ADRIANOPLE LASTGREAT BATTLE OF ANTIQUITY

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ADRIANOPLELAST G REAT B ATTLE OF ANTIQ U IT Y

Emperor Valens' haste to come to grips with the G oths cost himhis life and Rome its last predominantly Roman army.

BYJOEZENTNER

eader. In actuality, he was not w ithout skill as a com-mander. His earlier offensive campaign against theG oths, fi om 367 to 369, was conducted with vigor andkill. In spite of difficulties in cairying out ope rationsgainst elusive enemies in their h ome territory, he wasble to bring his Goth foes to battle and defeat them.

According to their own traditions, the G oths origi-ated in a land called G othiscandza, identified asouthern Scandinavia, Those same traditions citeopulation pressure as the reason for their move to

what would become their long-standing homelandetween the Oder an d Vistula rivers, in what is nowoland. However, no archaeological evidence exists

o support this idea. What seem s to have happenedwas a slow, steady drift from the Oder-\^stula regionnto S cythia, now know n as U kraine. That region al-eady contained a mixed population, and the Goths

would certainly have mixed with othei peoples to

roduce a populace that was far from homogeneous.By the middle of the 3rd centuiy they had becomeformidable power.

gians, Fritigem (derived fi-om the Goth word frithug ims desiring peace ), was a prominent wan ior-king whose followers included a number of Romansubjects as well as G oths. T he former rang ed fromescaped slaves and gold m iners to G oth soldiers inthe Roman army who, although initially loyal to

Rome, had been driven to rebellion by the hostilityof the local populace. Fritigem must have been aman of enormou s charisma and strength of will. Hemanaged to hold together a confederacy of disparateclans and tribes with no greater authority than theirbelief in his ability to win. Since Fritigems follow-ers included Huns, Roman expatriates and Ger-

Above left Encircled by Goths in the Battle ofAdhanople, Roman legionaries make their final stand,in a painting by Howard Gen ard [Artwork by Howard

Gerrard, from CA M84 drianople A D 3 7 8 ^OspreyPublishing). Above A portrait coin of Emperor FlaviusJulius Valens (The Art Archive/Jan Vindrond/


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River valley when news reache d him that the Gothswere mo ving south along the Tundzh a River. At firsthe thought it was only a small raiding party, but heoon realized it was a much larger force. He there-ore turned bac k toward Adrianople and es tablished fortified camp just outside the city.

Located at the western end of the Thracianplain nea r the Greek border, 130 miles no rth-west of Constantinople, Adrianople (now

Ed ime in Turkey) was originally named Had rianop-iis, for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who built itn AD 125 on the site of the an-ient city of Uskudama. Lying athe confluence of the Martisa,

Tundzha and Arda rivers, it hadbeen of geographic and militarymportance since ancient times.

Holding a conference with hisieutenants during the night of

August 8.37 8, Valens faced a CITI-ial decision: Should he engagehe Goths at once or wait for his

young nephew and co-emperor,Gratian, to join h im? This caused rift among his senior officers.

The more cautious among themecommended that Valens waitnd allow Gratian to anive with

his army. The Roma ns could thenmove as a combined fcjrce to fight stronger battle and wipe out the

ntire G oth threat. G ratian s west-rn contingent was not manydays march away, they argued,

nd communications betweenhe two armies had already beenstablished.

Another group of officers, ledy a general who knew what he

was doing, urged immediatection. omes (Count) Sebastianus had been ap-ointed to overall command in the region two

months earlier, and in the previous weeks had

dopted an aggressive guerrilla-style mode of cam-aigning. It had proven immensely successful thusar, forcing the G oths to cease raiding in small ban dsnd coalesce into much larger groups for their own

protection. That made them \Tilnerable to a conven-ional, lai e-scale Roman attack. Sebastianus had, inact, caught and destroyed a large column of Gothseturning from a plundering expedition to Rhodopen southern Thrace , shortly before joining Valens and

being appointed to comm and his infantrv .Several factors influenced Valens final decision.

First, his scouts reported that the Goth force con-

ained only abou t 10,000 fighting men . Since Valenshad a bou t 15,000 soldiers in his own arniy, it wasempting to engage the Goths in battle then and

was very low at that time. If he allowed a Goth a rmyto take position between Adrianople and Constan-tinople, he would not only find his supply lines cutoff bu t also risk the likelihood of the pop ulace in theeastern capital feeling abandoned by their emperor.

Valens contemporary, Ammianus, and many laterhistorians believed that the emperorjealous of hisyoung nephew^decided on an imm ediate b attle togain personal glory. Though that was perhaps true,it would not have been the only reason for Valenshasty actions. He may have underestimated theGoths strength, for he had defeated them on the

Danube nine years earlier In any case, Valensseemed confident of an easy victory on the mo rningof August 9, as he led the field army of the east from

Adrtanople to attack the Goths, who w ere camped12 miles from the city.The Romans marched rapidly under a blazing

sun, coming upon the Goth camp at about 2 thataftem(X)n. The G oths were encam ped in a secu re p >sition, probably on high and easily defensibleground. The imperial troops were hastily drawn Lipinto battle formation while the Goths broke intosavage howls, as they were accustomed to do justbefore an engag ement.

