04-16-2014, 03:18 PM
Not much information I can add about the battle but here is my humble contribution.
Although Adrianople seems to be the battle that captures the imagination of historians as the point where the cream of the Roman military were destroyed by the Goths. You have to go back about 127 years to the battle of Abrittus which took place in Lower Moesia, south of the Danube and was the first major battle between the Goths and Rome where the Roman emperor Decius and his army were in pursuit of a Gothic army that was returning north to cross the Danube laden with booty and hostages including Roman Senators after rampaging through Thrace. The Roman army was defeated and destroyed and the emperor and his son were killed, Decius being the first Roman emperor to be killed in battle. There is not much information about the size of the armies and casualties but the successor of Decius, Gallus had to conclude a humiliating truce with the Goths in which they were allowed to keep their loot and to cross the Danube unmolested.
Maybe one of the reasons that the Goths had free reign in the area because there were a lot of Goths already settled in Lower Moesia as since the time of Decius there were a number of wars between the Goths & Heruls and Romans including naval attacks on the empire so accomodations would have had to be made including settlement of Goths, Heruls, Carpi & possibly Bastarnae south of the Danube so maybe by the time of Adrianople there were sympathisers to the Gothic cause.
As to the size of the armies, I thought that Valens had to gather a scratch force as he was fighting a campaign in the east. Probably a case of a series of incidents of bad generalship and decision making by the Roman forces which didn't help.
Although Adrianople seems to be the battle that captures the imagination of historians as the point where the cream of the Roman military were destroyed by the Goths. You have to go back about 127 years to the battle of Abrittus which took place in Lower Moesia, south of the Danube and was the first major battle between the Goths and Rome where the Roman emperor Decius and his army were in pursuit of a Gothic army that was returning north to cross the Danube laden with booty and hostages including Roman Senators after rampaging through Thrace. The Roman army was defeated and destroyed and the emperor and his son were killed, Decius being the first Roman emperor to be killed in battle. There is not much information about the size of the armies and casualties but the successor of Decius, Gallus had to conclude a humiliating truce with the Goths in which they were allowed to keep their loot and to cross the Danube unmolested.
Maybe one of the reasons that the Goths had free reign in the area because there were a lot of Goths already settled in Lower Moesia as since the time of Decius there were a number of wars between the Goths & Heruls and Romans including naval attacks on the empire so accomodations would have had to be made including settlement of Goths, Heruls, Carpi & possibly Bastarnae south of the Danube so maybe by the time of Adrianople there were sympathisers to the Gothic cause.
As to the size of the armies, I thought that Valens had to gather a scratch force as he was fighting a campaign in the east. Probably a case of a series of incidents of bad generalship and decision making by the Roman forces which didn't help.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
