Widdin is supposed to be one of the places where, in the year 233, Constantine the Great defeated a great gathering of the Goths. In one of the poems of Cynewulf, the fighting on the Danube shore is most vigorously presented; “Battle was brought against him, the thunder of war; the hordes of the Huns and the Hrethgoths assembled a host; fierce-hearted the Franks went forth, the people of Hugas. Spears shone and wreathen mail; with shout and ringing shield they flew their battle flags. There were the heroes assembled, openly gathered together--and the throng of folk fared forth. The wolf of the weald chanted his song of battle, hid not his war-runes; the dewy-feathered eagle screamed as he followed the foe. Straight through the cities that mighty battle throng hasted away to war, in hosts as many as the King of the Huns might summon to the fray, of warriors round about. That horde went out, with chosen bands confirmed their forces--till in a strange land on the Danube’s rim, stark of heart, those spearmen tarried nigh to the water’s surging, with the noise of multitude.” Impressive, indeed, is the long account of the battle between the Roman troops and the barbarian host. One passage may be recalled in the neighbourhood of the contest: “With strong hand the cruel foe dealt forth a shower of darts and spears, their battle-adders, over the yellow shield into the host of the hated. But stout of heart they strode, pressed on as occasion offered, burst through the hedge of shields, drove home the sword and ruthless hastened on. Then was the ensign lifted up, the battle sign before the troops; they sang a song of triumph. Golden helms and lances gleamed over the battle-plain. The pagan peoples perished, without quarter sank in death. And straight they fled away, this Hunnish folk, as the King of the dwellers of Rome, urging the strife, bade that holy tree be lifted up. The heroes were scattered afar. Some the battle took; some held their lives hardly on the armies march; some half-quick, half-dead, fled away into fastnesses, sheltered themselves behind the stony cliffs, held the land round about the Danube; and some were drowned in the flowing stream at the end of life.”[16] Calafat, on the Rumanian bank, opposite Widdin, is the terminus of a railway from Bukarest, with a steam ferry to Widdin; is said to have been founded by the Genoese in the fourteenth century; and to owe its name to the large number of workmen (_calfats_) whom they employed here in repairing ships. At both of these places are still to be seen trenches and batteries used in the wars of 1854 and 1877; in the latter year Widdin was bombarded from Calafat, and in 1885 it was besieged yet again during the Servo-Bulgarian War. The history of Widdin is, indeed, largely a history of warfare from the time when it was the Mœsian Bononia of the Romans; and it had been besieged many times--thrice in the nineteenth century--before the Servians made their unsuccessful attempt in 1885.