Gothic War (376–382)
Gothic War | |||||||
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A relief on the Obelisk of Theodosius (389): on the upper tier, Honorius, Arcadius, Theodosius I, and Valentinian II, enthroned and flanked by court officials; on the lower tier, Persians (left) and Goths (right) presenting gifts in supplication[1][2][3] | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Eastern Roman Empire Western Roman Empire | raiders | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Emperor Ricomer Bauto |
Saphrax | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown |
Between 376 and 382 the Goths fought against the
Background
In the summer of 376, a massive number of
The Goths sent ambassadors to
The Thervings were probably allowed to cross at or near the fortress of
Breakout
So many people in such a small area caused a food shortage and the Thervings began to starve.[22] Roman logistics could not cope with the vast numbers, and officials under the command of Lupicinus simply sold off much of the food before it reached the hands of the Goths. Desperate, Gothic families sold many of their children into slavery to Romans for dog meat at the price of one child per one dog.[23][24]
This treatment caused the Therving Goths to grow rebellious and Lupicinus decided to move them south to
Having survived the chaos of the night and the earlier humiliations, Fritigern and the Thervings decided it was time to break the treaty and rebel against the Romans, and the Greuthungi immediately joined them. Fritigern led the Goths away from Marcianople towards
At
For without distinction of age or sex all places were ablaze with slaughter and great fires, sucklings were torn from the very breasts of their mothers and slain, matrons and widows whose husbands had been killed before their eyes were carried off, boys of tender or adult age were dragged away over the dead bodies of their parents. Finally many aged men, crying that they had lived long enough after losing their possessions and their beautiful women, were led into exile with their arms pinioned behind their backs and weeping over the glowing ashes of their ancestral homes.[33]
377: Containing the Goths
Many Goths inside Roman territory joined Fritigern, as did assorted slaves, miners and prisoners.[34] Roman garrisons in fortified towns held out but those outside of them were easy prey. The Goths created a vast wagon train to hold all the loot and supplies pillaged from the Roman countryside and they had much rage against the Roman population for what they had endured. Those who had started as starving refugees had transformed into a powerful army.[35][36]
Valens, now recognizing the seriousness of the situation from his base in Antioch, sent general
Traianus and Profuturus arrived leading troops of Armenians, but Frigeridus, leading the Pannonian and the transalpine auxiliaries, fell ill from gout. Ricomer, having led a force cut from Gratian's palatine army, took command of the combined forces by the mutual consent of the other leaders, probably at Marcianople.
After the battle, the Romans retreated to Marcianople, and the Goths of Fritigern spent seven days within their wagon fort before moving out. Frigeridus destroyed and enslaved a band of marauding Goths under
Then there were to be seen and to lament acts most frightful to see and to describe: women driven along by cracking whips and stupefied with fear, still heavy with their unborn children, which before coming into the world endured many horrors; little children too clinging to their mothers. Then could be heard the laments of high-born boys and maidens, whose hands were fettered in cruel captivity. Behind these were led last of all grown-up girls and chaste wives, weeping and with downcast faces, longing even by a death of torment to forestall the imminent violation of their modesty. Among these was a freeborn man, not long ago rich and independent, dragged along like some wild beast and railing at thee, Fortune, as merciless and blind, since thou hadst in a brief moment deprived him of his possessions and of the sweet society of his dear ones; had driven him from his home, which he saw fallen to ashes and ruins and sacrificed him to a bloody victor, either to be torn from limb to limb or amid blows and tortures to serve as a slave.[48]
The Goths, joined by their new allies the Huns and Alans, travelled south in search of plunder and close to the city of
Archaeological finds in this region and dated to this period reveal Roman villas with signs of abandonment and deliberate destruction.[51] The devastation forced Valens to officially reduce taxes on the populations of Mœsia and Scythia.[52]
378: The Battle of Adrianople
Valens finally extracted himself from the Eastern front, after granting many concessions to the Persians and arrived with most of his army in Constantinople on 30 May 378. His entry into the city caused small riots against him.
