Valens collected his forces to fight them and also invoked the aid of his nephew. Gratian promised help, but a young Alamannian of his guard, away on leave among his own people, having spoken of these preparations, the Alamanni thought it a favourable opportunity to attack the denuded frontiers and their movement made it necessary to keep back the troops destined for Valens. Yet every day added to the peril of this prince. All the barbarians settled in the Danubian provinces, all the Germanic captives whom the emperors had transported there, hastened to join their brethren. For a whole year the legions vainly tried to stay the devastation. At last, in 378, Valens arrived with a part of the army of the East. Gratian was also on the march; but Valens wanted to prevent the concentration of the barbarians in a single body and advanced against them.[c]
The Goths had proposed to occupy the defiles on the road from Constantinople to Hadrianopolis, but the march of the imperial troops was conducted with so much skill and celerity, that they reached the latter place unimpeded and secured themselves in a strong camp beneath its walls. A council was held to decide on future operations.[e]
VALENS MARCHES AGAINST THE GOTHS
[378 A.D.]
On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked among the most inauspicious of the Roman calendar, the emperor Valens, leaving under a strong guard his baggage and military treasure, marched from Hadrianopolis to attack the Goths, who were encamped about twelve miles from the city. By some mistake of the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right wing or column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy whilst the left was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace, made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun, were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic camp; the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the dangerous commission, was applauded.
A Gothic Warrior
(After Hothmoth)
The count of the domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had proceeded some way in the space between the two armies, when he was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same moment the flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose return was anxiously expected by the general of the Goths, descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept across the plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous but irresistible charge of the barbarian host. The event of the battle of Hadrianopolis, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be described in a few words; the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to extricate a body of foot, encompassed on an open plain by superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a narrow space, where it was impossible for them to extend their ranks, or even to use with effect their swords and javelins.