Adrianople & The Entry Of The Visigoths Into The Roman Empire
In the fourth quarter of the 4th century A.D., the Huns, horse-mounted nomads of Asian roots, swept into the Black Sea region and utterly disrupted the East Germanic world. They defeated and absorbed many of the peoples comprising the Gothic Confederation. The Ostrogoths, or East Goths, were completely overrun. The Visigoths, or West Goths, were defeated as well, and so in 376 A.D. they turned to the Emperor Valens, the Roman emperor in the West, for shelter against the ferocious onslaught of the Huns.
However, the heavy influx of barbarian refugees into the empire brought with it administrative problems that the Roman authorities had never encountered before, and the resulting poor treatment of the Visigoths led to war. The war lasted close to two years, culminating in the battle of Adrianople in 378 A.D., in which the Roman army suffered a disastrous defeat, and Valens himself died. Valens’ successor, Theodosius, had little choice but to settle the Visigoths along the Danube, not as regular Roman citizens, but as federated soldiers under their own leadership. Theodosius’ treaty with the Visigoths set a precedent for the settlement of a whole separate political entity within the empire, and foreshadowed the disintegration of the empire through a gradual transformation from within.
In the fourth quarter of the 4th century A.D., the Huns, horse-mounted nomads of Asian roots, swept into the Black Sea region and utterly disrupted the East Germanic world. They defeated and absorbed many of the peoples comprising the Gothic Confederation. The Ostrogoths, or East Goths, were completely overrun. The Visigoths, or West Goths, were defeated as well, and so in 376 A.D. they turned to the Emperor Valens, the Roman emperor in the West, for shelter against the ferocious onslaught of the Huns.
However, the heavy influx of barbarian refugees into the empire brought with it administrative problems that the Roman authorities had never encountered before, and the resulting poor treatment of the Visigoths led to war. The war lasted close to two years, culminating in the battle of Adrianople in 378 A.D., in which the Roman army suffered a disastrous defeat, and Valens himself died. Valens’ successor, Theodosius, had little choice but to settle the Visigoths along the Danube, not as regular Roman citizens, but as federated soldiers under their own leadership. Theodosius’ treaty with the Visigoths set a precedent for the settlement of a whole separate political entity within the empire, and foreshadowed the disintegration of the empire through a gradual transformation from within.
| Updated >> 21 September 2004 |