HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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sions which rendered the appellation of ships which is bestowed on them ridi-culous in the extreme. The human mind is extremely prone to reject allpoints as fabulous which it does not readily understand, or to form conjectures,strange and ridiculous in themselves, in order to reconcile those points to itsunqualified belief.

Formidable as historical accounts have represented the preparations made forthis expedition, it appears to have ended fatally to the contriver of it. Aftei atrivial skirmish, and, according to many authors, without any contest whatever,.Heraclianus was seized with a sudden panic on learning that the countMarinus was on his march to meet him, at the head of all the troops he couldassemble. Shewing himself totally unworthy of contending for so noble a;prize as the imperial diadem, he ignominiously fled back, unattended, and in asingle vessel, to Carthage, where he was very soon afterwards discovered, andput to death. The Goths, nearly about the same period, having thrown off theRoman yoke in the east, entered Constantinople itself; but both their leader,and themselves, having behaved in a manner highly disgustful to the inhabitants,as well as directly contrary to a treaty which they had agreed to with Arcadius,the emperor, the people rising, as with one accord, inflicted a dreadful ven-geance for their recent injuries and insults, by massacring every Goth theycould meet. Seven thousand persons perished ; but Gainas, their chief, toge-ther with the remainder of his troops, prolonged their lives for a short spaceof time by their absence from the scene of slaughter ; and, finding the progressof their enterprize stopped by the resolute defence which the cities of Thracemade against them, formed the gallant, but rather desperate resolution of forcingthe passage of the Hellespont.

Totally destitute not only of a fleet, but of a single vessel, that could aid theprojected attempt, the Goth hesitated not to commit himself, and his intrepidfollowers, deserving, perhaps, on account of their bravery, a far better fate, tothe waves of the Hellespont on rafts, rudely and hastily constructed from thewoods of the Chersonesus. The discipline, the superior nautical knowlege,.and, above all, the higher quality of the vessels with which his adversariesopposed him, afforded them an easy victory over him. Scarce had the Gothsreached the middle of the channel, when the Roman gallies, impelled by theunited influence of their oars, the current, and a favourable wind, rushing for-wards in close order, and an irresistible column, broke through the floats oftheir devoted enemy, and effected such speedy and dreadful devastation without

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