For some years after their campaigns in the region of the Danube, the Goths occupied themselves with expeditions which bear a curious resemblance to those made by their kinsmen of later times, the Vikings and Northmen. They do not seem to have had any seamanship of their own, but they lured or compelled the maritime population of the Black Sea coast-line to assist them. Their first voyage was eastward. They sailed along the northern coast of the Black Sea, taking Pitsunda on their way, rounded the eastern end, and finally captured Trebizond, the wealthiest city in northern Asia Minor, where they possessed themselves of a vast quantity of spoil and a multitude of prisoners. Their next voyage had a westerly direction. They overran the province of Bithynia. The famous towns of Nicala and Nicomedia, among others, fell into their hands, almost without any attempt at resistance. It was more than three centuries since these regions had known the presence of a foreign enemy. They had no troops of their own, except, possibly, some local levies which certainly had had no experience of warfare, and the legions which should have defended them had sadly degenerated both in courage and in discipline. The third expedition of the Goths took them outside the Black Sea into the Ægean. Their fleet sailed into the Piræus. Athens, which had not attempted, possibly had not been permitted, to repair its walls, demolished more than three hundred years before by Sulla, was taken and plundered. Greece could offer no resistance. It had neither means nor men. The invaders still advanced westwards, and threatened Italy itself. Here, however, their progress was stayed. But from this expedition also, audacious as it was, they returned in safety. It gave another proof, not less significant than the death of Decius, how low the Empire had already fallen. While the Goths were evading the south-eastern provinces of the Empire, other enemies were busy in the north and west. The Franks now make their first appearance in history. The name which meets us frequently in the modern world, notably in France, and in such terms as Franconia, Frankfort, Frankenthal, means the "free," and probably originated in a combination of the tribes who inhabited the eastern bank of the Rhine, and who assumed this title by way of distinguishing themselves from the subjects of Rome on the opposite side of the river. The Franks laid waste the province of Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees and desolated Spain. We know very little of the details of their invasion. One of the so-called "Thirty Tyrants," Postumus by name, is said to have checked their progress, and done something to protect the Roman provinces of the West. Postumus was slain in 267 A.D.