Adrianople, today, Edirne, Turkey, is one of the most fought-over places on earth. As John Keegan pointed out, no less than fifteen battles or sieges are known to have taken place there between a Roman civil war clash in AD 323 and two battles in the Balkan Wars of 1913 (A History of Warfare, 1993, p. 70). The reason for Adrianople’s prominence, as Keegan noted, is its strategic location. The city sits on a plain that controls movement between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and between southern Europe and Asia Minor. At the southern end of that plain is a great prize—Istanbul, the ancient Constantinople, a great, fortified city that beginning in 330 was the de facto eastern capital of the Roman Empire. On August 9, 378 Adrianople became the site of one of Rome’s worst military defeats.
At the time, Rome faced challenges in both Europe and (southwestern) Asia. In Asia the Sasanian Persians, with their superb cavalry and aggressive policies, represented a continual military threat. In Europe, Rome’s long-term Germanic enemies had become in recent years more disciplined, better armed, and less divided. In 378 Sasanians were relatively quiescent; the Germanic peoples were a more immediate problem for Rome. The Germans were on the move. The Huns, a fierce, horse-riding people from the steppes, had driven a Germanic nation called the Goths from their homes. In 376 they asked for permission to cross the Danube River and settle in Roman territory. Eager for new military recruits and additional taxpayers, the Romans agreed. About 200,000 Goths settled in Thrace, today roughly Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and European Turkey.
No sooner did the Goths come into the bailiwick of Roman officials than they had inflicted upon them the corruption and abuse that were endemic in Roman government in the period. Soon the Goths faced a hunger crisis, to which they responded in 376–377 in what seemed like the only way, by raiding Roman farms and towns and fighting the Roman forces of order. Such behavior came naturally to the Goths, a martial people.
Eventually the Romans had had enough. They decided to put down the Goths once and for all. In that era, the empire was divided between two emperors, one each in the east and west, the better to deal with the abundance of security threats on the borders. The eastern emperor was Valens. A mature man of nearly 50, with considerable military experience, Valens decided to deal with the Goths straightaway. He marched out of Constantinople with about 15,000 troops. More soldiers were on the way, led by the western emperor, Gratian. Gratian was Valens’ nephew and only 19. Valens considered it beneath his dignity to wait for help from, well, from a kid.
The Adrianople area is very hot in summer; the Romans suffered from heat, thirst, and hunger. If Valens was aware of that, he discounted it. Besides, Valens’ intelligence predicted victory. Rome had an ingrained habit of underestimating those it considered to be barbarians. But over the centuries of contact with Rome, the Germanic peoples had only become better at the military art. The Gothic leader, Fritigern, was experienced and shrewd. He knew both his own army’s strengths and the Romans’ weaknesses. The Goths excelled at cavalry and archers, neither ever Rome’s forte.
The Goths were encamped on a hill, giving them an advantage. Fritigern pretended to negotiate with the Romans but he was playing for time. In addition to his ca.10,000 men, he was waiting for the arrival of an additional ca.10,000 cavalry in an allied force.
On the morning of August 9, the Romans attacked but they did so in a disorganized fashion. The Goths were arranged in a defensive circle of wagons, with civilians inside. The Romans, following their standard tactics, had their cavalry on the wings, their infantry in the center. Their cavalry attacked the Goths on the left while, on their right, the Romans stood and waited. Now the Goths struck, their forces augmented by their allies.
“The Gothic cavalry shot forward like a bolt from on high and routed with great slaughter all that they could come to grips with in their wild career.” So wrote the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus. The Gothic cavalry defeated the enemy cavalry on both flanks. Then the Gothic infantry advanced and attacked the Roman infantry. Gothic archers shot at will at the enemy. The Roman flanks were no longer protected; the Roman center was unprepared for the fury launched against it. Tired, shocked, and surrounded, the Romans collapsed.
The result was slaughter. It is estimated that two-thirds of the Roman forces were killed, making this one of the greatest disasters in a conventional battle in Roman military history. One of the victims was Valens himself.
“The annals record no such massacre of a battle except the one at Cannae, although the Romans more than once, deceived by trickery due to an adverse breeze of fortune, yielded for a time to ill success in their wars ...,” wrote Ammianus Marcellinus.
It was a famous victory but not a decisive one, at least not immediately. Four years later, the Goths agreed with the Roman state to settle down and provide soldiers for the Roman army. In the long term, however, Germanic invaders had the initiative, and brought down the Roman state in the West, but that took another century.
In the short term, the Romans could have taken a few lessons from their defeat. Don’t underestimate the enemy. Don’t let political factors—in this case, a desire not to share the glory—override military necessity when it comes to fighting a battle. Don’t let discipline slide. Don’t destroy an army’s greatest asset, its soldiers, by denying them proper food, water, and rest. And maybe the simplest lesson of all: don’t attack uphill.
