The Gothic War 376 382 The Fall of Rome 2

Are you ready to start your new online venture or creative endeavour? Make it happen with Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build an online presence and follow your dream. But more on that at the end of the video. By the summer of 375, grim portents hung over the Black Sea. For more than a hundred years, the Greatungi Goths, one half of a sprawling confederation, stretching from the Danube to the Caucasus, had called the northern shore home. Archaeological evidence suggests that these people were farmers at heart, ruled over by Germanic warlords with private armies. Like most of the tribes of Europe at the time, they'd had their wandering days. For centuries in fact, they'd searched for their place in the world. And sometime during the 2nd century AD, on the abundant shores of the Black Sea, home to Greek colonies for close to a thousand years, they'd finally found it. For a time, the Goths waged wars and campaigns of conquest against their neighbours, and against the rich and powerful Roman Empire to their south. But now, for the most part, they were content to drink Roman wine and sing tales of old. Little did they know it, but their world was about to come crashing down around them. Just like it had done so many times before, and would do so again so many times in the future, death came riding in on a horse. Bands of opportunistic riders had come into the area before. For years in fact, ambitious Alanic horsemen had come in off the steps to the north and the east to try their luck against the Gothic armies, with varying degrees of success. Before them, the Sarmatian hordes and Iranic-speaking people had been an ever-present fixture in Eastern Europe. But now, in that fortuitous summer of 375, a very different foe began to appear out of the plains to the north of the Black Sea. A foe that over the century to come would sweep away all in its path, remaking all of the tribes and cultures of Eastern Europe, and absorbing what was left into their ever-growing empire. Much to the misfortune of all of the inhabitants of Europe, the Huns had arrived. Even amongst the people that they considered to be barbarians, the Romans singled out this group as different, for they seemed to have sprung out of the very earth itself. Like a nightmare catapulted from the depths of hell, Hunnic nobility practised cranial deformation from birth, turning their warriors, as far as the Romans were concerned, into hideous nightmares. Like all step-riders, the Huns practised horse archery, though this was unlike any seen by the Romans before. Their recurve composite bows, cutting-edge technology honed out on the wild pasturelands of Eurasia, dwarfed those that came before in both size and power. For the Huns had illustrious heritage of their own. According to one scholarly tradition and a great deal of archaeological evidence, they were descended from the Xiongnu, a steppe empire once the bane of China and the reason for the building of the Great War. Of course, the Romans had other ideas. Ammianus Marcellinus, a former soldier and one of the last great Roman historians of the age, writing just after their arrival at the borders of the empire, says the following. A race of men hitherto unknown had now arisen from a hidden nook of the earth like a tempest of snows from the high mountains and was seizing or destroying everything in its way. They exceeded every level of savagery and were aflame with an inhuman desire for plundering others' property. For the 6th century historian Jordanus, such was the horror that they were by then regarded with, the Huns must have descended from evil spirits, springing fully formed from primordial swamps far to the east at the ends of the earth. By 375, the Alans, the Sarmatian people, former masters of the steppes to the north and east of the Greatungi goths, had either been driven off their lands or absorbed into the ever-expanding Hunnic confederation, now stretching far out to the east to the unknown lands beyond the horizon, where in reality the vast majority of the Huns probably still remained. Nevertheless, despite their sedentary nature, mostly subsisting from wheat, barley and millet, evidenced from substantial archaeological information, Greatungi society was still heavily martial in nature. Though Aryan Christianity had arrived on boats and trading wagons from the south over the preceding century, even leading to the establishment of a bishopric and innumerable converts, most goths were still devout pagans who venerated the Germanic gods of their ancestors. The goths didn't exist in a vacuum, and though they themselves were probably powerful warlords with private armies, ruling over a varied subject population, many of their subjects were pastoralists, including both Sarmatians and Alans. They'd learned a thing or two from their neighbours and from their time on the steppe, becoming excellent cavalrymen in the process, more than a match for the Romans in an open fight. Thus, in 375, under their ruler Omanaric, King of Kings, said by later chroniclers to enjoy