Compared to the vast trove of information available on the Roman army of the 4th century, virtually nothing is known of the Goth fighting organization—if there was one. Nevertheless, the Goths were not mere wild men, as popularly portrayed in Roman and later accounts. Many had served in Roman armies and knew how to wield a sword, spear or battle-ax with skill. Such weapons were more of a threat to the Romans than in previous centuries due to changes in the Roman infantry. Because of reductions in available funds for military spending, the Roman soldier wore less metal armor, his shield was smaller and rounder and, to compensate, his short stabbing gladius had been replaced by a sword longer than the one he had used in the 1st century. Roman infantry formations were still formidable but had lost some of the invincible aura they had enjoyed in the imperial heyday.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Military History magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

The Goths often fought from a laager, a group of wagons arranged in a circle, from which they would dart out to do battle, then quickly return. This amounted to a mobile fortress that could protect them no matter where they fought.

In the fall of 376, the Romans agreed to help Fritigern’s people cross the Danube and settle in the province of Moesia. In 377, however, a famine struck the Roman areas settled by the Visigoths, and their appeals for help went unanswered by the Roman authorities. The magister militum (governor-general) of the area, Lupicinus, and his dux secundae, Magnus Maximus, treated the Visigoths badly, forcing them to pay exorbitant prices for food and keeping Goth women as concubines.

As the Goths became restive, Lupicinus invited Fritigern, Alaviv and other Visigoth chieftains to a banquet at his headquarters in Marcianople, planning to make them hostages to keep their tribes in line. His plan failed—a fight broke out and the Romans killed Gothic escorts and Alaviv, but Fritigern managed to fight his way out of the trap.

The Tervingians under Fritigern now rose in open revolt, pillaging the countryside surrounding Marcianople. Lupicinus led a small force to confront them nine miles outside the city, only to be overpowered and massacred.

The crisis continued into 378, with the Visigoths holding sway over much of Thrace, an ancient country in the southeastern part of the Balkan Peninsula, reaching north to the Danube and comprising modern Bulgaria and parts of Greece and Turkey.

Emperor Valens and his army were in Thrace, marching west from Adrianople along the Martisa River valley, when news reached him that the Goths were moving south along the Tundzha River. At first he thought it was only a small raiding party, but he soon realized it was a much larger force. He therefore turned back toward Adrianople and established a fortified camp just outside the city.

Located at the western end of the Thracian plain near the Greek border, 130 miles northwest of Constantinople, Adrianople (now Edirne in Turkey) was originally named Hadrianopolis, for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who built it in ad 125 on the site of the ancient city of Uskudarna. Lying at the confluence of the Martisa, Tundzha and Arda rivers, it had been of geographic and military importance since ancient times.

Holding a conference with his lieutenants during the night of August 8, 378, Valens faced a crucial decision: Should he engage the Goths at once or wait for his young nephew and co-emperor, Gratian, to join him? This question resulted in a rift among his senior officers. The more cautious among them recommended that Valens wait and allow Gratian to arrive with his army. The Romans could then move as a combined force to fight a stronger battle and wipe out the entire Goth threat. Gratian’s western contingent was not many days’ march away, they argued, and communications between the two armies had already been established.

Another group of officers, led by a general who knew what he was doing, urged immediate action. Comes (Count) Sebastianus had been appointed to overall command in the region two months earlier, and in the previous weeks had adopted an aggressive guerrilla-style mode of campaigning. It had proved immensely successful thus far, forcing the Goths to cease raiding in small bands and coalesce into much larger groups for their own protection. That made them vulnerable to a conventional, large-scale Roman attack. Sebastianus had, in fact, caught and destroyed a large column of Goths returning from a plundering expedition to Rhodope in southern Thrace, shortly before joining Valens and being appointed to command his infantry.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to