The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · ¶343
If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of preserving a faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we must not expect, from such unlettered barbarians, any distinct account of the time and circumstances of their emigration. To cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels, with oars, and the distance is little more than one hundred miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania and Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At least as early as the Christian æra, and as late as the age of the Antonines, the Goths were established towards the mouth of the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of Thorn, Elbing, Köningsberg, and Dantzick, were long afterwards founded. Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes of the Vandals were…Read in context ›
Edward Gibbon · Project Gutenberg #731 (Milman edition) — public domain
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.