hegemony over all the lands in the Black Sea to the Baltic, the Greatungi went to war. Though he could likely call upon tens of thousands of battle-hardened warriors of his own, upon engaging the Huns, it immediately became clear that a drastic change of tactics would be needed. Unlike conventional armies, this was a fully mobile, autonomous war machine. Individual bands of exceptionally elite riders would circle around the slower gothic force, looking for any potential weak spots, before exploiting them and closing in for the kill. War was like hunting for these men, and hunting was a pastime that they had mastered from childhood. And of course, the Huns had a secret weapon, gigantic longbows, longer on the bottom to maximise power and range, expertly fired from horseback. Omanaric put up as much resistance as he could, but time and time again his warriors crumbled against the superior tactics of the Huns. Finally, after suffering a particularly crushing defeat, Omanaric came upon a grave decision. In gothic society, during a time of extreme duress, great sacrifices were required to be made, and these were the darkest of times. Throwing down his sword, tearing off his breastplate, Omanaric, portrayed as a great judge and lawgiver in later sources, presented himself to the high before being ritually sacrificed as an offering to the gods. With Omanaric's funeral pyre still smouldering, the last remaining warriors assembled, if the Great Tungi thought that the gods might have delivered them then, they were sorely mistaken. And besides, the Huns they faced may very well have only been the vanguard of a much, much larger horde still preoccupied with events far to the east beyond the Volga. When Omanaric's successor Vithomir went out to face the approaching warbands, emboldened by the great sacrifice of his liege lord, almost immediately he was cut down in the fighting. A new strategy was needed. In place of a high king, now arose to warlords, the foremost military commanders of the tribe, Aletheus and Saffrax, ruling nominally on behalf of Vithomir's young son. In the wake of the increasingly devastating raids on their people, and very likely discovering that these Huns were only the spear point of a far larger nation in flux, they made the momentous decision to uproot their entire society. After an interim of a hundred years or more, the Goths were on the move. Along with everything they could carry, Aletheus and Saffrax led the entire Grey Thungi nation west. Estimates vary wildly on the actual numbers involved in the exodus, with historians suggesting anywhere between 200,000 and 20,000 people. In all likelihood, large numbers of subject peoples were probably left behind to be absorbed into the next warrior elite to come along. Yet nevertheless, this was still a huge population movement, which can still be seen in the archaeological record, with the formerly expensive trade items and metalwork no longer being found from around this time. Moving hard and fast to the west, when they finally reached the Dniester river, to their horror, Aletheus and Saffrax were met by another force, guarding one of the forts. Thankfully, this was at least nominally a friendly army. A significant army of Tvingiai Goths, their western brethren, under their High King Athanaric. They too had begun to fall under the remit of Hunnic incursions, and now sought an audience with the Grey Atingiai to decide what to do next. Before the two sides could come to terms however, a torrent of black arrows began falling upon Athanaric and his men. It was the Huns, riding hard and fast into the rear of the Tvingiai, in search of slaves and plunder. In the ensuing panic, for lack of a better option, the Grey Atingiai pushed on west and southwards, away from the Huns, and towards the Danube. For better or for worse, and faced with a near impossible situation, they made the decision to try their luck once more against the most powerful state that Europe had ever known. They headed towards the Empire. The Tvingiai meanwhile, retreated back to their heartlands in the Carpathian Mountains. There, Athanaric attempted to stem the Hunnic tide by constructing a fortified line against them, possibly at the old Roman walls on the river Alt. Ultimately however, the plan came to naught, the Tvingiai being constantly harassed and raided by Hunnic outriders as they continued to work on the defences. His prestige already weakened by the Roman Emperor Valens' incursions across the Danube in the previous decade, which had seen widespread destruction and lands harried, belief in Athanaric seems to have gradually filtered away to be replaced by a new figurehead, a man with a very different plan. For this leader proposed a controversial but brilliant solution to the problem, the Tvingiai would head to the Danube and ask the Romans for sanctuary. For that man was Fritigern, a convert to Arian Christianity, and in 376 he led the vast majority of his people towards the border to try their luck with the Romans, leaving Athanaric and just a handful of fighters to hold out in the Carpathians. Later