Gothic war, a perpe-tual scene of warfare raged with the utmost violence for a considerable period.The contest first commenced between the empire and Sapor, the sovereign ofPersia: to this succeeded the civil war between the three sons of Constantine,together with Magnentius and Vetranio, who, after the death of Constantine theyounger, and his brother Constans, assumed the purple, and commenced hostili-ties against Constaniius, the only survivor of the emperor’s descendants. Thedispute, however, was entirely carried on, and with the utmost spirit as well asacrimony, by land, till the close of the year 352 ; when a formidable band, flyingfrom the army of Magnentius, equipped a fleet of small vessels in one of the nor-th ern ports of the Adriatic, not improbably where Venice is now situated. Havingrepaired to the camp of the victorious .Constantius, who was then in Dalmatia,they caused, through their intrigues, ^nd the information they were enabled toafford him, the whole territory of Italy, together with Rome itself, to declare inhis favour. The cause of the furious Magnentius had long been desperate, and the

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