THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 115
Hadrianople: The Climax of a 500-Year Drama
7-16. Hadrianople: The Climax of a 500-Year Drama
The East Goths, of whom we have so long lost sight, had in the meantime extended their dominions far and wide. A mighty empire extending from the Don to the Dniester, from the Black Sea to the marshes of the Pripet and the head-waters of the Dnieper and the Volga, had emerged from their continual wars of conquest against their neighbours, Germanic, Slavonic, and Finnish. The main portion of these conquests is doubtless to be ascribed to King Ermanarich, who had ruled over the Greutungi since the middle of the century. In contrast with the West Goths who, as we have seen, down to the end of their residence on the Danube, were ruled according to ancient Germanic custom by prindpes or local chiefs, the East Goths had early developed a monarchy embracing the whole nation. It is doubtless to the inner strength which belongs to a firm and undivided exercise of authority, that we are to attribute the rapid rise of the young Ostrogothic State under its kings from Ostrogotha to Ermanarich, a monarch under whose vigorous rule it enjoyed its period of greatest prosperity — and also met its fall.
Such was the state of affairs when a nation of untamed savages, horrible in aspect and terrible from their countless numbers and ferocious courage, broke forth from the interior of Asia and threatened the whole of the West with destruction. These were the Huns. They were doubtless of Mongolian race, and were probably natives of the great expanse of steppes which lies to the north and east of the Caspian Sea. Soon after 370 they penetrated into Europe, and threw themselves with irresistible fury upon the peoples which came in their way. The Alani, who had to bear the first brunt of their attack, were soon overpowered, and compelled to join their conquerors, and the same fate befell the smaller peoples whose settlements lay further north, on the right bank of the Volga.
The fate of the Ostrogothic Empire was now imminent. For a considerable time they succeeded in holding the enemy at the sword's point, but finally their strength broke down before the weight of the Asiatic hordes. Ermanarich himself died by his own hand rather than live to see the downfall of his kingdom; his successor, Withimir, after several bloody defeats, met his death on the field of battle. All resistance ceased, and the whole people surrendered itself to the Huns.
The invading flood rolled westward to encounter the Tervingi in 375. At the first tidings of the events in the neighbouring country, Athanarich called his people to arms and marched with a part of his forces to meet the Huns. The Gothic leader took his stand on the bank of the Dniester; but finding himself compelled to abandon this position by a crafty turning-movement of the enemy, Athanarich gave up thence forward all thought of resistance in the field, and betook himself to the impenetrable ravines of the Transylvanian highlands. But only some of the Goths followed him thither. The mass of the people, weary of hardship and privation, separated themselves and resolved to abandon their country. Under the leadership of their local chiefs Alavio and Fritigern they mustered their forces in the spring of 376 on the north bank of the Danube and besought permission to enter the Roman Empire, in the hope of finding a dwelling place in the rich plains of Thrace.
The Emperor Valens graciously received their request and gave orders to the commanders on the frontier to take measures for the shelter and provisioning of this huge mass of people. The Goths passed the river. In boats, and rafts, and hollowed tree-trunks they made their way across and covered all the country round “like the rain of ashes from an eruption of Etna.” At first all went well. The newcomers maintained an exemplary attitude: not so the Roman officials — the chief of whom was the Thracian comes Lupicinus. They used the precarious position of the barbarians to their own profit, taking advantage of them in every possible way. It was not long before their shameless injustice aroused the deep resentment of the Teutons, among whom famine had already set in.
Things soon came to open rupture. In the immediate neighbourhood of Marcianople a bloody battle was fought between the infuriated Teutons and the soldiers of Lupicinus. The Romans were almost annihilated, their leader took refuge behind the strong walls of the town, which was immediately invested by the main body of the Tervingian forces. Other divisions scattered over the plains, plundering as they went All attempts of the barbarians failed to take the town by storm.
So Fritigern “made his peace with stone walls.” A strong force remained before the place as an army of observation, while the main body turned, as detachments of it had done before, to the plundering of the adjoining districts of Moesia. Once more the country suffered fearfully, and to complete its misery other bands of plunderers now joined the Goths. Taifali, Alani, and even Huns were drawn across the Danube by the hope of plundering and ravaging these fertile provinces. This was in the summer of 377.
Troops were hurried up from all sides for the defence of the threatened provinces; even Gratian sent aid from the West. Meanwhile the Goths had overrun all Moesia. Not only had the bloody battle fought at a place called Salices in late summer 377 been indecisive and cost the Romans heavy losses, but a strong detachment of Roman troops under the tribune Barzimeres, a Teuton by race, had been cut to pieces at Dibaltus. A success which the dux Frigeridus, likewise of Teutonic birth, gained over the Taifali and a company of the Greutungi under their chief Farnobius was not much to balance this and did not alter the fact that Thrace, which after the battle of Salices had been overrun by the Teutons, remained a prey to them.
Finally, on 30 May 378, Valens arrived at Constantinople. As soon as Fritigern, who lay in the neighbourhood of Hadrianople, heard of the Emperor's arrival, he gave the order for the widely scattered Gothic forces to unite. From this point onward events followed in quick succession. At first the fortune of war seemed to smile upon the Romans. Making Hadrianople his base, Sebastianus, the commander of reinforcements sent by Gratian, succeeded in inflicting a reverse upon the Goths, Fritigern thereupon retired to the neighbourhood of Cabyle and there concentrated his forces. Thereupon Valens, on his part, advanced to Hadrianople, resolved to venture upon a decisive stroke.
He had set his heart upon meeting his nephew Gratian, who was hastening up from the West, with the news of a great victory. And so on 9 Aug. 378 battle was joined near Hadrianople. It resulted in a terrible defeat of the Romans, in which the Emperor himself was slain. More than two-thirds of his army, the flower of the military forces of the East, was left upon the field of battle. It was in truth a second Cannae. The Empire rocked to its foundations. Sheer panic fell upon all that bore the name of Rome. The power and glory of the Empire seemed stamped into the dust by the barbarian hordes. The struggle between Rome and the Teutons which we have followed through five centuries was drawing to a close. The battle of Hadrianople introduces the last act of the great drama, the most pregnant with consequences which the history of the world has ever seen.
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