merely individual piratical ships, but squadrons of pirates cruised in the Black and even in the Mediterranean seas. The decline of the government, clearly discernible after the death of Severus, and above all after the end of the last dynasty, manifested itself then, as was natural, especially in the further decay of marine police. The accounts, in detail far from trustworthy, mention already in the time before Decius the appearance of a great fleet of pirates in the Aegean Sea; then under Decius the plundering of the Pamphylian coast and of the Graeco-Asiatic islands; under Gallus maraudings of pirates in Asia Minor as far as Pessinus and Ephesus.[141] These were predatory expeditions. These comrades plundered the coasts far and wide, and made even, as we see, bold raids into the interior; but nothing is mentioned of the destruction of towns, and the pirates shunned coming into collision with Roman troops; the attack was chiefly directed against such regions as had no troops stationed in them. [Sidenote: Maritime expeditions of the Goths and allies.] [Sidenote: To Trapezus.] Under Valerian these expeditions assume a different character. The nature of the raids varies so much from the earlier, that the raid, in itself not specially important, of the Borani against Pityus under Valerian could be designated by intelligent reporters precisely as the beginning of this movement,[142] and that the pirates were for a long time called in Asia by the name of this tribe not otherwise known to us. These expeditions proceed no longer from the old native dwellers beside the Black Sea, but from the hordes pressing behind them. What had hitherto been piracy begins to form a portion of that migratory movement of peoples to which the advance of the Goths on the lower Danube belongs. The peoples taking part in it are very varied and in part little known; in the later expeditions the Germanic Heruli, then dwelling beside the Maeotis, appear to have played a leading part. The Goths also took part, but, so far as sea-voyages are concerned--and tolerably exact reports of these are before us--not in a prominent manner; strictly speaking, these expeditions are more correctly termed Scythian than Gothic. The maritime centre of these aggressions was the mouth of the Dniester, the port of Tyra.[143] The Greek towns of the Bosporus, abandoned through the bankruptcy of the imperial power, without protection to the hordes pressing onward, and expecting to be besieged by them, consented, half under compulsion, half voluntarily, to convey in their vessels, and by their mariners, the inconvenient new neighbours over to the nearest Roman possessions on the north coast of Pontus--for which these neighbours themselves lacked the needful means and the needful skill. It was thus that the expedition against Pityus was brought about. The Borani were landed and, confident of success, sent back the ships. But the resolute commander of Pityus,