Blaming Traianus for the bloody draw at The Willows, Valens demoted him and appointed Sebastianus, who had arrived from Italy, to command and organize the Eastern Roman army. Sebastianus set out with a small force, drawn from the Emperor's own Scholae Palatinae,[c] to engage separated Gothic raiding bands. He went first to Adrianople and such was the fear of the roving Goths, the city needed much persuasion to open its gates to him. After this, Sebastianus scored a few small victories. In one instance, he waited until nightfall to ambush a sleeping Gothic warband along the river Hebrus and slaughtered most of them. The loot Sebastianus brought back was, according to Ammianus, too much for Adrianople to hold. Sebastianus' success convinced Fritigern to recall his raiding parties to the area of Cabyle, lest they be picked off piecemeal.[61][62]
Western Roman Emperor Gratian had meant to join up with Valens' army but events in the West detained him. First there was an invasion by the Lentienses into Gaul in February 378, which Gratian defeated at the battle of Argentovaria.[63] Then intelligence came from the other side of the Rhine warning of barbarian preparations for more invasions. This forced Gratian to preemptively cross the river himself and bring the situation under control as he successfully defeated the Alemanni. This took time however, and it was not until August that Gratian sent a message declaring his victories and his imminent arrival. Valens, who had been impatiently waiting since June for the Western Roman army, was envious of the glory of his nephew and that of Sebastianus, so when he heard that the Goths were moving south towards Adrianople, Valens decamped his army and marched there to head them off. Roman scouting erroneously reported that the Goths, who were seen raiding near Nika, numbered only 10,000 fighting men. Around 7 August Ricomer returned from the West with the Western armies' advanced guard and a new message: Gratian was nearing the Succi pass which led to Adrianople and he advised his uncle to wait for him. Valens called a council of war to decide the issue. According to Ammianus, Sebastianus advocated for an immediate assault upon the Goths and that Victor cautioned to wait for Gratian. According to Eunapius, Sebestianus said they should wait. In any case, the council and Valens decided to attack immediately, egged on by court flatterers of the easy victory to come.[64][65]
The Goths sent envoys led by a Christian priest to the Romans to negotiate on the night of 8 August. With them Fritigern sent two letters. The first stipulated that the Goths only wanted lands in Thrace and in exchange would ally themselves to the Romans. The second letter, privately addressed to Valens, said that Fritigern truly wanted peace but the Romans would have to stay mobilized so that he could enforce the peace on his own people. Whether Fritigern was earnest or not is unknown, as Valens rejected the proposal. On the morning of 9 August, Valens left his treasury, imperial seal and civilian officials in Adrianople and marched north to engage the Goths. At around two in the afternoon the Romans came within sight of the Gothic wagon fort. Unlike the Romans, the Goths were well rested and the two sides drew up into battle formations. Fritigern sent more peace envoys and had long since sent for the aid of the Greuthungi cavalry under Alatheus and Saphrax who were separated from the main Gothic body. These remained undetected by Roman scouts.[67][68][69]
The Eastern Roman army withered under the hot summer sun and the Goths lit fires to blow smoke and ash into the Roman formations. Valens reconsidered the peace offer and was preparing to send Ricomer to meet with Fritigern when two Roman elite Scholae Palatinae units, the Scutarii under Cassio and the Sagittarii under Bacurius, engaged the Goths without orders. This forced the Battle of Adrianople to begin. As the armies engaged, the Greuthungi and Alan cavalry arrived and swung the battle in favor of the Goths. The Roman left flank was surrounded and destroyed and a rout began all along the lines which became a bloodbath for the Roman forces. They were so tightly packed they could not maneuver and some could not lift their arms at all. Few managed to run.[70][71][72]
And so the barbarians, their eyes blazing with frenzy, were pursuing our men, in whose veins the blood was chilled with numb horror: some fell without knowing who struck them down, others were buried beneath the mere weight of their assailants; some were slain by the sword of a comrade; for though they often rallied, there was no ground given, nor did anyone spare those who retreated. Besides all this, the roads were blocked by many who lay mortally wounded, lamenting the torment of their wounds; and with them also mounds of fallen horses filled the plains with corpses. To these ever irreparable losses, so costly to the Roman state, a night without the bright light of the moon put an end.[73]
Sebastianus, Traianus, tribune
The Goths, invigorated by their incredible victory, besieged Adrianople but the city resisted. Its walls were strengthened, huge stones were placed behind the gates and arrows, stones, javelins and artillery rained down upon the attackers. The Goths lost men but made no progress. So they resorted to trickery: they ordered some Roman traitors to pretend to be fleeing from the Goths and infiltrate the city, where they were to set fires to allow the Goths, while the citizens were busy putting the fires out, to attack the undefended walls. The plan did not work. The Roman traitors were welcomed into the city but when their stories did not match, they were imprisoned and tortured. They confessed to the trap and were beheaded. The Goths launched another assault but it too failed. With this final defeat, the Goths gave up and marched away.[76] They together with some Huns and Alans went first to Perinthus and then to Constantinople. There they were fended off in the small battle of Constantinople with the help of the city's Arab garrison. At one moment, an Arab dressed only in a loincloth rushed forward against the Goths, slit one of their throats and sucked out the blood. This terrified the Goths and combined with the immense size of the city and its walls, they decided to march off once again to plunder the countryside.[77][78]
With Valens dead, the Eastern Roman Empire had to operate without an Emperor. The
379–382: Theodosius I and the end of the war