Roman sources tend to suggest that actual fighting may have broken out between the two factions, perhaps at an even earlier point during the 360s, though whether this was the case or not, it was Fritigern who eventually came out on top. Whilst stressing his own Christian faith and the potential loyalty of his people, Fritigern sent messengers out to Valens to explain his dire situation. Valens, currently embroiled in his own lengthy war with Persia, had little choice but to allow the Goths asylum in Thrace, where they would be settled and be subject to military service. Gothic warriors already being a common sight throughout the Eastern Empire. The voluntary submission of an immigrant group was very common during this time, the swearing of oaths, being supervised by the army. It was similar to previous arrangements with Sarmatians brought over by the Emperor Constantine earlier in the century in 334. Amanius Marcellinus comments that initially the arrangement caused more joy than fear. In return, the Goths would be treated the same as other Roman subjects, an arrangement known as receptio, service for settlement. As it turned out, neither happened. Perhaps the sheer numbers of Goths weren't anticipated, perhaps there were genuine food shortages in the Eastern Empire as a result of the Persian War. Perhaps the Roman administrators were simply incompetent. It's difficult to ascertain, especially given the propagandistic nature of Roman sources. Though what we do know is that within a matter of mere months, a colossal humanitarian crisis unfolded as the entirety of the Tervingian Gothic people handed over their weapons and crossed over the Roman border to seek the protection of the Eastern Empire. Much of the blame was later apportioned to the Roman governor left in charge of the situation by Valens, namely Lupicinus, as well as his subordinate Maximus. Unable to provide the Goths with enough food to survive and being placed in marginal living conditions with sub-par land, this once proud people were allegedly reduced to selling their children into slavery in return for dogs to eat. The highest ranking members of society to the lowest alike were apparently subject to this. For many commenters, it was a standard deal made into corruption on a massive scale, with Roman administrators apparently enriching themselves rather than feeding their new Gothic subjects. Meanwhile, on the Danubian frontier, yet more Goths appeared. The entire Greothungian nation led by Saffrax and Alatheus. They'd been fighting the Huns for years and now followed the example of Fritigern in seeking asylum. The Romans hadn't anticipated this turn of events, rejecting Saffrax's request outright. Though, the frontiersmen looking out at them across the river were likely filled with apprehension, for this tribe was still fully armed and fed. Whether it was related to the arrival of the Greothungiae or not, we can't tell. But soon enough, Fritigern, along with the highest ranking Tervingiae leaders, including a certain Alaviv, were invited to a banquet by Lupicinus. On paper, there was nothing particularly unusual about Gothic leaders being invited to a banquet at the city of Marcianople. They were about to become officers in the army after all. Though in reality, Romans had little respect for barbarian kings, always viewing them as far less than themselves. They'd successfully cut off the heads of coalitions many times in the past, and absorbed the rest. In fact, Marcellinus describes at least four different occasions over a two-decade period where similar banquet tactics were used. Only one of these was an unauthorised event, the others all being the direct result of imperial orders. Whether this order came directly from Valens or not, he likely didn't see this as any different to those that had How wrong he was. At some point during the night, whether it was pre-planned or not, we can't tell, but Lupicinus gave an order to his men. Praetorians came marching into the room, seized the Gothic leadership, slaughtered their retainers in front of them. Yet somehow, word got out of the treachery, and a mass brawl broke out. Another eventuality the Romans hadn't planned on was that a large group of Goths had accompanied their leaders, and the brawl now threatened to break out into all-out war between the two sides. Somehow Fritigern managed to convince Lupicinus that if he let him go, he could calm the Goths down and avert further catastrophe. Pushed up against a wall, Lupicinus acceded to his demands. Instead of calming down the fighting however, by morning the Goths were in full-scale revolt, devolving into an orgy of violence and mayhem, probably motivated in part by the need to find food. Before long, downtrodden Thracian slaves began to join in with the uprising, along with more and more Goths settled in the rest of the province, already having armed themselves in secret, perhaps smuggling swords across the border. Lupicinus gathered up his forces and advanced on Fritigern's position with his men, sparking the first full-scale engagement of the war, the Battle of