[22] Valens was the Eastern emperor from 364 until his death in the battle of Adrianople in 378. His brother Valentinian was emperor in the West from 364 to 375. Gratian, son of Valentinian, was the real sovereign in the West when the Visigoths crossed the Danube.
[23] That is, upon the writer's people, the Romans.
[24] The Marcomanni and Quadi occupied a broad stretch of territory along the upper Danube in what is now the northernmost part of Austria-Hungary. Pontus was a province in northern Asia Minor.
[25] Mœller (Histoire du Moyen Age, p. 58), estimates that the Goths who now entered Thrace numbered not fewer than 200,000 grown men, accompanied by their wives and children. The Italian Villari, in his Barbarian Invasions of Italy, Vol. I., p. 49, gives the same estimate. The tendency of contemporary chroniclers to exaggerate numbers has misled many older writers. Even Mœller's and Villari's estimate would mean a total of upwards of a million people. That there were so many may well be doubted. The Vandals played practically as important a part in the history of their times as did the Visigoths; yet it is known that when the Vandals passed through Spain, in the first half of the fifth century, they numbered not more than 20,000 fighting men, with their wives and children.
[26] Nice was about thirty miles east of Adrianople.
[27] The Visigoths under Fridigern finally took their position near Adrianople and Valens led his army into that vicinity and pitched his camp, fortifying it with a rampart of palisades. From the Western emperor, Gratian, a messenger came asking that open conflict be postponed until the army from Rome could join that from Constantinople. But Valens, easily flattered by some of his over-confident generals, foolishly decided to bring on a battle at once. Apparently he did not dream that defeat was possible.
[28] After the battle here described, which occurred in the open plain, the victorious Goths proceeded to the siege of the city itself, in which, however, they were unsuccessful. The taking of fortified towns was an art in which the Germans were not skilled.
[29] When both armies were in position Fridigern, "being skilful in divining the future," says Ammianus, "and fearing a doubtful struggle," sent a herald to Valens with the promise that if the Romans would give hostages to the Goths the latter would cease their depredations and even aid the Romans in their wars. Richomeres, the Roman cavalry leader, was chosen by Valens to serve as a hostage; but as he was proceeding to the Gothic camp the soldiers who accompanied him made a rash attack upon a division of the enemy and precipitated a battle which soon spread to the whole army.
[30] The goddess of war, regarded in Roman mythology as the sister of Mars.
[31] Signs of the zodiac, sometimes employed by the Romans to give figurative expression to the time of day.