[139: The reports of these occurrences in Zosimus, i. 21-24, Zonaras, xii. 20, Ammianus, xxxi. 5, 16, 17 (which accounts, down to that concerning Philippopolis, are fixed as belonging to this time by the fact that the latter recurs in Zosimus), although all fragmentary or in disorder, may have flowed from the report of Dexippus, of which _fr._ 16, 19, are preserved, and may be in some measure combined. The same source lies at the bottom of the imperial biographies and Jordanes; but both have disfigured and falsified it to such a degree that use can be made of their statements only with great caution. Victor, _Caes._ 29, is independent.] [140: Perhaps the irruption of the Marcomani in Zosimus, i. 29, refers to this.] [141: Ammianus, xxxi. 5, 15; _duobus navium milibus perrupto Bosporo et litoribus Propontidis Scythicarum gentium catervae transgressae ediderunt quidem acerbas terra marique strages: sed amissa suorum parte maxima reverterunt_; whereupon the catastrophe of the Decii is narrated, and into this is inwoven the further notice: _obsessae Pamphyliae civitates_ (to which must belong the siege of Side in Dexippus himself, fr. 23), _insulæ populatæ complures_, as also the siege of Cyzicus. If in this retrospect all is not confused--which cannot well be assumed to be the case with Ammianus--this falls before those naval expeditions which begin with the siege of Pityus, and are more a part of the migration of peoples than piratical raids. The number of the ships might indeed be transferred hither by error of memory from the expedition of the year 269. To the same connection belongs the notice in Zosimus, i. 28, as to the Scythian expeditions into Asia and Cappadocia as far as Ephesus and Pessinus. The account as to Ephesus in the biography of Gallienus, c. 6, is the same, but transposed as to time.] [142: In the case of Zosimus himself we should not expect complete understanding of the matter; but his voucher Dexippus, who was a contemporary and took part in the matter, knew well why he termed the Bithynian expedition the δευτέρα ἔφοδος (Zos. i. 35); and even in Zosimus we discern clearly the contrast, intended by Dexippus, between the expedition of the Borani against Pityus and Trapezus and the traditional piratic voyages. In the biography of Gallienus the Scythian expedition to Cappadocia, narrated at c. 11, under the year 264, must be that to Trapezus, just as the Bithynian therewith connected must be that which Zosimus terms the second; here indeed everything is confused.] [143: This is said by Zosimus, i. 42, and follows also from the relation of the Bosporans to the first (i. 32), and that of the first to the second expedition (i. 34).]