Adrianople: Last Great Battle of Antiquity
By Joe Zentner

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The annals of the later Roman empire are scarred by events that took place near the Thracian city of Adrianople on the afternoon of August 9, ad 378. By that evening, the eastern Roman Emperor Valens was dead along with tens of thousands of irreplaceable warriors, in a defeat that signaled the beginning of the end of Rome’s ability to resist external pressure and prevent penetration of its defenses. According to the contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a Roman officer, “No battle in our history except Cannae [Hannibal Barca’s great victory in 216 bc] involved such a massacre.”

After the death of Emperor Constantine in ad 337, the Roman empire saw the return of sibling struggles for total control. Constantine had hoped that his three surviving sons would be satisfied with one-third of the empire each—Flavius Julius Constans in western Europe, Constantine II in southeastern Europe and Constantius II the eastern provinces—but such was not to be. Constantine II was killed in Italy in 340; Constans was overthrown by the usurper Magentius and slain by Gaiso while fleeing to Iberia in January 350. Then Constantius, while moving to deal with a revolt by his cousin, General Flavius Claudius Julianus, died of a fever in Cilicia on November 3, 361. With the death of all three of Constantine I’s direct heirs, Rome was ruled by a succession of army generals.

The general who finally secured the imperial purple on February 26, 364, was Flavius Valentinianus, a man of humble birth but considerable military skill. As Emperor Valentinian I, he focused on shoring up the frontier along the Danube River. To keep the eastern part of the empire in friendly hands, on March 28 Valentinian appointed his brother, Flavius Julius Valens, to the position of co-emperor and placed him in Constantinople. Valentinian died in 375 and was succeeded by his 16-year-old son, Flavius Gratianus, or Gratian. Contemporaries described Gratian as “a young man of remarkable talent: eloquent, controlled, warlike, yet merciful.” During his short life, he fought successfully against Rome’s enemies and vigorously attacked the last vestiges of paganism. At the time he became emperor in the west, however, Gratian was much too inexperienced to hold any sway over his uncle, Valens.

In contrast to his brother, Valens did not join the Roman army until 360. Nevertheless, he conducted an offensive campaign against the Goths, from 367 to 369, with vigor and skill. In spite of difficulties in carrying out operations against elusive enemies in their home territory, he was able to bring his Goth foes to battle and defeat them.

According to their own traditions, the Goths originated in a land called Gothiscandza, identified as southern Scandinavia. Those same traditions cite population pressure as the reason for their move to what would become their long-standing homeland between the Oder and Vistula rivers, in what is now Poland. However, no archaeological evidence exists to support this idea. What seems to have happened was a slow, steady drift from the Oder-Vistula region into Scythia, now known as Ukraine. That region already contained a mixed popu­lation, and the Goths would certainly have mixed with other peoples to produce a populace that was far from homogeneous. By the middle of the 3rd century, they had become a formidable power.

The leader of a Visigoth tribe called the Tervingians, Fritigern (derived from the Goth word frithugairns, “desiring peace”) was a prominent warrior-king whose followers included a number of Roman subjects as well as Goths. The former ranged from escaped slaves and gold miners to Goth soldiers in the Roman army who, although initially loyal to Rome, had been driven to rebellion by the hostility of the local populace. Fritigern must have been a man of enormous charisma and strength of will. He managed to hold together a confederacy of disparate clans and tribes with no greater authority than their belief in his ability to win. Since Fritigern’s followers included Huns, Roman expatriates and Germanic tribesmen, many would have deserted him had they felt better off under someone else’s leadership.

Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures

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