Marcianople. The Romans were quickly overwhelmed, and astonishingly, their standards taken. Few besides Lupicinus escaped the fray that day, thus providing a massive morale victory for Fritigern and the Tervingii. Little did either commander know it at the time, but this conflict, the first in the slow death of the Western Roman Empire, would rage on for another five years, tearing the Balkans apart and remaking them in a new image. The Gothic War had truly begun. The total surprise defeat of Lupicinus at Marcianople left the Romans without a standing army in the region. The Goths could now move about at will, which they did, roaming far and wide in the search of food, and probably plunder as well, threatening to disrupt the Via Appia, the tributary from Duras on the Adriatic to the eastern capital of Constantinople, a highway that linked the western and eastern sides of the empire together. The battle also sparked off an increasingly devastating chain of events for Valens, still far to the east, facing off against the Persians. At the regional capital of Hadrianople, named for the famed warrior emperor of two centuries earlier, was a force of Gothic auxiliaries, under warriors named Suridas and Collias. We don't know when they entered imperial service or which tribe they belonged to, but when they heard the news of the revolt, rather than head to the Persian front as ordered, they abandoned their posts and joined Fritigern. Meanwhile, at the border, rejected by the Romans, yet still harassed from behind by the Huns, the entire Graeatingii nation simply crossed over the border. Though there were many Roman frontier castles, they were manned by garrisoned soldiers, used to reconnaissance missions, not frontline attacks. And anyway, the Goths simply went round them and on into the empire. Finally, by the spring of 377, whilst Valens desperately attempted to negotiate peace with the Persians, a trickling of fresh Roman troops arrived in the his nephew, the young emperor Gratian, dispatched his Frankish general, Ricomeres, whereas Valens himself sent troops from Armenia, under the generals Trajanus and Profutorus. Though relatively small in numbers, both sides of the empire being preoccupied by conflicts elsewhere, the forces met up by the summer of 377. Now faced with organised resistance, the Goths quickly withdrew north of the Hamus mountains, laden down with food supplies and plunder. There was an oppressed peasant population there, who had their own scores to settle, and many joined the Goths, or at least helped them at the time being, either out of fear or resentment at the Romans. Advancing cautiously through the mountains, both armies finally met at a place Marcellinus calls Ad Celesis, the town by the willows. There, in September 377, both sides suffered grim losses in a vicious battle that raged until nightfall. At one point, the Roman wing collapsed entirely under the Gothic onslaught, but was reinforced by more men, pushed into the breach at the last moment. The war was now very much in full flow. The battle of the willows had been costly for both sides, though for now the Romans took the advantage, having pushed the Goths out of lowland Thrace entirely. For the first time since Lupercinus' disgrace, they had the initiative again. Yet still heavily outnumbered, they had no choice but to hold themselves up in the naturally imposing defences provided by the passes through the Hamas mountains, and there await reinforcements. Marcianople probably housed the most men, but there were other garrisons set up throughout the mountains too. Repeatedly the Goths tried to break through the Roman line, but were driven back at every turn, with grim losses mounting up for both sides. Before long however, the Romans were about to come head to head with the very reason why the Goths had entered their lands in the first place. For Fritigern had enlisted allies, Hunnic and Alanic horsemen out of the steppes, driven through the gap punched into the Danubian frontier by the Great Ungii, in search of plunder and glory. These Huns were autonomous of the main groups still far to the east, and lent their much needed support to the Goths, in return for a share in the plunder. Realising they had no hope against this new threat, the Romans began to pull out to the south. This time the Goths were far more furious than before, ravaging and destroying everything they could find, claiming loot and plunder, and reaping their revenge on the Romans. By early 378, an expensive peace deal finally achieved with Persia, Valens' forces began to arrive at Constantinople, with the full might of the eastern field army probably being ready by around May. The city had been a hotbed of resistance against Valens at the start of his reign, and its inhabitants probably weren't particularly happy to see him. Nevertheless, as far as most people were concerned, imperial invincibility would soon be re-established, with the western emperor Gratian promising to come personally with his best soldiers. Within a matter of months it was assumed that the vast bulk of the Goths would either