5 – Valens – The Battle of Adrianople (378 AD)
According to historians, the city now known as Edirne but formerly called Adrianople has been the site of no less than 15 battles! When the Battle of Adrianople is mentioned, most people think of either the 324 AD version involving Constantine the Great or the 378 AD edition featuring the Roman Emperor Valens. Certainly, it is questionable whether any commander in the other 14 battles managed to be as utterly inept as Valens. It was one of the major turning points in history; after suffering a heavy defeat, the Romans lost their confidence and became easy pickings for the rampaging barbarian hordes. Less than a century later, the great Western Roman Empire had been destroyed.
Valens was the ruler of the eastern part of the Roman Empire and asked his nephew Gracian, the emperor in the west, to help him suppress a Gothic uprising in Thrace. It was a mess of Valens’ making as he allowed the Goths to settle in the east in 376 AD after they had been kicked out of their lands by the Huns. Things took a turn for the worse when the Goths rose up against the perceived tyranny of the Roman provincial commanders. The next two years saw a series of running battles with no clear victor.
By 378 AD, Valens had decided to take affirmative action and took a force of 40,000-50,000 men to meet the Goths head on a few miles outside the city of Adrianople in modern day Turkey. The days before the fateful battle featured nothing but blunders from the Roman commander. After learning that his general Sebastianus and the Western Emperor Gratian had enjoyed some success, Valens wanted to taste victory himself and got ready for battle. About three days before Adrianople, Valens received word that the Goths only had an army of around 10,000 men marching towards the city.
If this was his first mistake, his second one was not listening to his nephew. Gratian sent a messenger who told Valens to wait for reinforcements, but the stubborn emperor wanted the glory for himself. The Gothic leader Fritigern sent an envoy to request peace talks, but Valens, convinced of victory due to his supposedly superior numbers, rejected these proposals. It appears that Fritigern was merely buying time.
The Romans marched for seven hours over difficult terrain to meet the opposing Gothic force. By now, Valens’ men were tired, dehydrated and far from peak condition. Sources suggest that the Goths tried to negotiate a hostage exchange; again, this was to buy time for their cavalry to return from a foraging expedition. Valens adopted a standard military formation and marched forward; apparently, some Roman units started the battle before any order was given. As the Romans attacked their foe, the Goth cavalry arrived on the scene and surrounded their enemies.
The heavily armed Gothic cavalry destroyed the Roman light infantry. The Roman heavy infantry should have had the discipline to retreat, but instead, it collapsed and was annihilated. Valens probably died on the battlefield although his body was never recovered. The Romans lost up to two-thirds of its force at Adrianople, and this set the scene for the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.