Either because of unfamiliarity w ith the teirain orby mistake, the right wing of the Roman cavalry

cam e within sight of the Go ths while the left w as stilla considerable distance away, with many of thehorsemen on the left wing scattered along roads

Emperor Valenspermits the Gothchief Fritigem to

lead his TervingianGoths into theprovince of Moesiin 376. A fam inecombined withshabby treatmentby the Roman au -thorities drove theGoths to revolt thenext year.


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Valens 19-year-oldnephew and co-emperor,, FlaviusGratianuis, wasleading a second

Roman force to joinhim and was just afew days marchfrom Adrianople onAugust 8,378, Afterweighing both op-tions, Valens d e-cided to immedi-ately strike at theGoths with w hatsoldiers he had[Getty Images).

assume that the Goths fought fiom behind theirwagon laager at Adrianople, but that would havebeen unlikclv. Their usual pro cedu re w as to engagetheir enemies in the open and fall back on the ca mponly when an encounter was not going well. Had

they remained behind the laager, they would havenot only surrendered the initiative to the Romansbut also would have been unable to use their pre-feired fighting tactic of charging into hand-to-ha ndcombat with spears, swords and shields. On severaloccasions Ammianus' descriptions of the battle ex-plain that one part of the Roman line managed tofight its way foi'ward as far s the wagons, clearly in-dicating that the fighting took place primarily in theopen, beyond the wagon laager.

Riding boldly into the R oman right wing, the Gothcavalry scattered the surprised Roman cavalry line

and then turned to attack the Roman left w ing. Withinmom ents, all the Roman h orsemen had been drivenfrom the field, leaving the weary infantry exposed.

Fritigem chose that moment to burst from thelaager at the head of his own infantry, Amm ianus de-scribed the Ro ma n soldie rs' plight: The differentcompan ies became so huddled together that hardlyanyone could pull out his sword, or draw back hisarm, and because of immense clouds of dust, theheavens could no longer be seen... ,Hence Gotharrows whirling death from every side found theirmark with fatal effect, since they could not be seen

beforehand nor guarded against.Hemmed in from all sides, the Roman foot waspacked together too tightly to create any effective

gem's infantry closed in, while his cavalry keRom ans w ho broke o ut from getting very fabattlefield ran red with blood, most of it RMen slipped on the bloody ground and manafter falling on the ir own wea pons. H eaps of littered the field, including omes Sebastianus

There a re two stories con cerning Valens' fatclaims that an arrow struck him while amoranks of his army, and his body w s never foimdother claims that, w^ounded by an arrow, htaken by his guards to a nearby peasant dwwhich the G oths subsequently attacked. The Rdefenders initially m anage d to drive back the with aiTows, but they soon return ed, piled up wood and straw against the house and set fireOne Roman soldier jump ed from a window ancaptured by the Goths, but the others, includiemperor, perished in the blaze. The prisone r lacaped to tell the story,

Ammianus stated that two-thirds of the Rarmy died at Adrianople. His comp arison ofthsacre to Hannibal Barca's tactical masterpiCannae is apt because in both battles Roman me n w ere driven from the field, leaving the into be encircled, hemm ed in and destroyed.

he outcome at Adrianople shocked the ern world. The Romans had lost bbefore, but never so decisively. Nor ha

barians made Roman commanders look so uincompetent at the art of war. From beginnend, Valens and his generals had been outgu

outsmarted and outmaneuvered by Fritigem's Various explanations have been offered fo

improbable victory by an ad hoc force of reand de serters over the best organized, equippedisciplined army in the world. Some obsclaimed that, contrary' to Valens' faulty app raisGoths enjoyed a num erical superiority of s man200,000 warriors. In fact, given the logisticalculties of feeding and sustaining so many mengem would have been lucky to mu ster one-tennumber. Other historians claimed that the proved th e su periority of cavalry over infantr

truth is that while a timely cavalry charge sealbattle's ultimate outcom e, it was p rimarily a cinfantry with infantry-.

The Rom an defeat at Adrianople can be attrto both strategic and tactical reasons. At the strlevel, the R omans were unable to assemble ehigh-quality troo ps to deal rapidly and decisivethe Goth threat. Although the empire had500,000 men u nder arm s at that time, they wermitted to guarding imperial borders from Brito Syria. There w as a real danger th at if signifnumber were moved from one point to anot

potential enemy would take advantage of theened border segment to attack. Moreover, Roman fieid armies were supposedly mobi


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Battle of A drianop leAugust 9 378

fNF N TflY C V LRY

VISIGOTHS HiROM NS I IW eONL GER

C V LRY

perations often resulted in mass desertions thatritically thinned their ranks.When it came to using the force at their disposal,

he Roman commanders at Adrianople acted withn arrogance typical of leaders of a well-equippedcivilized army faced with what they perceived asabble. Those com man ders allowed themselves to berawn into battle without proper reconnaissancend without ensuring that the odds were stacked inheir favor before committing their forces to a fight.