be killed or resettled throughout the empire as slaves or indentured farmers, the leaders and best soldiers being thrown to wild beasts in arenas from Britannia to Arabia for the enjoyment of the masses. It soon became clear however, that the Germanic tribes across the upper Danube and the Rhine region, facing against the western empire, had other ideas. A large force of Alamanni under an ex-soldier, aware of the dire situation in the east, came back across the frontier after completing their service, marching directly over the frozen Rhine with a large force of Lentienzes to harry and plunder. For Gratian, only able to spare another small force of men, the Goths and Valens would have to wait. For now at least, Valens was on his own. The Goths gave no hint of where they might attack from, their foraging parties fanning out over the entire Balkans. One of these parties was intercepted near Hadrianople and wiped out in a daring night attack by Valens' generals. Realising the sheer size of the Roman army now facing them, thought to number somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 men, the assembled Gothic leaders called all their forces together so they weren't separated and picked off one by one by the Romans, and they themselves began preparations for a set-piece battle. Meanwhile at Hadrianople, Valens seems to have received intel that only 10,000 Goths approached, just Fritigern's Tervingian, seemingly being unaware that Saffrax and Aletheus' Great Ungii had joined the force too. At the same time, envoys from the Western Empire arrived, making much of Gratian's victories against the Alemanni, and assuring that he was now on the way with the full might of the Western field army. Thus, on the night of August 8th, when Fritigern sent a Christian priest to the Roman camp as a peace envoy, he was flatly rejected. Two more peace envoys from the Gothic army then arrived, offering to retreat in return for giving Fritigern the title King of the Goths, suggesting that his assembled nobles would be assuaged by a show of Roman power, and then back down, leading to a peaceful solution. Either motivated by jealousy of his Western compatriot, as is sometimes implied, or assuming that he outnumbered the Goths, Valens had none of it, preparing instead for an all-out attack. As far as he was concerned, this was now a face-saving campaign. After the embarrassing events of the past two years, the Goths simply had to be annihilated. Though Valens dithered with a peace envoy, potentially in the process of exchanging hostages, and with Gratian's Frankish general, Ricomeres, urging him to consider peace, without warning two Roman units attacked, thus beginning the battle in a disorderly full-frontal Roman attack. For better or for worse, there was no stopping the battle at Adrianople now. If you want to hear Ammianus Marcellinus' entire epic account of the battle of Adrianople, then check out our second channel, Voices of the Past, now. The Goths had been busy during the night, lighting gigantic pyres of flame, which blew blinding smoke with the wind, right into the eyes of the advancing Roman soldiers. Though nonetheless, the elite legionaries made good progress, smashing through the Gothic line, and pushing the jeering warriors right back to their fortified baggage train, women and children behind. As per the standard formation of the time, the Roman army deployed a mixture of cavalry and infantry on each wing, with heavy infantry in the centre, the mainstay of any Roman force. As the Roman left wing surged forwards however, to try and envelop the Goths, disaster struck. A force of Graeatingii cavalry under Alatheus and Saffrax, supported by contingents of Alans and Huns, struck out to smash into the approaching Roman army. Operating on bad intelligence, Valens simply didn't have the numbers to push them back, and the left wing collapsed, perhaps caught between the defenders of the wagon train and the onrushing cavalry. It was the Roman centre that then suffered a massive flanking movement, completely surrounding and pressing in those unfortunate enough to stand in the shield wall. Already beleaguered by hours of marching in the hot sun, and further weakened by the massive fires set by the Goths, and the chaos that ensued, those who could broke and fled, harried and pursued by outriders all the while. Though for many, retreat simply wasn't an option, dying where they stood. No one knows Valens' final fate, though outlandish stories circulated, he certainly lost his life in the chaos. One of a very few emperors to die under the swords of foreign foes, rather than to the daggers of his own rivals to power. This was perhaps the worst Roman defeat since Cannae 600 years before, and certainly the greatest military disaster in more than 300 years. Not only had a ruling emperor died on the battlefield, a huge deal at the time, but the death toll of his army is estimated at anywhere between 10 and 20,000 career soldiers. 