For the events of the Gothic War between 379 and 382, there are few sources, and accounts become more confused, especially concerning the rise of Theodosius I as the new Eastern Roman Emperor. Theodosius, born in Hispania, was the son of a successful general. As dux Mœsiae, he campaigned in the eastern Balkans against the Sarmatians in 374. After his father fell victim to court intrigue following the death of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian I, Theodosius decided to retire to his estates in Spain. Why he was recalled to the East is a mystery. Perhaps his military experience and the critical need for it in any new emperor played a part. It seems Theodosius regained his post as dux Mœsiae. He may have been campaigning against the Goths by late 378. On 19 January 379, Theodosius was made emperor. Sources are silent on how this happened. Whether Gratian initiated Theodosius' elevation himself or the surviving army in the East forced Gratian to accept Theodosius as his colleague is unknown. Whatever the cause, Gratian did acknowledge Theodosius as his co-emperor but promptly left for the West to deal with the Alemanni. Gratian offered little help to Theodosius for dealing with the Goths, outside of giving him control of the Western imperial dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia.[81][82][83]
Theodosius set about recruiting a new army at his headquarters in
Theodosius' general Modares, a Goth himself, won a minor victory against Fritigern. Even small victories such as these were massively lauded by imperial propagandists; there are records of victory celebrations equaling half that of the previous seven decades combined. Theodosius needed victories and needed to be seen as dealing with the Gothic crisis.[86]
In 380, the Goths split.[e] The Greuthungi went to Illyricum and invaded the Western province of Pannonia. What happened is again disputed; they were either defeated by Gratian's forces, or they peaceably signed a deal that settled them in Pannonia. The Thervings went south into Macedonia and Thessaly. Theodosius with his new army marched to meet them but, filled with unreliable barbarians and raw recruits, it melted away. The barbarian soldiers joined Fritigern, and many Romans deserted. With victory the Thervings were free to force the local Roman cities in this new region to pay them tribute. It was then that the Western Roman Empire finally offered some help. Having ended the Gothic invasion of Pannonia, Gratian met Theodosius at Sirmium and directed his generals Arbogast and Bauto to help drive the Goths back into Thrace, which they successfully accomplished by the summer of 381. Theodosius meanwhile left for Constantinople, where he stayed. After years of war, the defeat of two Roman armies and continued stalemate, peace negotiations were opened.[88][89][90]
Peace and consequences
In the peace, the Romans recognized no overall leader of the Goths and the Goths were nominally incorporated into the Roman Empire. The Romans gained a military alliance with them as foederati: the Goths would be drafted into the Roman army and in special circumstances could be called upon to field full armies for the Romans. What differed from traditional Roman practice was that the Goths were given lands inside the Roman Empire itself, in the provinces of Scythia, Mœsia and possibly Macedonia, under their own authority and were not dispersed. 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 large feast.[94][95]
Themistius, a Roman orator and imperial propagandist, while acknowledging that the Goths could not be militarily defeated, sold the peace as a victory for the Romans who had won the Goths over to their side and turned them into farmers and allies. He believed that in time the barbarian Goths would become steadfast Romans themselves like the barbarian Galatians had before them.[96]
For just suppose that this destruction was an easy matter and that we possessed the means to accomplish it without suffering any consequences, although from past experience this was neither a foregone nor likely conclusion, nevertheless just suppose, as I said, that this solution lay within our power. Was it then better to fill Thrace with corpses or with farmers? To make it full of tombs or living men? To progress through a wilderness or a cultivated land? To count up the number of the slaughtered or those who till the soil? To colonize it with
All that [military] ingenuity of ours has proved useless; only your [Theodosius'] advice and your judgment provided an invincible resistance and the victory you won through these inner resources of yours was finer than it would have been had you prevailed by arms. For you have not destroyed those who wronged us but appropriated them. You did not punish them by seizing their land but have acquired more farmers for us. You did not slaughter them like wild beasts but charmed away their savagery just as if someone, after trapping a lion or a leopard in nets, were not to kill it but to accustom it to being a beast of burden. These fire-breathers, harder on the Romans than Hannibal was, have now come over to our side. Tame and submissive, they entrust their persons and their arms to us, whether the emperor wants to employ them as farmers or as soldiers.[99][100]
Despite these hopes, the Gothic War changed the way the Roman Empire dealt with barbarian peoples, both out of and within the imperial border. The Therving Goths would now be able to negotiate their position with Rome, with force if necessary, as a unified people inside the borders of the Empire and would transform themselves into the Visigoths. At times they would act as friends and allies to the Romans, at other times as enemies. This change in Rome's relationship with barbarians would lead to the sack of Rome in 410.[101][102]
The Gothic War also affected the religion of the Empire. Valens had been an
See also
- Sack of Rome (410)
- Late Roman army
- Late Ancient Christianity
Notes
- ^ Peter Heather finds it unconvincing that Valens, who wanted the Goths as auxiliaries in his army, would have them disarmed.[19]
- ^ The exact location is unknown, but it is surmised that it was between Tomi and the mouth of the Danube, or perhaps nearer to Marcianople.[43]
- ^ "three hundred soldiers from each legion"[60]
- ^ What happened is disputed. Our two primary sources for the event, Ammianus and Zosimus, give differing accounts and dates. The account given here is Kulikowski's reading of the sequence of events.[80]
- ^ The exact cause is disputed. Peter Heather speculates the split happened because the combined Gothic forces were simply too hard to feed.[87]
References
- ^ Mitchell, 2007, p. 87.