It is also probable that the quality and morale ofastem Roman soldiers were low before the cam-aign began . Only 13 years ea rlier, Valens had ledhem on a rigorous but reasonably successful cam-aign against the Sassanian Persians, only to aban-on the effort and leave Armenia in Persian hands.n any case, it was an overwhelmingly hot Augustay when Valens' soldiers had marched hmriedlyrom Adiianople to the plain near where the Gothsad been reported. Consequently, they were ex-austed and thirsty before the fighting began. It

would be un just, however, to cite the Roman failingswithout crediting the strategic skill shown by Friti-

em ; in spite ofhis logistic problems the Goth com-

mander managed to dictate the terms and tempothroughout the campaign.

G ratian was well advanced in his march toassist Valens at Adrianople when he learnedthat his impatient co-emperor had beenkilled and most of his army destroyed In light of thissetback an d distrac ted by his own affairs in the west-

em emp ire, he believed that imperial adm inistrationin the east would require undivided attention that hewould be unable to give. Gratian therefore placedFlavius Theod osius, the son of a distinguished gen-eral and himself a commander of some experience,in charge. On Jan ua n' 19, 379, Theodosius was pro-claimed co-emperor and officially assigned to miethe eastern provinces.

Fritigem's victory at Adrianople gave the Gothscontrol of nearly the entire Balkan Peninsula, Theyraided Greece, leaving only the city of Athens andother small areas of that country unravaged.

Theodosius' plan for pacifying the Goths provedto be as dam aging as Valens' original decision to letthem cross the Danube. He would grant them thei h Th if h ld l l

When his horse-men drove theRoman cavalryfrom the field,Fritigern and hiswarriors defendingthe laager wentover to the o ffen-sive,

encirclingValens infantry.


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After the debacleat Adrianople, thewestern empire sarmy ceased to beprimarily Roman,becoming increas-ingly dependent onGoth soldiers to fillout its depletedranks.

to the empire and become Roman soldiers, Peacewas restored, but at a tremendous cost. With theempire lacking the human resources to replace its

losses in the wake of Adrianople, the Roman armywas transformed into an aiiny of Goths fighting forthe emperor. As the fourth century ended, the Go thsbloodlessly gained control of the army. For the firsttime in its history, the Roman army was no longercomposed primarily of Romans.

Scholars have given a variety of da tes for the fallof Rome, the latest being 1453, whe n C on-stantinople, capital of the eastern Roman

empire, fell to the Ottoman Turks, but that was anew, Byzantine, Greek-speaking empire far removed

from the Caesars. The fall of tiie wcslem em pire isset at 476, when its last emperor, Romulus Augus-tulus, surrendered to the Ostrogoths. That, however,

disasters, such as the mu rder of tinian m in 455, the loss ofthe Aprovinces to the Vandals in 42Alarics sack of Rome in 410.

It might be argued that anRome received its mortal blow iand simply took almost a centdie. The empire had been in bad before, but not so bad that a strong leader could not have savsituation. After Adrianople, howRome s decline becam e irreveOnce the Romans had to rely oGoths to fight their wars for thememp eror s powe r collapsed, annew Goth-dominated arm y was uto fend off other marauding pewho spilled over the eastem fro

It may be stretching the poimilitary historians to pron oun ce

anople a victory of cavalry ovfantiy thai ushered in the era medieval knight. After tha t battleever, Rom an armies lost their clacharacter, Cavaliy came to prenate and b ecause ho rsemen, espthose from the east, were also artheir ability to attack at long ranverely limited the power of infomiations. Not until the 15th cedid w eapons such as the longbocrossbow begin to overturn the

tiveness of cavalry on the battlAs the r-eliability of the native Rarmy declined after Adrianopleperors, generals and even privatzens began to hire bands of retausually GeTTTianic in makeup. Bmid-fifth century, Roma n field ahad evolved into large bandmounted warriors owing their

giance directly to poweiful warlords rather tthe state. Those aimies had more in commoa feudal host than with Rome s republican orrial legions of classical limes.

Although il was fought in the east, the BaAdrianople had its most direct effect on the of Rome s western p rovinces. It initiated a hu geof Gen nanic peoples who continued their m igto oveniin the westem Roman empire withnext century. In ironic contrast, the eastem Rempire, w ith its capital at Constantinople, wouvive the fall of Rome itself and, adapting to them envii^onment in which it was isolated am iof barbarians, endure for another 1,000 year

For further reading. Caiy N.C.-based contributor ntn r recommends: Ad rianople AD 378: TheCrush Rome s Legions, by Simon MacDowall


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ADRIANOPLE LASTGREAT BATTLE OF ANTIQUITY

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