16 elite regiments received such great losses that day, that they were never reconstituted. The Goths were now masters of the entire Balkans. Though the battle ensured their short-term survival, in reality it secured little else. In the rest of the empire, the Romans were still very much in the driver's seat, and Gratian was still on his way with another vast army from the western provinces of the empire. In the aftermath of Adrianople, the Goths laid siege to the city, though they were no experts at this type of warfare, and before long, they headed east. With the entirety of Thrace to Rome in, some sources suggest that the Goths came within kilometres of Constantinople itself, only being driven back by units of Arab auxiliaries, who apparently made a point of drinking the blood out of their enemy's slit throats, in order to intimidate their would-be attackers. With Valens dead, and the Goths still very much at large, a new eastern emperor was needed, and Gratian picked just the right man for the job. An aristocratic career soldier from Spain, whose father had distinguished himself on the battlefield under Valens' father Valentinian. In early 379, Theodosius was proclaimed as emperor of the east, and almost immediately, he went to war. The last three years of the Gothic war is curious in its severe lack of documentation. Whether this stems from Roman embarrassment at their inability to contain the Goths, or from simple accident of history, we can never know. But by 380, after an unrecorded series of events, Theodosius' reconstituted eastern field army met the Goths in battle near the city of Thessaloniki in the northern Balkans. Though very few details remain, Theodosius' new army, perhaps made up of rookies put into the fields too early, fell apart under yet another massive Gothic victory. The Goths continued their wanderings far and wide throughout the Balkans, never again during the war would the Romans risk another set-piece battle. Begrudgingly, Theodosius handed control over to Gratian's generals, perhaps forced to deal with internal issues in his capital in the aftermath of his failure. It was they who finally pushed the Goths out of Thessaly in 381. Curiously, in that same year, though much had changed in the world since we last heard of him, the old Gothic king Athanaric appears back in the historical record, having survived his war with the Huns in the Carpathians. This time, he is an honoured guest of Theodosius in Constantinople, signing a treaty of friendship with the Eastern Roman Empire. Where the military had failed, Theodosius would now turn to the other great Roman forte, diplomacy. In 382, a peace treaty was finally made with the Goths, under much the same terms that Fritigern had sued for before the Battle of Adrianople some four years earlier. He would be proclaimed King of the Goths, and they would be allowed to stay within the borders of the Empire, not as subjects, but under self-rule, eventually in return for military service. What distinguished this deal from established Roman practice, was that the Goths were given lands inside the Roman Empire itself, in the provinces of Scythia, Moesia, and possibly Macedonia. They were ruled under their own authority, and were not dispersed, like previous peoples before them. This allowed them to stay together as a unified people, with their own internal laws and cultural traditions. To seal the agreement, Theodosius threw the Goths a massive feast. It was an astonishing PR victory for the Romans, if it could be spun the right way, which it was, almost immediately from Arabia to Scottish borders, by orators such as Themistius. Though, however much they wished it to be different, the Romans had lost the war. Nevertheless, in its aftermath, the borders were once more secure. In 386, another large group of Goths tried to get over the frontier. They were massacred, the survivors drafted into the army on the Persian frontier, the rest becoming tenant farmers in Asia Minor. Most Romans, the lower estimates being 70 million of them from Spain to the Euphrates, still hadn't seen a Goth. The status quo was maintained, with both emperors still firmly in charge. Although the young Gratian's behaviour increasingly becoming erratic, the rich heartlands were all still intact, with the only change being a Gothic kingdom now existing within its borders. Themistius was confident that the Goths would become assimilated over time, using the example of the Galatians in Asia Minor in the 3rd century BC. As we shall see, he couldn't have been more wrong. The Romans would never again treat with the Goths on their own terms, and besides, yet more, nations and peoples, now gazed greedily and hopefully at the empire, were shown to be not as impenetrable as previously thought. This video is brought to you by Squarespace. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build an online presence and follow your dreams. Whether it's podcasting, creative writing, photography or an online shop, whatever it is that you do creatively in your life, you can make it more connected and visible to the world with Squarespace, one of the best website designers in the world. 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