4 – Battle of Adrianople (AD 378)
This shouldn’t be confused with the battle of the same name which involved Constantine I in AD 324. Instead, I am referring to the Battle of Adrianople which took place on 9 August AD 378 between the Romans and the Goths. At this point, the Roman Empire was weakening and Emperor Gratian in the West and Emperor Valens in the East had their hands full with the strengthening Gothic tribes.
The Battle of Adrianople took place in the Eastern part of the empire in what is now known as the city of Edirne, Turkey. In AD 376, Valens made what was to be a momentous error by allowing the Visigoths to settle south of the Danube. He did so after they requested assistance since their land had been taken by the Huns. One side of the story says the Romans attacked the Goths after the latter refused to give up their weapons as one of the terms of settlement. Another version suggests the Romans treated the new settlers harshly which led to conflict.
Either way, Valens decided to march from Constantinople to attack the Goths but since the enemy numbers were so large, he asked Gratian for assistance. The Emperor in the West was delayed but eventually, Gratian made his way east. Incredibly, Valens then decided not to wait for his fellow emperor to arrive and marched on Adrianople, an inexplicable blunder which has baffled historians ever since.
Valens’ army was tired after a long march over heavy terrain and he made yet another mistake by attacking the Goths too soon. He either didn’t know that their cavalry wasn’t there or assumed they had left on a raid. Once he launched his attack, the nearby Gothic cavalry (after being informed of the attack) appeared on the scene and completely destroyed the Roman light cavalry which was unable to handle its superior enemy. The heavy Roman infantry was then surrounded and annihilated by Gothic cavalry charges. Valens was apparently killed in the fighting (his body was never found) and there were an estimated 40,000 Roman casualties.
Adrianople was a key moment in world history and is often cited by historians as the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire. Although the empire continued for almost another century, these years were marked by a gradual weakening before eventually crumbling.