- ^ Lee, 2013, p. 28.
- ^ Prusac, 2016, p. 74.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 146.
- ^ Wolfram, 1997, pp. 85–86.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 145.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 152.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 145, 507.
- ^ CAH, 1998, p. 98.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 152–153.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 153, 161.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 158.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 161.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 160–162.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 158.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI 4.
- ^ Gibbon, 1776, pp. 1048–1049
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 130.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 509.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 163.
- ^ Wolfram, 1997, p. 82.
- ^ Burns, 1994, p. 24
- ^ Burns, 1994, p. 24
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 131.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 159.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 164.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 133.
- ^ Burns, 1994, p. 26
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 133–134.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 171.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.6.1.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.6.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.6.7–8. Trans. J. C. Rolfe.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 134.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 136.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 172–173.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 137.
- ^ Burns, 1994, pp. 26–27.
- ^ Burns, 1994, p. 27.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.7.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 137–138.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 173.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 137.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 137–138.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.7.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.8.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 137–138.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.8.7–8. Trans. J. C. Rolfe.
- ^ Hughs, Ian (2013). Imperial Brothers: Valentinian, Valens and the Disaster at Adrianople. Pen and Sword. p 170
- ^ Coombs-Hoar, Adrian (2015), Eagles in the Dust: The Roman Defeat at Adrianopolis AD 378. Pen and Sword. pp. 62–63
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 175.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 138.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 176–177.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 139.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.11.1.
- ^ Socrates Scolasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV.38.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 139.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.11.1.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 177.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.11.2. Trans. J. C. Rolfe.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 139.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.11.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 177.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 140–142.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 178–180.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 123.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 139–141.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 177–180.
- ^ CAH, 1998, p. 100.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 139–141.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 177–180.
- ^ CAH, 1998, p. 100.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.13.10–11. Trans. J. C. Rolfe.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 143.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 180.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.15.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.16.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 146.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 146–147.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 146–147.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 149–150.
- ^ Gibbon,1776, Chapter 26.
- ^ Lee, 2007, p. 29.
- ^ CAH, 1998, pp. 101–102.
- ^ Williams, Friell, 1998, pp. 15–16.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 150–151.
- ^ Heather, 2005, p. 183.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 183–185.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 150–151.
- ^ Heather, Moncur, 2001, p. 224.
- ^ Heather, Moncur, 2001, p. 207.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 185–186.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 152–153.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 185–186.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, pp. 152–153.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 163, 186, 511.
- ^ Heather, Moncur, 2001, p. 280.
- ^ Themistius, Oration 16.
- ^ Panella, 2000, p. 225.
- ^ Themistius, Oration 34.
- ^ Kulikowski, 2006, p. 145.
- ^ Heather, 2005, pp. 186, 502.
- ^ Wolfram, 1997, p. 87.
Sources
Primary sources
- Ammianus Marcellinus , The History, XXXI.
Secondary sources
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- Cameron, A.; Garnsey, P. (1998). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 13. London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-05440-9.
- Gibbon, Edward (1776). The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-043393-7.
- Heather, P.; Moncur, D. (2001). Politics, Philosophy and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius. Translated Texts for Historians. Vol. 36. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-84631-382-0.
- ISBN 978-0-19-515954-7.
- ISBN 978-0-521-8-4633-2.
- Lee, A. D. (2007). War in Late Antiquity: A Social History. Ancient World at War. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-22925-4.
- Lee, A. D. (2013). From Rome to Byzantium AD 363 to 565: The Transformation of Ancient Rome. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2791-2.
- Mitchell, Stephen (2007). A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284–641: The Transformation of the Ancient World. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-0856-0.
- Panella, R. J. (2000). The Private Orations of Themistius. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Prusac, Marina (2016). From Face to Face: Recarving of Roman Portraits and the Late-antique Portrait Arts. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-32184-7.
- Williams, S.; Friell, J. G. P. (1998) [1994]. Theodosius: The Empire at Bay. Roman Imperial Biographies. New York: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07447-5.
- ISBN 978-0-520-08511-4.